How do native English speakers know the archaic or domain/time specific words in English literature like The Tale of Two Cities?

Question

I have been reading The Tale of Two Cities for multiple months. The progress is pretty slow because I would like to know most of the details in a way that I can learn some literature techniques in English by Charles Dickens. However, I'm wondering how native English speakers know the archaic or domain specific words in novels like this.

For example, I would like to know how much you understand the meaning of these (50) words?

tiller, upholsterer, pilferer, myriad, canter, fain, coppice, filament, quaint, piscatorial, mahogany, curtsey, consignment, tidings, brawny, lee-dyed, stench, wolfishly, provender, scullery, purloiner, breech, rickety, menagerie, demur, asunder, asseveration, beckon, throng, pith, paunch, gainsay, swoon, staid, meekness, compunction, teem, peal, lacquey, tattered, gossamer, flambeau, malady, balustrade, jalousie, scruple, cachet, trenchant, frill, arrear,

(Usually, these words have Germanic/Viking/Anglo-Saxon origin thus it's quite difficult for me to encounter similar words or pre/suffix roots to infer their meanings)

I'm also curious, as a native speaker, may you share some personal experience/stories (maybe in childhood) for how you knew some of the words above in real life, or maybe you actually need certain aids while reading novels by pre-1900 authors like Charles Dickens.

Answer 1

I'm a native speaker of US English. I could easily define at least 80% of the words above with little thought, and could figure out most of the rest with just context clues. The answer is you read, read, read, and then read some more. Read a wide variety of works written at different times, set in different places, or about different subject matter.

I'll give some specific examples based on some of the words you mentioned:

• myriad: It's an uncommon number word, from the Greek for ten thousand. You can learn it by reading translations of classical Greek literature that use it. In English, ten thousand isn't considered a simple quantity, but in classical Greek it was, so translators used this Greek-derived term rather than translating the concept. Note that in modern English, this word is more commonly used metaphorically to mean a sufficiently large amount rather than exactly 10,000.

• mahogany: It's a type of wood, long considered an "upscale" wood for furniture. Read stories about wealthy people or wealthy life.

• filament: It's a current scientific word. Read nonfiction works on electricity, medicine, or other fields in which this word is current.

• stench: It's a current, non-technical word, but probably not as common as "stink" or "smell". You'll pick up this word if you read enough. Even if you just listen to others, eventually someone will use this word in a way that will hint that it means an unpleasant odor.

• curtsey: It's an interpersonal gesture of politeness not commonly done today, but very common in the 19th century. Read works from or set in the 19th century, or nonfiction etiquette books from the 19th century.

• gossamer: Largely a poetic word. Literally, it's a spider's web. Metaphorically (it's most common usage today), it refers to delicate materials, often thin and delicate or at least delicate-looking. Read poetry and works from authors who used lots of flowery language.

• tidings: It's a word used in Christmas carols and Christmas liturgy. Much of formal "church" English was fossilized by the publication of the King James version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (the official liturgy of the Church of England) and, even in non-Anglican churches, often retains 17th century elements. It's very common for English-speaking Christians to code-switch to more 17th century forms of vocabulary and grammar when praying. Attend formal church services and you'll pick up plenty of archaic words as well as archaic usages, such as "meet" to mean agreeable or acceptable, or English's archaic T-V distinction which fell out of use in common speech centuries ago.

• arrear: It's a financial word, more commonly used today in the plural as "arrears" to mean an overdue debt. Read books on finance, law, and commerce.

Answer 2

Unfortunately I don't have the requisites to comment but I wanted to point out that some of the words listed don't have an Anglo-Saxon origin but a Latin one (more specifically French):

• Malady (malade in French meaning sick or ill)
• Menagerie (a place to keep animals)
• Jalousie (Jalousie is the French word for "jealousy". It originated in 18th century France from the Italian word geloso, which means "jealous" or "screen", as in to screen something from view)
• Filament (Latin filum meaning "thread")
• Trenchant (Middle English trenchaunt, from Anglo-French, present participle of trencher)

The list is not exhaustive but many (especially older) writers used many Latin based words. Therefore familiarizing yourself with some will be useful in understanding some of these words. An example is to masticate. Some English speakers would not recognize this word since they would most likely use chew. But in both French and Spanish it is very similar to masticar (Spanish) mastiquer (French).

