English 210—Literature and World History    Name:                                                        

website:   http://www.geocities.com/reinsteinalan     email:  [email protected]  

 

 

 

LIST 1

From Fahrenheit 451

1.     STOLID                       With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head…(3)

 

 

 

2.     CACOPHONY              You drowned in music and pure cacophony (45).

 

 

 

3.     REBUT                         …for I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point (107)           .

 

 

 

4.     PERFUNCTORY           He glanced perfunctorily at it and shoved it in his pocket (108).

 

 

 

5.     AESTHETIC                And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later.  Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical (115).

 

 

 

6.     JUGGERNAUNT           He saw a great juggernaut of stars form in the sky and threaten to roll over and crush him (140).

 

 

 

7.     PEDANTIC                  The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important, we mustn’t be pedants (153).

 

 

 

LIST 2

(from Gilgamesh, translated by Herbert Mason)

8.     aBHOR

You inspire him to end

The evil of the world which you abhor

And yet he is a man for all his power

And cannot do your work.  (33)

 

 

 

 

9.     EXORCISE       Gilgamesh awoke but could not hear / His friend in agony, he still was captive to his dreams / Which he would tell aloud to exorcise (37).

 

 

 

 

 

 

10.   CONTORT      

a.    Monstrous in his contortion, he aroused / The two almost to pity (40)

 

b.     …watching the monster plead / In strangled sobs and desperate appeals / The way the sea contorts under a violent squall (40)

 

c.    …trembling hands / Contorted in continual pain (49)

 

 

 

 

11.   NAIVETE         We outgrow our naiveté / In thinking goddesses / Return our love (43).

 

 

 

12.   ARDUOUS       The way is arduous and long / And no one goes beyond (57).

 

 

 

13.   IMPETUOUS   No one has crossed the sea of death to him. / Will you?  You are impetuous like all the rest (65).

 

 

 

 

14.   SERENE (serenity) 

I do not think that you will be serene

Ever, or at peace enough for others

Not to be exhausted by your presence

Until, at last, you lose by your own hand

The very thing you crave to hold alone. (69)

 

 

 

 

LIST 3

15.   primordial             That we human beings share a mass of ‘primordial’ ideas about our existence few will deny  (“A Note on Myth” (handout)).

 

 

 

 

16.   mendacity   A good deal of myth’s popular reputation for mendacity must depend on the strange and historically improbable quality of the characters and events which often inhabit mythic narrative (“A Note on Myth” (handout)).

 

 

 

 

17.   enmity          And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, / and between thy seed and her seed  (Genesis 3:15).

 

 

 

 

18.   fratricide This murder is fratricide.  Throughout the tale it is emphasized that Cain and Abel are children  of the same parents (“Cain and Abel” (handout)).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19.   dubious        Cain does not assassinate for hire nor can he apparently expect to inherit Abel’s sheep.  There is not even the dubious logic of vengeance (“Cain and Abel” (handout)).

 

 

 

 

 

20.   countenance          But unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.  And Cain was very wroth (angry), and his countenance fell  (Genesis 4:5).

 

 

 

 

21.   foibles         That is, it is a work of art depicting and accepting the real follies and foibles of humanity (“Noah” (handout)).

 

 

 

LIST 4

22.   precursor   They thought of them as the precursors of men and they defined them far more clearly as individuals than they had earth and heaven (Ham., from “How the World and Mankind Were Created”).

 

 

 

23.   beneficent   …but they were not purely destructive.  Several of them were even beneficent.  One, indeed, after men had been created, saved them from destruction (Ham., from “How the World and Mankind Were Created”).

 

 

 

24.   pinnacle (apex, zenith) (antonym:  nadir) “The rope I would bind to a pinnacle of Olympus and all would hang in air…  (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

25.   omnipotent            “Nevertheless he was not omnipotent or omniscient, either.  He could be opposed and deceived.  Poseidon dupes him in the Iliad and so does Hera.” (Ham., “The Gods”)

 

 

 

 

26.   omniscient  (See omnipotent above)

 

 

 

 

27.   scornful      Homer makes Hera ask him scornfully if he proposes to deliver from death a man Fate has doomed (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

 

 

28.   majestic      The explanation why such actions were ascribed to the most majestic of the gods is, the scholars say, that the Zeus of song and story has been made by combining many gods (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST 5

29.   implacable             Her implacable anger followed them and their children too (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

30.   venerate (Venerable)         …she was venerated in every home.  She was the goddess married women turned to for help (Ham, “The Gods”).

