How to guess the meaning of a word

How to Guess What a Word Means

Need to know what a new word means now? Did you know the English language has over 1,000,000 words? Yet the average adult learner has a vocabulary of only 40,000-50,000 words. With so many words out there, how can you learn them all? There are various strategies that you can learn which will help you to deduce what a word means. Yes, you could just look them up in an English dictionary; but, studies show that you most likely won’t remember the word after a while. However, by making your brain figure it out, a trail of understanding is left and you are more likely to remember the meaning, thus improving your vocabulary!

Perhaps you are taking a standardized test and are being asked about particular words. These strategies will help you immensely! We also provide some example sentences to help find the meaning of the word needed or of any individual words you need help with.

Context — If the word is used in a sentence, look at the other words and see if they give you clues to the word’s meaning. This may help to guess, at least, part of the word’s meaning.

EX. «‘Proximal’ refers to points on the body that are close to the torso, as opposed to ‘distal.

Given the context of the sentence, we can see the word «opposed» which means «to be opposite of.» If ‘proximal’ is opposite of ‘distal’ we can conclude that the word distal likely is used to refer to parts of the body that are far from the torso, like fingers. At this point, you can look in the dictionary to check our guess. You can also look at similar antonyms or synonyms for meaning of the new or unfamiliar words as well. While most English words act as idioms, the meaning of a word can be tricky if you are learning English or are learning more advanced words. Collocations can also help in the word meaning process by using context clues to find the correct answer or meaning to the word’s meaning.

STRUCTURE- Probably the most important skill when it comes to understanding words. The internal structure of words is called morphology. Morphology consists of morphemes—which are minimal units of meaning, rules for combining them into words, and rules for pronouncing the resulting words. For this article, we will keep it simple and go over a few key things.

Using your understanding of morphology helps you break down a word into smaller pieces so that you can guess what it means. For example, let’s use a nonsense word, say, POIB.

*What would POIB-able mean? (Capable of being POIBed)

*What is the word class of POIB-able? (Adjective)

*So, what is the word class of POIB? (Verb)

This exercise is to show how we can make some assumptions about the word we don’t know simply by how it is used in the sentence and what affixes are attached to it (affixes are a type of morpheme). This is how we can tell the word’s word class: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.

MORPHEME- A morpheme may be a word or less than a word. (EX. nation, re-, -al). Morphemes cannot be broken down into smaller units.

TYPES OF MORPHEMES- Prefixes, Suffixes, Infixes, Plurals, Possessives, and base(root) words.

**Free morphemes are words that can stand on their own and have meaning.

For example, «nation» does not require a prefix or a suffix attached to it to make sense. It’s a word by itself.

**Bound Morphemes cannot stand on their own and must be attached to another morpheme to create a word.

For example, «dental»= dent + al. Together they make a word, but neither «dent» nor «al» are words themselves. All affixes are boundmorphemes. Some base (root) words are bound.

AFFIXES — anything that is added to a base (root) word. Determine how the affix affects the base (root) word it is attached to.

*Examples of affixes that change word class (i.e. from a verb to adverb)-er, -ly, -al, -y, -ish

*Examples of affixes that add to meaning of the base (root) word.anti-, omni-, re-, -s, -ed, dis-

***There are only about 75 prefixes in English. There are less suffixes. Memorize them.

Now that you understand what a morpheme is. The next step is to take your word and try to break it down into morphemes. Let’s use the word «predetermined» as our example. Predetermined= pre + determine + ed

We may know that the base (root) word ‘determine’ means to decide; the prefix ‘pre’ means before, and the suffix ‘ed’ is used to mean the past tense of a verb.

Therefore, «predetermined» would mean to have already decided the outcome of something before it happened.

Another example: quadruped = quadru + ped, meaning four feet. Both «quad» and «ped» are bound morphemes that must be attached to another morpheme to create a word.

KNOW YOUR ROOTS — Sometimes after you break down your word, you still may not know the meaning because you don’t know what the base (root) word means. Let’s say that you didn’t know the above root word «ped» was a Greek origin word meaning ‘feet.’ How could you try to guess what it meant?

*Think of other words you know that have «ped» in them?

• What do these words have in common?

EX. pedestal, pedal, pedestrian, millipede

You guessed it, FEET!

With the strategies above you can usually guess what a word means. If you are taking a test, use what you’ve assumed about the word to help with the process of elimination. Looking at word lists can also help in the meaning process.

Happy vocabulary building!

There are a few things that can help you estimate the meaning of a word, even if you have never read or heard it before. If you are taking a standardized test and will be asked about particular words, if you are learning English or if you just want to expand your vocabulary these strategies will help you immensely. Use the words around the unfamiliar word to help you guess the meaning, or use your knowledge of suffixes and prefixes to help you estimate the meaning of the new word. By figuring out the meaning of a new word, you may be more likely to remember the meaning and the new word.

Sound out the unfamiliar word if you are reading it. A word that seems unfamiliar at first may be a word you already know once you hear it out loud.

Look at the other words in the sentence to see if they give you clues to the new word’s meaning. This is called «context,» and may help you guess at part of the word’s meaning. For example, «proximal» refers to points on the body that are close to the torso, as opposed to «distal.» Here you can see the words «opposed to» which mean «to be opposite.» If «proximal» is the opposite of «distal,» you can conclude that the word «distal» likely is used to refer to parts of the body that are far from the torso such as fingers.

