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Course: 6th grade reading and vocabulary (improved and expanded) > Unit 5
Lesson 2: Understanding visual evidenceSanctuary | Vocabulary
Let’s explore the meaning and origin of the word “sanctuary”.
Created by David Rheinstrom.
Want to join the conversation?
- what if you get mixed up with the church sanctuary and an animal sanctuary?!(1 vote)
- yeah books, eels, shipwrecks, or snakes from me, your herpetologist. The study of snakes if you didn't know I study snakes;)(1 vote)
- Hello everyone,I know this is very off topic,but does anyone have a favorite marvel character, hulk, iron man, spider man, black widow, doctor strange etc...(0 votes)
- gwen from across the spiderverse(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [David] It's all gonna
be okay. wordsmiths. We're approaching a sanctuary. This is a peaceful video
about a peaceful word. Sanct-ohh-air-ee. It's a noun. It means a place to hide and be safe, a place of protection
for humans or animals. Maybe you've heard of
an elephant sanctuary, or a whale sanctuary. These are protected places for
those animals to live safely. I love the components of this word. It's from Latin, and we can
break it down into two parts. "Sanct" comes from the Latin
(speaks Latin) meaning holy. A sanctuary is literally a holy place, like a room intended for worship, but its meaning has expanded
beyond just that use. And, "ary" is a piece of
Latin that makes nouns. It means a place for, or a person for. So, a sanctuary is a place for holiness, a church, classically, where
you could hide out from the law that was sanctuary. What words can you think of that contain either of these
elements, "sanct" or "ary?" I'll give you 10 seconds of
very chill, pleasant music, and meet you back here, okay? Let's go. (chill electronic music) Here are three words I
thought of, "library, right? A place for books. "Sanctify," to make
something holy, to bless it. I just took that suffix that
makes verbs, "ify," I-F-Y, and attached it to Sanct,
right, holy-making, and sanction, which is a
kind of official decree. It used to be specifically
a church decree, but now it can be used
in a variety of ways. It might mean that something
is officially approved, like a school sanctioned event, or it might mean a penalty
for breaking a law or a rule, like sanctions against a company for doing something illegal. Let's use sanctuary in a sentence or two. Here we can see it as
a literal, safe place. "Jean Baptiste realized that the shipwreck had
become an artificial reef, a sanctuary for eels and seahorses." The sea creatures lived there,
they're protected there. It's their habitat. But, we can also use the word
in a more figurative sense. "Ana Maria saw the
library as her sanctuary. She could wall herself up with books, and block out the rest of the world." Ana Maria doesn't live in the library, it's a place where she feels safe. She can make a little book fortress. And, in so doing, feel protected. I hope that you can find a
sanctuary in the things you love, wordsmiths, whether it's
books, or eels, or shipwrecks. I think those are the
three options, right? You can learn anything, David out.