Answer 3

As a native speaker I understand most of the words you listed. I have no idea what 4-5 of them mean and would have to look them up. I am reasonably well educated and used to go to church (lots of old language there) so my vocabulary is probably above average.

A few observations:

• you don't have to understand every single word to simply enjoy a novel. It happens to me even with modern literature. I just continue reading and it may become clear.
• the meaning of words change with time. For example, awful used to be positive (full of awe) now it is negative (spectacularly bad).
• personally, I don't enjoy reading older works and find them hard work. This is less to do with the meaning of the words and more to do with sentence structure and 'pompous' language.
• Dickens is certainly well-loved and the language is of his time. The cultural references contained in those books are still relevant today and it is good to be aware of them.

Answer 4

The way I learned words such as these (as a native American English speaker) is mostly by reading lots of books, old and new, fiction and nonfiction, British and American and translations from other languages, but especially novels.

When I was young I had to look up words in a dictionary the first time (or first several times) I saw them. I actually had a vocabulary class one year in school, which probably helped somewhat. Nowadays, I like to think about where the word might have come from; I'm exposed to some Greek and Latin roots at work, and if I can recognize part of a word I might be able to put the rest of it together. From your list, take "piscatorial": it looks like piscis, so something to do with fish—the context of the novel is probably enough to fill in the rest.

But mostly reading. Learning vocabulary this way starts slowly, but speeds up over time. Just think—the next time you read "flambeau" in another Dickens book,* or "balustrade" in Austen, or "pith" in Kipling—you'll know the words already. And you'll learn more words from those, and more from the next books, and so on. Enjoy!

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_{*I made up these examples, please don't take it as a guarantee that you'll find these particular words.}

Answer 5

• upholsterer - You find this word if you look up stuff on furniture. For example, if I look up "clean sofa" online, I get a link that says "How to Clean Upholstery".

• pilferer - I think I first learned this word through RPG games, something like Elder Scrolls maybe.

• filament - Most 3D printers use plastic filament to print. You can find the word on Amazon.

• quaint - Never seen it written, but I think I've heard it on TV, maybe on something depicting high-class society. Kind of a posh term.

• piscatorial - Spanish word "pescado" means fish, specifically as food, not as an animal, which is "pez", so I'm guessing this is something to do with fishing. (Now that I think about it, "pescado" besides being a noun is also the adjective "fished", as in "was pulled out of water".)

• rickety - This seems like an onomatopoeia.

• beckon - I think I've heard this on TV and in real life when spotting a familiar face from afar, like in a park.

• lacquey - I may have first heard of "lacquey" on a show where the hero has to fight low level enemies before fighting a boss, something like PowerRangers.

• frill - I think I've heard this term in the context of cosplay. I think it's a wavy piece of cloth/lace on a woman's dress used for decoration.

Answer 6

Any good high school English teacher might assign A Tale of Two Cities to their students. It's a favorite for many of them. Nowadays, it's no longer always called English but rather Language Arts.

In my case, it was in a list of assigned summer reading (novels) along with instructions to write down and look up words we readers (we were 12 years old) did not know.These summer reading lists were in play for me from 7th through 12th grade. In the US, most colleges ask for applicants to have taken the SATs (Scholastic Apptitude Test: Math and English), and in preparation for that they do vocabulary tests, formally or on their own. This pre-high school and high school period was probably when my vocabulary grew the most. And then, of course, the reading continued in college but often not just novels or plays but also history and politics or law for non-lawyers, for example. In my case also, I went to private schools but I know from friends that good public schools also had these summer reading lists.

In high school English classes, there is also emphasis put on stems, roots, prefixes and suffixes of words and for that a lot of Greek and Latin is learned as English has many throwbacks to those dead languages. However, in the Tale of Two Cities list, that would not be so useful. It is useful in medicine, history, politics and other social and exact sciences.

