Question

Eventually, the book reviewer decides on a classic, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Though this is an older book, and some words are antiquated, you’re up for the challenge!

Now that you’ve started reading, it’s clear that though some words might be older, they can still be defined by using words around them as context.

A paragraph reads:

“If all else perished (died), and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

What word in the passage could you use to contextualize and infer the meaning of the word annihilated?

Perished
Continue
Stranger
Remained

Answer 1

Perished.

The sentence pairs the two clauses symmetrically: “perished (died)” parallels “annihilated,” so the use of “perished” (explicitly labeled “died”) lets you infer that “annihilated” means destroyed or killed.