The next narrator in Seedfolks is an older man named Sam. Before he retired, Sam worked in many different jobs all over the world. However, all of those jobs were focused on the same goal: to make the world a more peaceful place.

Sam’s career involved helping governments and other powerful groups resolve their conflicts and work together to solve problems. Naturally, Sam had to seem smart and professional so that world leaders would listen to him and take his ideas seriously. To do the kind of work that he did, he probably had a master’s degree, which would require many years of college. Also, Sam would have needed to be skilled in the use of academic vocabulary, a fancy term for “big words” that represent even bigger ideas.

In the chapter that he narrates, Sam says that his work involved setting up “conferences on pacifism.” The word pacifism comes from the word pacific, which comes from two much older words in a language that is hardly ever spoken anymore: Latin. The Latin word paci means peace, and -ficus means making. Therefore, pacific means peace-making. The suffix -ism is added to words in English to describe a condition or practice. Pacifism, then, is the practice of making peace.

You can use your knowledge of pacifism to figure out the meaning of similar words. Try to guess what word each image represents. Each word shares some letters with pacifism.

This device helps soothe a baby.

This kind of person pushes for peace and opposes war.

This word ending in -ism describes the condition of attraction.