Looking over that list, I have to say I knew all of them except lee-dyed, which without looking it up, I assme means dyed in the lees of some kind of wine. Maybe I'm wrong. :)

Today, kids no longer read books much or as much. Therefore, their vocabulary, as a general matter, is not as broad as that of previous generations, all things being equal.

So, to answer the question, I'd say: It's all in the reading you do. That's how native speakers learn the kinds of words you have in your variegated (both senses) list of words. :)

Answer 7

I'm a native speaker,

I understand a good chunk of these, not all, but often you can make a decent guess from context. Some strike me as uncommon forms of common words (I don't recall the last time I heard the word "upholsterer", but I can be pretty certain it means "one who does upholstery". And I'm fairly sure you could've got that "wolfishly" is an adverb, meaning "like a wolf" (as for what that implies, context.)

How? Read a lot. Being a lonely child helps.

I don't have trouble with the language of Dickens, although for what it's worth, I find his prose completely impenetrable. Being unnecessarily flowery is kind of a hallmark of Victorian literature.

Shakespeare, on the other hand, I couldn't make much sense of without an aid. I haven't read enough early modern literature to tell you where the defining line is.

However, remember, there's a good chunk of the population who don't read novels at all. If you're getting through Dickens, you're at a reading level higher than a lot of native speakers.

Answer 8

I'm a native speaker, from Aotearoa New Zealand. I was first exposed to a Tale of Two Cities in primary school in 1960. Our teacher played a recording which covered the highlights, including the trip to France to rescue Dr. Manet, 1st trial of Charles Darnay, 2nd trial, narrative of Dr. Manet, rescue of Darnay, Sydney Carton's reflection. Later I read it during my secondary school years (at school or at home? I can't recall).

A few words from your list:

1. My grandfather had been a sailor, so I know what a tiller was; later he became an upholsterer.
2. Mahogany: some of our family owned mahogany furniture.
3. Swoon: I expect that I figured it out from the context: I already knew it was a synonym for faint.
4. As a last resort I'd have looked words up in a dictionary.

Answer 9

I would expect an educated adult native speaker to have most of these words in his passive vocabulary. Words like paunch, brawny, mahogany, breech, swoon, curtsey, staid, meekness, menagerie, canter, tidings, wolfishly, and consignment.

A few are quite obscure and likely to be misunderstood such as meet, gainsay, pith, trenchant, piscatorial, and fain.

A few would be in the active vocabulary such as rickety and quaint.

Answer 10

Hmmm let's see how I do.

• tiller: n. steering element on a boat; v. one who tills crops. From context it will be obvious which one.
• upholsterer: upholstery is the soft parts of furniture; an upholsterer must be someone who applies or repairs upholstery
• pilferer: thief
• myriad: greek for ten thousand, english for many many
• canter: a speed at which a horse moves between a walk and a run
• fain: project a false image
• coppice: not in my vocabulary
• filament: the active element in an lightbulb, therefore anything shaped like it; surely that's backwards in origin but that idea will be correct
• quaint: old fashioned, obscure
• piscatorial: not in my vocabulary but it decomposes to known root and suffix so its direct meaning is going to be "having to do with fish"
• mahogany: kind of wood
• curtsey: women wearing dresses typically did this instead of bowing
• consignment: shopkeeper is agent in selling items in shop rather than owner
• tidings: news
• brawny: strong
• lee-dyed: this one confuses me; I thought I knew how dying was done but I can't imagine how lee applies to it, knowing what lee means
• stench: it stank
• wolfishly: the manner of the wolf
• provender: not in my vocabulary
• scullery: originally kitchen but these days understood as place of washing dishes
• purloiner: thief
• breech: rear end
• rickety: shaky (construction of object; it moves)
• menagerie: disguise or ruse but applied to building or setting nope that's wrong but it's been used like that enough that one could be fooled
• demur: defer to authority
• asunder: adverb form of apart, now used for dramatic effect
• asseveration: not in my vocabulary
• beckon: hand motion to direct
• throng: crowd
• pith: inedible part of edible plant
• paunch: not in my vocabulary
• gainsay: argue against authority (probably)
• swoon: faint, pass out
• staid: not in my vocabulary
• meekness: similar to humbleness but with the connotation small
• compunction: opposition by conscience
• teem: almost swarm
• peal: rapid acceleration
• lacquey: not in my vocabulary
• tattered: torn, but to a greater degree
• gossamer: thin threads
• flambeau: not in my vocabulary but I would guess an alternate spelling of flambe until proven otherwise
• malady: illness
• balustrade: not in my vocabulary
• jalousie: not in my vocabulary
• scruple: moral restraint
• cachet: not actually known to me but it seems like a financial term; would probably make sense very quickly in context
• trenchant: not in my vocabulary
• frill: noun form of fancy, decoration,
• arrear: behind on payments