Break the new word down into its smallest parts. These small parts are called «morphemes.» A morpheme may be a word or less than a word. For example, «nation,» «re-,» and «-al» are all morphemes. Morphemes cannot be broken down into smaller units. There are many types of morphemes including prefixes, suffixes and root words. Free morphemes are words that can stand on their own and still have meaning. For example, «nation» does not require a prefix or a suffix attached to it to make sense. It’s a word by itself. Bound morphemes cannot stand on their own and must be attached to another morpheme to create a word. For example, the «s» in the word «dogs» is a bound morpheme. Without the word «dog,» the «s» has no meaning.

Learn about the structure of English words. English words have their roots in Greek, Latin and Germanic languages. Sometimes after you break down your word, you still may not know the meaning because you don’t know what the root word means. For example, let’s say you read the word «millipede.» There are two roots in this word. The root word «ped» is a word of Latin origin meaning «feet.» You can guess what it means by thinking of other words that have the root «ped.» You might think of «pedestal,» «pedal» and «pedestrian.» From these words, you can guess that your new word has something to do with feet. You might guess that «mille» has something to do with «million,» and you’d be on the right track. It means «thousand,» but in this word just means «many.» So, a millipede is something with many legs. If you check your dictionary, you will find that a millipede is an insect with many legs. This means you guessed most of the meaning of the word simply from looking at the root words.

Learn English affixes. Anything that is added to the beginning or end of a root word is an affix. Affixes include suffixes, prefixes and pluralization. Knowing the affixes can help you determine how the affix affects the root word it is attached to. Some affixes change the word class, for example from a verb to adverb. These include affixes like «-er,» «-ly» and «-ish.» Some affixes add to the meaning of the root word. These include affixes like «anti-,» «re-» and «-ed.» While it may take some time to learn them all, by breaking words down into morphemes you will begin to recognize which are affixes and which are roots. For example, let’s use the word «predetermined» as an example. «Predetermined» is made up of the prefix «pre,» the root «determine» and the suffix «ed.» You may know that the root word «determine» means to decide, the prefix «pre» means before and the suffix «ed» is used to mean the past tense of a verb. Therefore, «predetermined» means to have already decided the outcome of something before it happened.

Whenever you read extended texts in English, you will come across words which you do not know. Even native speakers will not know all
the words when they are reading. Your instinct is probably to look up the unfamiliar words
in a dictionary. If you do this for each word, however, it will take you a great deal of
time, and you may never reach the end of the text. You therefore need to develop strategies for dealing with unknown words. On this page, you can read about:

• how to deal with unknown words;
• using context to guess meaning;
• using prefixes, suffixes, and words roots.

There are also some activities to help you practice this area of EAP.

How to deal with unknown words

There are two questions to ask yourself whenever you meet an unfamiliar word. The first question is: ‘Do I need to know the meaning of the word?’
If not, you can keep reading and ignore the word. In order to answer this question, you need to make sure you have a clear
purpose in your reading. The second question you need to ask is:
‘Is an approximate meaning enough?’ If not, you need to look the word up
in a dictionary.

If the answer to both questions above is ‘yes’, it means you can guess what the word means then keep reading. Use the following to help you guess an approximate meaning:

• examine the immediate context of the word (i.e. the sentence in which it appears, and words which come before and after); pay particular attention to linking words;
• examine the wider context of the word (i.e. other sentences in the paragraph);
• look at the structure of the word (i.e. prefix, suffix, root).

The approach to unfamiliar words is summarised in the diagram below.

Using context

When you guess the meaning of a word from context, you need to consider first the immediate context, i.e. the other words in the
sentence. If this is not enough, you need to use the wider context, i.e. sentences which come before and after the one which contains the word
you are guessing.

Immediate context

Consider the following sentence:

Although the company’s income from sales was higher than expected, its high costs in the form of salaries and other overheads put it in a
disadvantageous position.

Imagine the word you want to guess in this sentence is ‘disadvantageous’ (it doesn’t matter if you already know this word — this is just an example).
The immediate context of the word tells you the following:

• it is probably an adjective, because it comes before a noun (‘position’)
• it is probably negative, because it relates to ‘high costs’, which are not usually good for a company
• it is probably negative, because the sentence begins with ‘although’, a contrast marker,
  so the idea in the second clause contrasts with the first clause, which is positive (‘high income’ is good for a company)

A good guess for the word at this point would be ‘bad’. This is probably close enough for you to understand the main idea, and you would
be able to keep reading.

Wider context

Now consider the following paragraph:

Although the company’s income from sales was higher than expected, its high costs in the form of salaries and other overheads put it in a disadvantageous position.
This was one of the main reasons why the company
folded. This put all two hundred of its employees out of work.

