Fix the mistake: Vocabulary and Idioms

Polysemous Words — The “Hidden Meanings” of Basic Words

In reading passages and vocabulary questions at highly selective universities, most lost points come not from difficult words but from alternative meanings of basic words that students think they know. If you are fixed on the meanings learned in junior high and high school, you may misread a sentence because the meaning does not fit the context. Polysemous words are more dangerous than “unknown words” because you believe you know them.

Basic Rules

Let’s organize common polysemous words and their “other meanings.”
address: address → ① deal with (a problem) "address the issue" ② speak to "address the audience"
account: account → ① explanation or reason "give an account of" ② (account for) make up ~; explain ~
subject: school subject → ① topic ② (be subject to) be likely to experience ~; be subject to ~
matter: problem → ① be important (verb) "It doesn't matter." ② matter (as a matter of fact)
appreciate: be grateful → ① understand or correctly evaluate "I appreciate the difficulty." ② increase in value
observe: observe → ① obey (a rule) "observe the law" ② state "He observed that..."
practice: practice → ① custom or actual use "common practice" ② work as a doctor or lawyer
These words can cause misreading if you think only from their primary meanings, so you need to practice reexamining their parts of speech and meanings from the context.

Example Sentences
The government must address the issue of rising unemployment before it worsens. (The government must deal with the problem of rising unemployment.) ← address = deal with
Renewable energy now accounts for nearly a third of the nation's electricity. (Renewable energy now makes up nearly one-third of the nation's electricity.) ← account for = make up
Young children are particularly subject to the influence of their surroundings. (Young children are especially likely to be influenced by their surroundings.) ← subject to = likely to experience
I appreciate how difficult this decision must have been for you. (I understand how difficult this decision must have been for you.) ← appreciate = understand
※ In all of these sentences, the meaning learned first at the junior high school level does not make sense

Points to Note

① With polysemous words, the meaning often changes when the part of speech changes: matter is the noun “problem,” but as a verb it means “be important.” When observe appears in the main clause, it can sometimes change from “observe” to “state.”
② The meaning is fixed in combination with a preposition: account for / subject to / consist of / result in, and so on, should be considered one meaning together with the preposition. Train yourself to recognize the pattern as soon as you see the preposition.
③ A sign that the whole sentence does not make sense with the primary meaning: If the logic breaks down when you read it with the primary meaning, first suspect a polysemous word. Many translation questions involving underlined sections at highly selective universities are designed around this point.
④ Strategy: Instead of memorizing polysemous words as “one word, one meaning” on flash cards, memorize them as “one word = several examples.” In particular, learn about 15 common words (address / account / matter / subject / observe / practice / appreciate / entertain / suffer / command / register, and so on) with sets of example sentences.

Key Points
  • A major source of lost points at highly selective universities is the alternative meaning of a “basic word you think you know”
  • Pay special attention to address / account for / subject to / matter / appreciate / observe
  • React to patterns whose meanings are fixed together with prepositions
  • When the primary meaning does not make sense, suspect a polysemous word
  • Memorize one word through several examples, not one word and one meaning

Practice

  1. Answer the meaning of account for in the following sentence: Poor diet accounts for a large proportion of preventable diseases.
  2. Answer the meaning of observe in the following sentence: Researchers observed that the effect disappeared after two weeks.
  3. Make one example sentence using subject in a meaning other than “school subject.”

English (University Entrance Exam): related lessons