It's like I'm actually too good for the demonstration; there's not really I can recommend besides read works by JRR Tolkein. I am kind of a bad example because my vocabulary is very old; I will on occasion use a medieval word and wonder when I am not understood. Quite a few of these are just English words still in common use if you have encountered the context where they make sense, the few that aren't suddenly fit in from in the late medieval setting (is Tale of Two Cities intended to sound older than its setting?).

The ones that I knew that seemed obscure to me:

• pith: I only learned that one in 2021.
• gossamer: From Emily Dickenson
• gainsay: It's in Lord of the Rings but from the one example it's not enough to know what it means.
• demur: HPMOR

Answer 11

As a native speaker, I have most of those words in my active or passive vocabulary. As the book is online, I looked up a few that I was not sure of, in the context you describe:

tiller, upholsterer, pilferer, myriad, canter, filament, quaint, I know these without context and use all of them in active vocabulary

fain - this one I would have to look up, but could skip over without losing much of the meaning

coppice - would have to look it up but could skip over it without losing much - it's a type of woods and the precise type I might not know to see it because I am not a forestry expert

piscatory - easy to guess the meaning as 'fishy' even without the 'fish' context

mahogany, curtsey, consignment, tidings, brawny, stench, wolfishly, scullery,

I would know all these without context, and use all of them.

provender - I would guess this from the context of food- and knowing 'provisions'.

lee-dyed- it's clear from context that it means 'stained'- I'd probably skip over this without looking it up. Apparently 'lee' refers to wine sediment, which I didn't know.

purloiner, breech, rickety, menagerie, demur, asunder, beckon, throng, pith, I know all these without context and some are in my active vocabulary, though not so much this meaning of 'pith'- still the meaning is clear in context.

asseveration - don't know this one, but the meaning is clear from context - I would guess it is related to 'assert' but that does not appear to be true.

paunch, gainsay, swoon, staid, meekness, compunction, teem, peal, tattered I know all these and use most of them. 'gainsay' and 'swoon' are very old-fashioned sounding and would probably be used humorously.

lacquey - I'm familiar with 'lackey' so I would not have to look this up

gossamer, malady, balustrade, scruple, cachet, frill, arrear I know all of these.

flambeau - I could guess this from the context and from flame and flambé in French, but I might look this one up to be sure

trenchant- don't know this one in the context used

jalousie- clear from context it's a type of window blind, I would look it up if I cared to know exactly what kind

Some of the words tend to appear today only in idioms or set phrases. There are gossamer wings or perhaps a delicate gossamer nightgown. A bell or thunder peals. If something else peals it might be a man with a thunderous voice. Farmers till the land (I think this is an example of a synecdoche - tilling the land is part of farming but is used to refer to farming as a whole). Things are rent or torn asunder and 'asunder' does not usually otherwise appear. You might refer to a scullery maid, but 'scullery' is otherwise rare- though apparently making a resurgence in home designs. 'Tidings' appears in Christmas carols and on cards, but is rare otherwise.

To me, it seems like a lot of effort to wade through this kind of writing for the benefits gleaned.

Answer 12

I started out with a basic English education in high school between the age of 13 and 16.

Funny enough, I improved my English a lot through chatting online while I played online Backgammon in the 1990s. I had a (back then, paper!) dictionary next to my computer and simply looked everything up. Sometimes I'd ask. Because I did that (playing) a lot, some of the English I acquired on the side stuck. As an aside, this is one reason I don't usually discourage folks to do what they want, as opposed to something deemed useful. There are always unintended side effects.