Imagine the word you want to guess this time is ‘folded’ (this is a common word, but it has a special meaning in this sentence).
The immediate context of the word does not tell you much: it is clearly a verb, but it is difficult to determine more than this using only
the sentence it occurs in. To guess the meaning, you need to use the wider context, i.e. the sentences which come before and after.
Using these, you can tell the following:

• it is probably negative, because it is the result of the company’s ‘disadvantageous (bad) position’
• it is something which can happen to companies
• it resulted in all of the company’s employees being ‘out of work’

From this, you can guess that the word means something like ‘stopped’ or ‘stopped doing business’
(because no one works there any more). In fact, ‘to fold’ in this context means
‘(of a company etc.) to close because it is not successful’.

Using prefix, suffix, root

Again consider the following sentence:

Although the company’s income from sales was higher than expected, its high costs in the form of salaries and other overheads put it in a
disadvantageous position.

Imagine (again) that the word you want to guess in this sentence is ‘disadvantageous’. This word can be broken down into three components:
dis-, which is the
prefix; advantage, which is the
root; and -ous, which is the
suffix.
You can get the following information by studying the word in this way:

• it is probably an adjective, because it ends in -ous, which is a common suffix for adjectives
• it is probably negative, because it begins with a negative prefix dis-
• its meaning is probably opposite to the root of the word, advantage

As before, a good guess for the word at this point would be ‘bad’. Again, this would be close enough to allow you to understand the
main idea and keep reading.

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Meanings of unfamiliar words can often be guessed by using spelling, grammar or logic

RATIONALE FOR THIS TOPIC

Meeting unfamiliar words in listening and reading is normal at all levels of language competence, even in our mother tongue. Beginners in a language obviously struggle with large numbers of words, while at higher levels most people have gaps in their knowledge because reaching the ability to successfully communicate slows down further vocabulary acquisition. Trying to guess the meanings of unknown words is also normal – indeed, it is how we acquire most of the vocabulary of our mother tongue.

Most language teachers and coursebooks encourage word-guessing as a means of promoting vocabulary acquisition. They urge learners to read intensively and extensively, and they often supplement “comprehension” texts with vocabulary-study exercises involving guessing. Very rarely, however, is detailed advice given on exactly what needs to be done to guess word meanings successfully. My own experience as a language teacher suggests that at least some learners need this advice because the guessing is done with variable success.

The desirability of helping learners to guess word meanings has for me been confirmed by what becomes apparent when the word-guessing process is closely examined. It turns out to be multi-faceted. In this post I wish to show the truth of that. My ideas are not particularly informed by the mass of academic research in this area, but are mainly based on extensive experience trying to help students who are less familiar with English to hypothesise about word meanings. For more advice on improving language learning, see 202. Some Strategies for Learning English.

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PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

It is important first to appreciate that exact meanings of unfamiliar words are rarely able to be guessed – multiple encounters with the words are needed to enable a broad meaning picture to be built up (and to strengthen them in memory). Some meanings, indeed, cannot be guessed with any certainty at all. If one is lucky, one can ignore these without it greatly diminishing overall understanding of the text – otherwise help must be sought from a dictionary or elsewhere.

Also to be noted is the fact that some unfamiliar words in texts are actually accompanied by an explanation of their meaning, so that guessing is unnecessary. I have known language students who have not realised this and struggled as a result with the word! Consider these:

(a) The stomach walls secrete gastric juices, a combination of several enzymes and hydrochloric acid.

(b) Manuscripts would be mass produced in schools called scriptoriums

In (a), gastric juices is explained by the words after it. This is clear from the comma and immediate use of another noun expression – a common means of linking a word with its explanation (see 77. Apposition). Sometimes, there is helpful wording showing the relation between the two nouns, such as in other words. If the word or is used, however, there is a problem of double meanings (see 286. Repeating in Different Words, #4).

In (b), scriptoriums is shown by called to be the name of special schools for mass-producing manuscripts (see 206. Ways of Conveying a Name).

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WORD-GUESSING STRATEGIES

The main kinds of clue that might help word-guessing are spelling, grammar and logic.

1. Spelling Clues

In a few cases, the entirety of a new word may look familiar. One reason why this can happen without the word having previously been encountered in English is the existence of the spelling in another language. Another is the spelling having an alternative English meaning, whether related to the familiar one (see 7. Metaphorical Meanings) or completely different (see 11. Homonyms and Homographs).

Care is always needed with spellings also found in other languages because they so often mean something slightly different there. Ancient, for example, which means “very far in the past” in English, resembles spellings meaning “former” in most of Southern Europe. Safari, meaning “wildlife-viewing vacation” in English, is just a journey in Swahili (see also security in 236. Tricky Word Contrasts 9, #1). The name often given to such misleading words is “false friends”.

More often, a familiar spelling is a part of a new word. Not all words have such parts, and if they do the resemblance may just be a coincidence, without any meaning connection. However, a connection will often exist. Take the word respiratory. If you know that respire means “breathe”, then you can guess that this idea is involved. Knowing that -tory usually signals either a noun or adjective (see 172. Multi-Use Suffixes, #9), you may be able to work out which it is here by examining the sentence position of the word in the text. Respiratory is actually an adjective meaning “associated with breathing”.

A need for care with this approach may be illustrated by a mistake I once made in analysing the origins of the word helicopter. Using my knowledge of Ancient Greek, I reasoned that heli- referred to the sun, and -copter meant “beating”, “sun-beating” being a reasonable description of the action of helicopter blades. Later, I realised I should have recognised helico- as “revolving” and -pter as “wing” (see 90. The Greek Impact on English Vocabulary).

