8th grade vocabulary worksheets

A real sample sheet.

10 vocabulary skills at 8th grade, one sheet each, free with its answer key: allusion, analogies, connotation and denotation, and more.

Every sheet on this page was added on or after Sep 28. See what else is new

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  • Allusion An allusion is a quick nod to a story, a myth, or a famous moment. The writer expects you to catch it without being told.
  • Analogies An analogy is a word puzzle in two pairs: work out how the first pair fits together, then finish the second pair the very same way.
  • Connotation and denotation Denotation is a word's dictionary meaning. Connotation is its glow. Slender and scrawny both mean thin; one compliments, one insults.
  • Context clues The sentence around a hard word usually hides its meaning. Read past the word, find the clue, then decide: The arid desert had not seen rain for months, so arid must mean very dry.
  • Greek and Latin roots Old Greek and Latin word parts hide inside big English words: tele means far, so telescope, telephone, and television all reach across distance.
  • Idioms An idiom means something different from its exact words. A piece of cake means easy; raining cats and dogs means pouring. The sentence around it tells you which.
  • Irony Verbal irony is saying the opposite of what you mean. Situational irony is an outcome nobody expected. Dramatic irony is when the reader knows something a character does not.
  • Literary devices A literary device is a tool a writer uses on purpose. Alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia play with sound. Hyperbole makes things bigger than the truth and understatement makes them smaller. Personification, oxymoron and allusion make you see something in a new way.
  • Puns A pun is a joke that uses one word two ways at once. The baker could never make enough dough: dough is bread, and dough is money.
  • Similes and metaphors A simile compares with like or as: brave as a lion. A metaphor says one thing IS another: the classroom was a zoo.

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