Surprisingly, the word “oblation” is related to the word “translate.” When someone translates expressions from one language to another, he or she “carries them across” from one language to the other. The “-late” portion of “translate” contains this literal notion of “carrying.” The “ob-” prefix in “oblation” means “to” or “toward.” Literally considered, the word “oblation” means “carried toward.” Its direct English meaning is “an offering,” generally implying that this offering is religious in nature. It is an “offering” in the sense of “carrying” the item to the deity in question. Actually, the word “offering” is from the exact same irregular Latin roots as “oblation.”

The word “connotation” comes from Latin roots literally meaning, “To note with.” “Con-” is a prefix meaning “with” and is found in various forms in words like “connect” and “conjugal” as well as “community” and many others. When an expression or word “connotes” something it implies something beyond its literal meaning. For instance, one could say, “The word ‘enlightened’ often is used to connote the sense of being beyond superstitions and perhaps even non-religious.”

The word “excursus” is related to “excursion,” though let us be careful to note the meanings of its parts. The “ex-” is the same as that found in “exit,” meaning “out of.” The “-cursus” portion comes from the Latin for “to run,” which is found in “currency” and “current” (a “running” flow of something). Thus, an excursion is a “going out into some adventure,” and an “excursus” is a more general “running out” in the sense of running outside the bounds of some discussion. The word “cursus” once applied to the course of studies in a subject. For instance, in the early modern period, one could find sets of text called Cursus Philosophicus or Cursus Theologicus, meaning (roughly) “A philosophy course” or “a theology course.” An “excursus” is a like an “aside” into a topic in more detail than is needed for the main “cursus.” The word “digression” means roughly the same thing.

The word “conjunction” is comprised of parts meaning “with” and “join,” thus literally meaning “joined with.” The “con-” prefix, meaning “with,” is the same as found in the “com-” in “commune” and likewise is in the Spanish expression often used in English, “chili con carne,” which means “chili with meat.” The “-junction” portion of the word is related to “join,” but likewise is found in the identical word “junction,” which indicates the location of multiple things coming together. The word “conjunction” would be used in a sentence like, “The conjunction of the large paycheck with the significant medical bill was a happy occurrence, unexpectedly allowing Marge to pay for the accident without going into debt.”

The word “digression” is related to words like “regress” and “progressive.” It is comprised of two roots, both of which are likely familiar. The prefix “di-” here means “down from” or “away from.” The “-gress” comes from the Latin word for “to step.” The words “grade” and “gradual” both come from this same base, as do the aforementioned words. For example, “progression” is the process of “going forward (pro-).” The word “digression” means, “turning away from the path of an argument or discussion.” Often, we think of someone “digressing” into some topic that is unrelated to the one currently being discussed. Perhaps you have heard someone say, “But I digress.” When he or she says this, he or she means to say, “I acknowledge that I have gone off the topic, stepped away from the train of thought!” An example use of “digression” would be, “In the course of delivering his speech, the professor went off on a long digression to discuss the merits of coconut oil for the development of skin tissue. Nobody was quite sure why he was discussing this in an American literature class.”

The word relinquish is composed of the prefix “re-”, which here merely strengthens the sense of the base, and a base meaning “to leave or abandon.” The latter is related to words like “derelict,” “dereliction,” and “reliquary.” To “relinquish” something is to give it up freely. The word “renounce” means “to announce the abandonment of something.”

The word “migrate” is derived from the Latin root word for “to move or transport.” In the case of “immigrate,” the prefix “im-” is a form of “in”; therefore, the word means “to move into.” Immigrants are those persons who leave one area or country in order to settle in another. Among the options given, the only one that matches this general sense is “settle.” “Travel” and “perambulate” do not indicate the notion of “settling down” upon arrival, as would be the case with those who immigrate. Do not confuse this word with “emigrate,” which means “to move out of.” The same person can be an “immigrant” and an “emigrant.” He or she is called an “immigrant” when referring to the nation into which he or she is coming—e.g. “He immigrated into the United States after years of oppression.” The same person is said to “emigrate” with reference to the country that he or she had left—e.g. “He emigrated from his native country because of the dire oppression.”

The word “migrate” is derived from the Latin root word for “to move or transport.” In the case of “emigrate,” the prefix “e-” is a form of “ex,” meaning “out of”; therefore, the word means “to move out of.” Emigrants are those persons who leave a country. Among the options given, the only one that matches this general sense is “relocate.” “Travel” does not necessarily signify the idea of leaving a country in order to relocate somewhere else. Do not confuse this word with “immigrate,” which means “to move into.” The same person can be an “immigrant” and an “emigrant.” He or she is called an “immigrant” when referring to the nation into which he or she is coming—e.g. “He immigrated into the United States after years of oppression.” The same person is said to “emigrate” with reference to the country that he or she had left—e.g. “He emigrated from his native country because of the dire oppression.”

The word “permeate” is a combination of the prefix “per-”, here used to mean “through,” and the Latin root for “to go or pass.” It means to “go through” in the sense of something that fills a space. For example, one might say, “The smell of the fresh apple pie permeated the room, filling it with the wonderful odors of the autumnal dessert.” The word “perfuse” means “to pour through” in a sense close to that of “permeate.” Its “-fuse” portion is related to the same form that is found in “infuse” and “diffuse.”

The word “resuscitate” is derived from Latin roots meaning “to raise up again.” It is from this that we get the general sense of “resuscitate” as meaning “to bring back to life from a near death situation.” The word “revive” best signifies this, as it means “to bring back to life.” The “-vive” in “revive” is related to other words for life such as “vivify” and “survive.”