Meaningful word parts are divided by linguists into two kinds: roots and affixes. Roots are mostly spellings that also exist as individual words, while affixes only modify the meaning and/or grammatical category of a root. Respir- is thus a root, and -atory is an affix (of the “suffix” – word ending – variety). Some multi-part words mix a root with one or more affixes, while others (known as “compounds”) have two or more roots, with or without affixes, e.g. household and anywhere (see 26. One Word or Two?).

The total number of affixes is much more finite than that of roots, and many individual ones, such as in- and -ness, are found on large numbers of words. This makes it worth learning them for the purpose of recognising them in unfamiliar words. Posts within these pages that aim to assist this include 106. Word-Like Suffixes,  146. Some Important Prefix Types and 249. Action Noun Endings.

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2. Grammar Clues

Knowing the grammatical class (“part of speech”) of an unfamiliar word can greatly help its meaning to be guessed. One kind of clue is affixes, since many are found only in words of a single grammar class. For example, en- generally indicates a verb, -ness a noun (see 255. Nouns Made from Adjectives, #9), and -ive an adjective (see 304 Adjectives Made from a Verb, #2). A problem, though, is that many others show different word classes more or less equally: -ing and -s indicate nouns as well as verbs, -ly adjectives as well as adverbs, and un- verbs, nouns or adjectives.

A perhaps more reliable grammatical indicator of word class is particular surrounding words. Will, may, can etc. are likely to precede a verb, very usually signals an adjective or adverb, and after a preposition we expect to find a noun. Consider this:

(c) Greek philosophers were not bound in the fetters of orthodoxy.

It is clear here that fetters is a noun: the clues are the preceding preposition in and article the, and the subsequent -s and adjective-like of phrase (see 160. Uses of “of”).

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3. Logic Clues

Once the grammatical class of a word is recognised, logic becomes easier to use to discover more. In many cases, the basis of logical deduction is the meaning of the surrounding words. One very helpful kind of such words is lists, since their parts tend to be clearly similar in some way – indeed the similarity is sometimes even stated as a “list name” (see 55. Sentence Lists 2). The new word is then understood to possess this similarity too. For example, in a list of foods we will know that it must be a food. This is not a complete deduction of the meaning, but it is often enough.

Perhaps the commonest kind of clue from surrounding words comes when their meaning can be combined with our own general knowledge. Consider again fetters in (c) above. Its occurrence after bound in suggests that it means something used for binding or restraining people. General knowledge can then indicate that binding normally involves hands or feet, leading to the conclusion that fetters somehow restrain those parts of the body. The similarity of the word to feet, indeed, strongly suggests those parts in particular (though my dictionary makes no such link).

To take another example:

(d) Food travels from the mouth to the stomach via the oesophagus.

It is immediately clear here that the oesophagus is a food-carrier. If we are generally familiar with the human body, we will readily understand a tube-like structure. Yet even without this familiarity, logic will indicate such a shape. For a further example of this kind of deduction, see 197. The Language of Bibliographies, example sentence (a).

Another kind of contextual clue is a synonym used nearby not deliberately to explain the word’s meaning but to avoid sounding repetitious – a very common writing practice (see 5. Repetition-Reducing Synonyms). In the following, such a clue can assist understanding of vexed:

(e) The problem of God knowing our future has vexed philosophers since at least the third century. In related forms it has bothered philosophers longer than that.

Vexed corresponds here, of course, to bothered. The only problem with this kind of clue is that the reader has to recognise the relatedness of the two words in the first place! The parallel structures of the two above sentences are a help. In the next example, help in understanding scapegoat comes from the fact that it is part of a typical structure for repeating something from the preceding sentence, namely a starting preposition phrase (see 37. Subordination):

(f) Worsening poverty and hunger, loss of agricultural land, migration, shanty towns, pollution, even war have all been blamed on the “population explosion”. AS a general SCAPEGOAT for the world’s troubles, it allows difficult policy questions to be avoided.

The word in the first sentence that corresponds to scapegoat is blamed – a verb instead of noun, but that makes no difference. A scapegoat is actually an object of unjustified blame, but recognising the idea of blame is a good start – later sentences might clarify it further.

Finally, it is sometimes oppositeness of two words rather than equivalence that helps guessing. Consider this:

(g) The defining mark of a species is that its members can breed with other members to produce offspring of the same species. Unions between members of different species, on the other hand, are often sterile.

The indicator of oppositeness here is the connector on the other hand (see 20. Problem Connectors, # 1). It helps the meaning of sterile to be recognised as the opposite of produce offspring: “unable to reproduce”.

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Unfortunately, you are going to be reading a LOT.  This is probably something you will have to do every day.  University courses require a ton of reading because the textbook will explain things differently than the professor.

The professor won’t have time to go over every concept several times in class.  They often dedicate one class to a specific idea, then quickly move on.  Your textbook, however, can be referenced any time you are unsure of a topic or need to review a process.  That is why you end up reading so often.

If I don’t feel like doing something, I swear my attention span is cut to a quarter.  After reading pages and pages, I catch myself and realize that I’ve forgotten everything that I just read. It’s like I forgot to pay attention.

