Sentences:  It required the ____ of thousands of men to complete the
tunnel.  To be condemned to the galleys meant a life of unending ____.  The
man who enjoys his ____ will succeed.  Twenty years of incessant ____ had
extinguished in him every spark of ambition.  He was weary after the
____ of the day.  All ____ and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  Through the
heart-breaking ____ of thousands the pyramids were built to commemorate a
few.  He was sentenced to hard ____.

VIII

    SYNONYMS IN LARGER GROUPS (2)

You have now seen enough of the method of discriminating synonyms to take more of the responsibility for such work upon yourself.  In this chapter, therefore, the plan followed in Exercise A is abandoned and no discriminations are supplied you.

EXERCISE B

For some of the generic words in Exercise A you will find antonyms in Exercise C. Here is a list: 

In Exercise A:  walk, laugh, busy, hate, masculine, old

In Exercise C:  run, cry, idle, love, feminine, young.

Now each of the generic terms in C is followed by a list of its synonyms.  But for the six generic terms just given let us see how many synonyms you can find for yourself.  Simply study each word in turn, think of all the synonyms for it you can summon, strike out those you consider far-fetched.  Then compare your list with the list under the antonym in Exercise A; if possible, improve your list by means of this comparison.  Finally, compare your revised list with the list in Exercise C.

In Exercise C are two generic terms that carry the same idea (but not in the same part of speech) as generic terms in Exercise A. They are as follows: 

In Exercise A:  sing, death

In Exercise C:  song, die.

Take song and die.  First, find all the satisfactory synonyms you can for yourself.  Then if possible improve your list by studying the list under the corresponding word in Exercise A. Finally, compare your revised list with the one in Exercise C.

EXERCISE C

After three introductory groups (dealing with thoroughly concrete ideas and words) the synonyms in this exercise are arranged alphabetically according to the first word in each group.

Discriminate the words in each group, and fill each blank in the illustrative sentences with the word that conveys the meaning exactly.

See, perceive, descry, distinguish, espy, discern, note, notice, watch, observe, witness, behold, view.