"A Cause Greater Than Self"

A senator, presidential nominee, and Navy veteran, John McCain defines patriotism in his life and in an essay.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 11 Unit 1's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: A Cause Greater Than Self, The New Colossus, The Statue of Liberty Address, poems about America, America, America and I, What Is an American, Growing Up Asian in America, Let America Be America Again, The Four Freedoms, The Bill of Rights, What Is Freedom, Is the American Dream Still Possible, The Declaration of Independence, poems about immigrants, Money, A Raisin in the Sun, Who Burns, Roberto Acuna, Barack Obama, The Right to Fail
10 words 421 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. patriotism
    love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it
    Patriotism means more than holding your hand over your heart during the national anthem.
  2. motivate
    give an incentive for action
    Patriotism and the citizenship it requires should motivate the conduct of public officials
  3. thrive
    grow vigorously
    but it also thrives in the communal spaces where government is absent, anywhere Americans come together to govern their lives and their communities--in families, churches, synagogues, museums, symphonies, the Little League, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army or the VFW
  4. indispensable
    absolutely necessary
    They are the responsible exercise of freedom and are indispensable to the proper functioning of a democracy.
  5. commendable
    worthy of high praise
    Patriotism is countless acts of love, kindness and courage that have no witness or heraldry and are especially commendable because they are unrecorded.
  6. ideal
    model of excellence or perfection of a kind
    The patriot must not just accept, but in his or her own way protect the ideals that gave birth to our country: to stand against injustice and for the rights of all and not just one's own interests.
  7. sacrifice
    a loss entailed by giving up something
    One cannot go to Arlington Cemetery and see name upon name, grave upon grave, row upon row, without being deeply moved by the sacrifice made by those young men and women.
  8. beneficiary
    the recipient of funds or other advantages
    And those of us who live in this time, who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice, must do our smaller and less dangerous part to protect what they gave everything to defend, lest we lose our own love of liberty.
  9. sublime
    of high moral or intellectual value
    The good citizen and patriot knows happiness is greater than comfort, more sublime than pleasure.
  10. cynical
    believing the worst of human nature and motives
    The cynical and indifferent know not what they miss.
Created on 十一月 7, 2014 (updated 十一月 9, 2014)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.