I get super frustrated because I feel like I wasted so much time. But sometimes, I just can’t help it. It’s boring reading a textbook for hours.

When you add reading comprehension activities to your study session, you can be more engaged in what you’re reading.  This will make it more likely that you won’t «forget» to pay attention. 

Download Now: FREE Study Planner & Activity Tracker

Reading Comprehension vs. Literacy

Reading comprehension is different from literacy.  Literacy refers to the ability to read, while reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand what you read. 

All students know you can read a sentence and still not understand it.  But the good news is that reading comprehension can always be improved. 

Small steps can be taken and added to your reading sessions that boost reading comprehension.  These strategies will increase your ability to understand and synthesize the information as you read it.  They also work double-time as they will help you to remember the information better as you study.

There is a big jump in the technical reading skills from high school readers to university textbooks.  Some students may not have been prepared for this in high school.  But this doesn’t mean they have to struggle throughout university.  Instead, they can practice these reading comprehension strategies to improve their understanding as they study.

What is Reading Comprehension, and Why is it Important?

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand and synthesize information the first time you read it.  This means that you can understand what you are reading better and relate it to concepts you already know.

This helps you both learn this new topic more efficiently and recognize how it builds upon foundational themes.  This will elevate your understanding by working with the topic and understanding how it functions more effectively.

For example, the ability to guess the meaning of a word using context is directly related to grammatical knowledge.  When you try to use problem-solving to guess a word’s meaning, you directly assess the grammar and structure of the surrounding words and sentences to gather clues to the word’s meaning.  This will help you with both reading comprehension, grammatical structure, and overall literacy.

Using reading comprehension strategies like guessing from context keeps your brain alert and engaged.  Your brain loves puzzles and problem-solving.  It helps your brain hone cognitive abilities and gives it something interesting to do.  This means you will be more engaged in your readings and less likely to go on autopilot.

Using context clues helps to increase problem-solving skills.  This will aid in critical thinking throughout your university career.  You can translate this skill to so many different areas in life.  Practicing this skill here, in a controlled setting, is a great way to exercise your problem-solving abilities.

Taking these extra steps will also help you to synthesize information and reconcile it with old knowledge you already have learned.  This will help fit the concepts together, giving you a better understanding of how everything works.

New concepts are built on top of old ones.  When you can relate new teachings to the foundational theories they are built upon, you will understand them easier.

These extra steps will help you to make more connections and mental associations.  This is like building an intricate web of clues to lead you to the location that the information is stored. 

Sometimes when you are writing a test, you know that you learned this information, but you have trouble retrieving it.  Creating as many links to the information as possible will help lead you to the information when you need it

How to Improve Reading Comprehension by Guessing from Context

Reading comprehension can be improved by applying these strategies every time you read.  You can implement these practices both in academic readings, like your textbook, or reading for pleasure. 

Whenever you come across a word you don’t recognize, resist the urge to look it up.  Instead, you can transform this into an effective learning activity. 

Take this opportunity to apply these problem-solving strategies to build mental associations.  This will help you learn this new word more efficiently and more likely to be able to use it again in the proper context.

These strategies are best used during the skimming or scanning phase of reading your textbook, although you can apply them at any time. But if you use it during the skimming method, you will test your recall when you are ready to read the passage for real.  This will allow you to reinforce your memory with the definition.

Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary.

Reading comprehension and vocabulary are intricately linked.  The larger your vocabulary, and the more words you know and can use easily, the higher your reading comprehension. 

You can not separate one from the other.  Reading comprehension is all about being able to understand what you are reading.  If you don’t recognize a word, you can’t understand precisely what that sentence is trying to relay, resulting in a reduced understanding.  By building up your vocabulary, you will be able to better understand what you are reading.

New vocabulary words that you don’t understand or only slightly think you know are great learning opportunities.  By applying problem-solving strategies, you will learn the definition of the word, how to use it in a sentence, and be more likely to remember the word in the future. 

Taking these steps is more effective than simply looking up the definition. That’s because going through this process with intention will strengthen the placement of the meaning in your memory.

Adding this word to your vocabulary and learning to understand it increases your understanding resulting in better reading comprehension.  Next time you come across this word, you will draw upon what you learned using these strategies and understand it better.   You will also be able to use this word more naturally in a sentence next time you need to.

Skim the passage for context.

Skim over the paragraph the word is found in.  What is it trying to say?  When you read the section, what would you assume the word means, even if you don’t know its exact definition. 

Use the surrounding words to try to find clues as to what the word might mean.  Can you get an impression from what the author has written?

Write down your best guess for the word’s meaning or even other words that could stand in for it. Even if you can’t think up a formal definition, it’s okay to try and think of other words that might mean the same thing.

You can also check out any diagrams or charts.  Is the word depicted or used in a picture?  If there is an entire process in the illustration that reflects the word, then study the diagram.  Some words are going to be much more technical than others.  Something like «metabolism» has many meanings in everyday use. Also, it refers to a complex process where cells turn glucose into energy.

Check out these charts and diagrams and pay special attention to what information they are relaying and see how much data you can gather from them.  Do you understand what they are describing?  Do they make sense?  Are you able to follow along and understand?

