Vocabulary 4b Flashcards
Pollionator (noun)
Pronunciation: “Paw - li - nay - tor”
Definition: Animal that transfers pollen among plants, allowing for fertilization that makes fruits and seeds.
Ontario pollinators include butterflies, bees, birds and moths.
Oneirology (noun)
Pronunciation: “Oh - ner - all - ah - gee”
Definition: The scientific study of dreams.
Understanding how the brain works while dreaming is one of the goals of oneirology.
Tabernacle
Meaning: Damn, shit, etc.
Origin: A wooden box placed near a church altar, it is now a popular French-Canadian swear word.
After dropping her poutine, Marie yelled “Tabernacle!”.
Metis (noun)
Pronunciation: “May - tee”
Definition: Descendants of Indigenous people and European settlers, primarily the French.
The infinity symbol on the Métis flag represents the immortality of the nation and the joining of cultures.
Indigenous (noun)
Pronunciation: “in-di-juh-nus”
Definition: Any group that descended from pre-occupation inhabitants of a region.
Indigenous people in Canada include the Inuit, Iroquois, Cree, and Anishinaabe.
Turtle Island
Meaning: North America
Origin: After a world-ending flood, the earth is remade by placing sand on a turtle’s shell.
The creation story of Turtle Island places emphasis on the turtle as a symbol of life, earth, and sacrifice.
Elder (noun)
Pronunciation: Ell- der
Definition: Any person who is older than you and has seniority and authority.
Sentence: Indigenous elders pass on wisdom and history to younger generations through their stories.
Sweetgrass (noun)
Definition: One of four plants (tobacco, sage, red cedar or sweetgrass) considered sacred to Indigenous people.
Sweetgrass releases a sweet scent when wet or burned and is often used in smudging ceremonies; it can also be braided or woven.
Smudging
Meaning: A ceremony for purifying or cleansing the soul of negative thoughts of a person or place.
Origin: “Smudge” is English for smearing or rubbing.
Before our meeting, the Elder performed a smudging ceremony with sweetgrass in an oyster shell.
Canary in a coal mine
An advanced warning of danger.
Coal miners would carry caged canaries into the mines to detect poisonous gasses, such as carbon monoxide; if the bird died, the miners would leave.
“Anishinaabe were always the canary in the mine for the rest of them” (Dimaline 24).
Fiddlehead (Noun)
Pronunciation: (Fid-ul-head).
Definition: The young, curled, edible fronds from certain ferns.
“A stack of impossibly thick yellow books, the edges curled up like fiddleheads” (Dimaline 62).
The Ganges (noun)
Pronunciation: “Gan-jeez”
Definition: The Ganges is a river that begins in the Himalayan mountains and empties out into the Bay of Bengal (India). The Hindu religion considers the river to be sacred.
Sentence: “Like a partially cremated corpse floating down the old Ganges” (Dimaline 13)
Catatonic (adjective)
Pronunciation: “Kat-uh-ton-ik”
Definition: Appearing to be in a daze or stupor; unresponsive.
Sentence: Michael was found in a catatonic state by the paramedics after he crashed his car.
Dignitaries (noun)
Pronunciation: dig-nuh-teh-reez
Definition: A person considered to be important because of high rank or office.
Sentence: Many dignitaries from around the world came to attend the funeral.
Amalgamate (verb)
Pronunciation: a-mal-ga-mate
Definition: To combine two or more things, especially organizations, together to form something larger
Sentence: He amalgamated Synergy Roofing with another roofing company.
