Sentences:  The explosion of the shell ____ his flesh.  The tailor
____ the garment along the seam.  I’ll ____ this paper into bits.  Those
savages would ____ you limb from limb.  She ____ her dress on a nail.  The
cogs caught his hand and ____ it.  How could such reproaches fail to ____
my feelings?

Throw, pitch, hurl, dash, fling, cast, toss, flip, chuck, sling, heave, launch, dart, propel, project.

Sentences:  Suddenly he ____ the glittering coins away.  Goliath
learned to his cost that David could ____ a stone.  The explosion of the
gunpowder ____ the bullet from the gun. “____ down your cups of Samian
wine!” The children amused themselves by ____ the ball back and forth.  He
____ himself dejectedly into a seat.  The thief ____ a glance beside him. 
The mischievous boy ____ a stone through the window.  They ____ some of the
cargo overboard to lighten the boat.  The eager fisherman ____ the fly for
the trout.  The untidy fellow ____ the towel in a corner.

Whip, chastise, castigate, flagellate, scourge, lash, trounce, thrash, flog, maul, drub, switch, spank, bastinado. (This group limits the field of the Punish group in Exercise A, and extends the list of synonyms.)

Sentences:  The drunken driver ____ the excited horses.  The zealot
was accustomed to ____ himself.  The ruler bade that the Christians be
____.  The teacher ____ the small children gently, but he unsparingly ____
the big ones.  “My father hath ____ you with whips, but I will ____ you
with scorpions.”  The bully was always ____ men smaller than himself till
one of them turned on him and ____ him thoroughly.

Wicked, sinful, felonious, illegal, immoral, heinous, flagitious, iniquitous, criminal, vicious, vile.

Sentences: “I am fled From this ____ world, with ____ worms to
dwell.”  A[n] ____ assault.  “The ____ prize itself Buys out the law.”  It
was, though not a[n] ____ act, a most ____ one.  “There the ____ cease from
troubling; and there the weary be at rest.”

Young, youthful, boyish, girlish, juvenile, puerile, immature, callow, adolescent.

Sentences: The plan had all the faults of ____ judgment.  Many great
authors have written books of ____ fiction.  The bird, which was still
____, was of course unable to fly.  “Such sights as ____ poets dream On
summer eves by haunted stream.”  He was in that ____ stage of development
when one is neither a boy nor a man.  “I was so ____, I loved him so, I had
No mother, God forgot me, and I fell.”  He made a[n] ____ attempt to
impress them with his importance.  “Bacchus ever fair, and ever ____.” 
A red necktie gave him a more ____ appearance.  The self-satisfied air of
a[n] ____ youth is often trying to his elders.

EXERCISE D

In this exercise each group of synonyms is followed by quotations from authoritative writers in which the words are discriminatingly employed.  Find the meaning of each italicized word in these quotations, and differentiate the word accurately from the others in that group.  Substitute for it other words from the group, and observe precisely how the meaning is affected.