Refer back to the paragraph and see how many clues you can put together.

Isolate the prefix and the suffix.

Many words are made up of combinations of root words with a prefix and/or suffix.  If you can break apart a word into its fundamental components, you might be able to figure out what it is trying to say.

The prefix is a word or letter placed at the beginning of the root word that can change the meaning.

Let’s use prefix as an example:

            Prefix = Pre – before

            Root word = Fix – attach

We are attaching a phrase before the original word to change its meaning.

The suffix is a word or letter placed at the end of a root word that can change the meaning.

Let’s take comprehension for example:

            Root word = Comprehend – to understand

            Suffix = Ion – a process or result

Comprehension is the process of coming to understand something.

When you break apart a word you don’t understand, you can sometimes get an idea of what it means by examining the root word along with the prefix and/or suffix:

1. First, decide what the root word is.

2. Then isolate the prefix and the suffix.

3. Write out what each piece of the word means.

4. Brainstorm what the word might mean based on these components.

5. Compare the possibilities to the context.

This process gets you thinking about what the different meanings could be, depending on the context.  When you are trying to decide what meaning is more likely, use the common-sense rule:

The Common-Sense Rule:

Does the meaning of the word make sense given what the paragraph is saying?

Ask Who, What, Where, When, and Why.

Ask the 5 W’s every time you come across a word that you don’t understand.  These questions are always helpful.  Any good problem-solving strategy will incorporate this tactic.

See if these questions change your opinions of the answers you came up with in the last exercise.  They will also help you to deepen your understanding of the material you are reading. 

It might sound silly, and of course, not all of these W’s will apply every time, but you may be surprised at some of the questions you meet once you actually go through the trouble of phrasing them.

Write out your assumptions.

Write out all of the different meanings you think the word can have.  As you work through each of these steps, it will be easier to track and eliminate your guesses when they are written down.  This way, you can better track what you think the word could still mean and what you have rejected.

This will also make for an interesting read once you finally look up the actual definition.  It will be fascinating to see if you had the correct meaning and decided against it.  Then you can examine why you decided it was not a workable option.

Both writing these definitions down and crossing them off creates more mental associations.  Putting your thoughts into words is a lot tougher than you would expect.  It is easy to have an idea in your mind, but if you can not put it into words and communicate it, you can’t prove you understand it.  This is what testing and assignments are based on, your ability to communicate the concepts clearly.

Writing these down and adding them as multiple-choice questions on your practice tests is also a great strategy.  It will ensure that you have committed the true meaning to memory and not your previous assumptions. 

Look up the definition.

It’s finally time to look up the definition in the glossary or dictionary.  Once you do, compare it to the different assumptions you made in the earlier exercise. 

How close were you?  Were there subtle differences in what you thought it means, and what the actual definition was? 

Write down the definition and list the similarities and differences between what you thought and the actual meaning.

Next, search online for more variations of the definition.  Compare their wording to your textbook.  Were they more clear or easier to understand?  Write them down too if you find them useful.

Rephrase the definition in your own words.

Re-write the definition in your own words.  This is a powerful technique to help you to better remember the meaning of the word.

It’s much more challenging to memorize someone else’s words than it is to remember your own.  Rephrasing into your own words will help you to do this.  It also allows you to use words that are common to you and your vocabulary, making them easier to remember.

1. Start by changing the words individually, especially long or technical terms.

2. Now change the sentence to make it more fluent.

3. Keep editing this definition until it is in simple words, easy to understand, and you are happy with it.

Write this definition out in your notes so you will be able to review it during your future study sessions.

Compare with the actual definition.

How does your reworded definition compare to what you initially thought the word meant?  Were you very far off?  How was it similar or different?  Write these down so you can see the journey you have made in your understanding of this term.

Brainstorm synonyms

Synonyms are words that have the same or very similar meanings to the one that you are studying.  Think of some other words or short phrases that mean the same thing and write them down.

This gives you more words and a more extensive vocabulary to pull from, further increasing your reading comprehension.

Try to think up some antonyms.

Antonyms are words that mean the opposite of the one under study.  Are there any words that mean the exact opposite of the one you’ve been studying?

Try to think up some words or short phrases that mean the opposite of the one you’re working on.

Don’t head straight to the glossary or dictionary every time you find a word you don’t know.  This is a learning opportunity.  Use this as a study activity that will increase your vocabulary and your reading comprehension skills.

This exercise is perfect for previewing a section before you actually start reading the chapter.  This way, when you go back and read through the chapter, you’ll have already had practice with all of these tricky words. 

If you do this before you read the chapter, when you come across the word again, you will be reviewing and studying it instead of learning it for the first time.  This helps 2-fold.

1. It’s another opportunity to review the word and test your recall of the definition.

2. You will not have to take in all this new information plus learn a new word for the first time.

If you are looking for a better study strategy, pick up my free study planner and activity tracker.  There are more than 8 pages of goodies, including the activity tracker, confidence tracker, and Pomodoro-style study session template. 

Create practice exams with the easy-to-use guide that lets you phase several questions for each concept.  Download it here?