Of course, I still look up any word I don't know, if I have time; today I learned about lee.

Answer 13

In the USA, most/all states require English/reading education. Some schools provide advanced English, which would be different classes replacing some or all of the standard English curriculum. (For example, students in advanced classes would go to a different room, have a different teacher, and read different books for English classes.)

I believe some of the English classes had vocabulary lessons directly tied to the books we were reading. If The Tale of Two Cities was assigned (it never was for me), the teacher might specifically do home or in-class lessons on e.g. "piscatorial, lee-dyed, provender, scullery, breech, menagerie, demur, asseveration" ahead of that chapter being assigned for home reading.

By high school (grades 9-12) there is typically an older English lesson (Shakespeare or similar) which might be taught with a book that provides the original and modern translation side by side.

We are taught to understand word roots and endings. We are taught to derive a guess on a word root (e.g. consignment -> consign) which can aid understanding.

There are many puns and odd word choices in American English culture. In my case, The Simpsons, Pokemon, and Homestar Runner make a point of drawing inspiration from obscure words. "Purrloin" is a Pokemon (same root as purloiner).

I would say about 75% of the words in your list I would know or understand in context by 10th grade. I was still learning new words even in 12th grade advanced English.

Based on conversations with friends and acquaintances, most Americans simply do not care about word knowledge or meanings. I know two adults who might understand 40% of the words in your OP.

Answer 14

There are a few categories of words in your list, so I'll break it down into the categories...

1. Not an uncommon word

In this category, you'll find that the words aren't actually uncommon, just situational. You'll usually hear these pop up occasionally in TV shows and movies, spot them in books, etc.

Words: quaint, mahogany, curtsey, tidings, brawny, stench, rickety, menagerie, beckon, throng, swoon, tattered, malady, frill

2. Context plus root gives it away

Words here are not themselves common, but they bear close resemblance to common words, and then context clarifies them from there.

Special subcategory: "-er"

Words: tiller ("to till the land"), upholsterer ("upholstered"), pilferer ("to pilfer")

Other words: piscatorial ("pescatarian" or "pisces", both have to do with fish), consignment ("to consign"), wolfishly ("-ishly" means in a way that is like), meekness ("meek" is a common word), trenchant ("trench" is an intentional hole for defense or other uses)

3. Appears in set phrases

These words are ones that people might not know the meanings of in isolation, but they survive in a few specific phrases, and context might get you there from that point.

Words: myriad ("in myriad ways"), canter ("at a canter"), scullery ("scullery maid"), asunder ("torn asunder"), teem ("to teem with life"), peal ("a peal of thunder"), gossamer ("on gossamer wings")

4. Unusual words but not unheard of

Here are words that most adult native English speakers will have at least heard a few times, and they're pretty clear from context.

Words: filament, breech, demur*, pith, paunch, compunction, balustrade, scruple+, cachet, arrear+

* demur is more likely to be heard, and the spelling doesn't make it obvious - it's "deh-mewer", not "dee-mer".

+ scruple and arrear are usually seen in plural as scruples and arrears

5. Very unusual

The remaining words are unusual enough that a lot of native English speakers either won't know them, or will at best be able to guess at them.

Words: fain, coppice, lee-dyed, provender, purloiner, asseveration, gainsay, staid, lacquey, flambeau, jalousie

Some of these might be old spellings (fain - feign? lacquey - lackey? jalousie - jealousy?). A few are modifications of uncommon words (purloiner from purloin, in particular). I personally know purloiner, gainsay, and staid. The others, I can only guess at.

To answer the question

How do native English speakers know these words? It's a combination of context clues and past exposure, just as in any language.

A few of these, I mostly heard through TV shows like The West Wing or Frasier, where the characters having a large vocabulary is very intentional. In some of these, there would be a character who doesn't know the word, so that the other character can explain the meaning to them, and thus to the audience.

A few such words include "torpor", "promulgate", "onomatapoetically", "filibuster", "acalculia", "estuary", and "redoubtable" (all from West Wing) - I knew some of them already.