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This post on IELTS Reading Skills focuses on some methods to guess/predict the meaning of new/unknown/confusing words. Hopefully, reading this post will guide beginners in IELTS Reading easily to understand how to guess the meaning of such words in a real-test situation.

When you don’t understand a new/unknown/confusing word in a large text, what’s the first thing you do? Most probably you stop reading the text; then you search for a good dictionary and try to find out the meaning. When you are satisfied with the meaning, you come back to read the text. Now, the black magic happens with a lot of people like it always happened with me! You suddenly find that you’ve lost your interest in reading. Taking the ‘Dictionary break’ sometimes costs your attention and you fail to get into the reading again.

Well, how about a different approach to Reading an article? When you start reading a text, you will surely face some new/unknown/confusing words you don’t have idea about. You might be a native speaker of English and still you will face the same problem. Taking help from a dictionary can be a solution but you can’t use a dictionary in an exam situation, can you? Therefore, you need some strategies that may help you predict the meaning of the word. Here, is this lesson, I’ll try to show you some strategies that can help you guess the meaning of such words.

Let’s begin.

1. You don’t need to know every new/unknown word. Sometimes they aren’t needed.

Ask yourself this question: Do I need to know all the words? Let’s take the following sentence as an example:

“By asking people about their experiences of boredom, Thomas Goetz and his team at the University of Konstanz in Germany have recently identified five distinct types: indifferent, calibrating, searching, reactant and apathetic.” (Cambridge IELTS 13 Test 1 Reading Test 2)

Here, in this long sentence, most average English learners have the possibility to get stuck with these 3 words, calibrating, reactant and apathetic. Should you stop reading for that?

OK, let’s try to guess what these words mean in general, not the exact meaning. Do these words belong to a same group? The previous lines talk about boredom and their types. All these three words are the types of boredom. The other two words are known to you, indifferent and searching. Probably, in the next few paragraphs, there will be some sort of discussion on each type. So, for now, you don’t need the exact meaning. Have you got my point? A long list of games may have peculiar names of games like Molkky which you don’t need to know; a game is a game, isn’t it?

2. Parts of speech can help to find out the meaning:

It’s easy to find a meaning, not exact but close at least, if you know what part of speech it belongs to. Most often candidates and students of IELTS test get jammed to an unknown word without considering much about the part of speech. In most cases the new words are nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs. If you know the functions of these parts of speech, it becomes easier to guess a meaning.

Let’s look at this example sentence:
“Fish were a vital commodity in growing towns and cities, where food supplies were a constant concern. . ..”. (Cambridge IELTS Series 8 Reading Test 2)

Let’s suppose you don’t know the word commodity in this text. Let’s try to guess it from it’s part of speech. What kind of part of speech is it?

The sentence says, “Fish were a vital commodity . .. .” The preceding words are ‘a’ and ‘vital’. ‘a’ is an article and ‘vital’ is an adjective. Therefore, to maintain grammatical rule, the next word has to be a noun (article + adjective + noun). As the word commodity is a noun, we can guess the meaning as a thing or person (a noun is always a thing or a person). Now, the sentence tells us that it is about fish and fish cannot be a person. So, we can guess that the meaning of commodity should be something. So, we can read the sentence like this: “Fish were a vital something. .. .   ..”

3. Root words can direct you to the meaning:

This is another easy way to find the meaning of a confusing/unknown word. Take this example:

“… . . Extreme high performance sports may lead to optimal cardiovascular performance, but they quite certainly do not prolong life . . .” (Cambridge IELTS Series 8 Reading Test 3)

As the word is before the word ‘performance (noun)’, we already know that this new word cardiovascular is an adjective. So, can we guess the root word for this particular word? Let’s dissect the word first:

• cardiovascular = cardio + vascular

So, the root word here is cardio which means heart-related. You may even know other words like cardiology, cardiac, cardiogram, cardiologist, cardiograph; all these word relate to something or someone dealing with heart (body part).

Now, if you read the sentence again, you can guess the meaning better.

“… . . Extreme high performance sports may lead to optimal cardiovascular (or heart) performance, but they quite certainly do not prolong life . . .”

It does the work quite well, doesn’t it?

4. Break down the sentence. You may learn the meaning of the word from the whole sentence.

When you find a very long sentence with some unknown words, don’t panic. You can break down the sentence which may help you find the meaning of the unknown word(s). Let’s have a close look at the following example:

“… At various points in evolutionary history; enterprising individuals within many different animal groups moved out onto the land, sometimes even to the most parched deserts, taking their own private seawater with them in blood and cellular fluids.”  (Cambridge IELTS Series 9 Reading Test 1)

Suppose, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘parched’. Let’s take a deep breath and break down the sentence. Can you see two commas separating the sentence in three individual parts?

Part 1: At various points in evolutionary history; enterprising individuals within many different animal groups moved out onto the land,

Part 2: sometimes even to the most parched deserts,

Part 3: taking their own private seawater with them in blood and cellular fluids.

Now, think about the second part only, forget the first and third part for the time-being.

“. . .. . sometimes even to the most parched deserts,. .. ..”

So, here we can see that the text is taking about deserts which are parched. Again, just like in method no. 2, desert is a noun, so, the word ‘parched’ is an adjective. Therefore, this word describes a quality or status of deserts. We know that the most significant status or quality of a desert is that it is a dry place. So, the word ‘parched’ must be something related to ‘dry’.

Now, you can check your dictionary at a later time and find out whether you were correct in guessing the meaning or not. If not correct, you will be close, trust me.

5. Search for clues around: it can be synonyms, antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, anything.

Let’s take a look at the following sentence:

“Hearing impairment or other auditory function deficit in young children can have a major impact on their development of speech and communication, resulting in a detrimental effect on their ability to learn at school.”  (Cambridge IELTS Series 9 Reading Test 2)

Suppose, you don’t know these words: auditory and deficit. Let’s look for other words here, may be some synonyms or antonyms.

First, let’s dissect the word auditory to find out the root word:

The root word for auditory is audio. Does the root word ring any bell? Take a look the first word of the whole sentence. Hearing is synonymous to audio. Thus, the word auditory relates to sound.

Now, let’s have a look at the second word, deficit.

Take a look at the first part of the sentence again:

“Hearing impairment or other auditory function deficit in young children  . .. .”

Can you see the word ‘or’ here? What’s the function of the word ‘or’ here?

According to Cambridge Dictionary, the word or is a conjunction that connects two or more possibilities or alternatives. It connects words, phrases and clauses which are the same grammatical type.

So, we can say that ‘or’ connects two synonymous words.

The phrase ‘Hearing impairment’ has an adjective (hearing) and then a noun (impairment). Here, impairment means a problem.

Now, let’s have a look at the phrase after ‘or’. The phrase is ‘auditory function deficit’. Here, ‘Hearing’ means ‘auditory function’. So, in this text deficit means impairment.

6. Definitions or explanations might help too.

If you know how to find out the definition of a word, you are in luck! No unknown or new words can obstruct your reading of the text.

You can look for different words such as is, mean(s), depict(s), describe(s), refer(s) to, known as, called, named, entitled, deal(s) with, explain(s), suggest(s), comprise(s), consist(s) of etc.

You should also look for asterisk sign (*) or numbers (¹, ², etc.), a hyphen or double hyphen (-, – -), even brackets ( ) with a word too. If you find them, look below or around the text. There should be some sort of footnotes or glossary explaining the word(s).

Let’s have a look at some examples:

“As their name suggests, stepwells comprise a series of stone steps descending from ground level to the water source . . ..” (Cambridge IELTS Series 10 Reading Test 1)

Here, the words suggests and comprise give us the definition of stepwells.

Another example:

“Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient human statues – the moai.” (Cambridge 11 Test 2 Reading Passage 2)

Suppose here, in this sentence, you don’t understand the words Rapa Nui and the moai. Now, take a close look at the phrase Rapa Nui, you’ll see a definition of the word given just after that; “. . . .is home to several hundred ancient human statues – the moai.”

Again, the explanation or definition of the phrase the moai is given in the same sentence.  Have a look at the sentence again and you will see a hyphen before the phrase the moai. This means an explanation is given just before the hyphen which is “.. .. ancient human statues”.

Here is one more instance:

Take a look at this image of the text taken from Cambridge IELTS Series 10. In paragraph B, you’ll find a word – photosynthesis with an asterisk sign (*). This means the word is explained just below the text. I’ve marked it with a red line.

One final example for your better understanding:

“Silk is a fine, smooth material produced from the cocoons – soft protective shells – that are made by mulberry silkworms (insect larvae).” (Cambridge IELTS Series 11 Test 3 Reading Passage 1)

Suppose, these two word seem confusing to you; cocoons and silkworms. Actually, both the words are explained here. The word ‘cocoons’ is explained within two hyphens “– soft protective shells –“ and the word silkworms is explained within brackets “(insect larvae)”.

So, looking for an explanation or definition around can help you directly.

7. Think about nuance/ connotations of a word: what’s the implied positive or negative?

This technique will be useful for candidates who are already in a good place in Reading or Writing Test and now want to target 8.0 or 9.0.

Connotation refers to the implied meaning of a word. It can be positive or negative. Confused ?  Let’s take a look at some examples:

1. “Alex’s thesis paper looked a bit different in that it constructively criticized the government plan to reduce the number of basic shelters for the homeless.”
2. “Hannah’s dissertation seemed to be different from her classmates’ as it did not follow the basic structure or any writing plan.”

As you can see, both sentences A and B contain the word different. Then why have I used green in A and red in B?

In sentence A the word different implies that Alex’s writing was unique.

In sentence B the word different implies that Hannah’s writing was peculiar.

This is known as connotation. If you can understand connotation in IELTS, you have a great chance to score way better than others. However, it needs a huge amount of practice.

That’s all from me for this post. I hope you now have a better understanding to think about new/unknown/confusing words. If you are already in a good position in Reading, this post may/might help you to get a better score, but if you are seriously in troubles with your Reading test because of unknown words, try these ideas while you do a test of your own and keep the dictionary away from you for a while. I bet you’ll find these ideas useful and effective.

If you still have queries or want to know more about this lesson, hit the messenger button and throw your questions there or mail me at ieltsdeal@gmail.com. I’ll be in touch, I promise.

Click here to learn about IELTS Reading skills: Skimming and Scanning