 

 

 

31.   eminence (eminent) He was the ruler of the sea, Zeus’s brother and second only to him in eminence (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

32.   inexorable             

a.    He was not a welcome visitor.  He was unpitying, inexorable, but just; a terrible, not an evil god (Hamilton, “The Gods”).

b.     (from Romeo and Juliet)   The time and my intents are savage-wild, / More fierce and more inexorable far / Than empty tigers or the roaring sea (5.3.37-39)

 

 

 

33.   oracle          Delphi under towering Parnassus, here Apollo’s oracle was, plays an important part in mythology  (Hamilton, “The Gods”).

 

 

 

 

34.   malicious    In later poems she is usually shown as treacherous and malicious, exerting a deadly and destructive power over men (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

35.   redoubtable           He never was to them the mean whining deity of the Iliad, but magnificent in shining armor, redoubtable, invincible (Ham., “The Gods”).

 

 

 

LIST 6

36.   SLAKE             The fierce beast had made a kill; her jaws were bloody and she was coming to slake her thirst in the spring (“Pyramus and Thisbe”).

 

 

 

37.   ZEAL (ZEALOUS)                      …and when the heroes were weary…he would strike his lyre and they would be aroused to fresh zeal  (“Orpheus and Eurydice”).

 

 

 

38.   SMITE             …and their oars would smite the sea together in time to the melody (“Orpheus and Eurydice”).

 

 

 

39.   PRECIPITOUS            Worst of all is the descent, so precipitous that the Sea-gods waiting to receive me wonder how I can avoid falling headlong (“Phaethon”). 

 

 

 

40.   FIERY             

a.     Their fiery spirits grow hotter as they climb and they scarcely suffer my control  (“Phaethon”).

 

b.     (from Romeo and Juliet)  In the instant came / The fiery Tybalt with his sword prepared (1.1.111-112)

 

English 210—Literature and World History    Name:                                                        

website:   http://www.geocities.com/reinsteinalan     email:  [email protected]  

 

 

 

LIST 1

from Of Mice and Men

41.   MOTTLED       …and sycamores with mottled, white…limbs and branches that arch over the pool (1).

 

 

 

42.   RECUMBENT   …and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool (1)

 

 

 

43.   IMPERIOUS

a.     George’s hand remained outstretched imperiously…George snapped his fingers sharply, and at the sound Lennie laid the mouse in his hand (9).

 

b.     (from The House of the Scorpion) Inside he was quaking with fear, but outside he gave the Keeper as cold and imperious a look as El Patron had ever mustered to terrify an underling (302).

 

 

 

44.   MOROSE         He fell morosely silent (23).

 

 

 

45.   PUGNACIOUS                         His glance was at once calculating and pugnacious. Lennie squirmed under the look and shifted his feet nervously (25).

 

 

 

46.   DEROGATORY            The old man was reassured.  He had drawn a derogatory statement from George.  He felt safe now, and he spoke more confidently (27-28).

 

 

 

47.   COMPLACENT            “…that big bastard there can put up more grain alone than most pairs can.”

Lennie…smiled complacently at the compliment (34).

 

 

LIST 2

48.   HOOSEGOW    These here jail baits is just set on the trigger of the hoosegow (56).

 

 

 

 

49.   RAPT              He looked raptly at the wall over Lennie’s head.  “An’ it’d be our own, an’ nobody could can us” (58).

 

 

 

50.   REPREHENSIBLE        When Candy spoke they both jumped as though they had been caught doing something reprehensible (58-59).

 

 

 

 

 

51.   ALOOF            The room was swept and fairly neat, for Crooks was a proud, aloof man (67).

 

 

 

52.   SULLEN           Candy repeated sullenly, “Got it caught in the machine” (78).

 

 

 

53.   CONTEMPTUOUS       “Awright,” she said contemptuously.  “Awright…Whatta I care?  You bindle bums think you’re so damn good” (78).

 

 

 

54.   BELLIGERENT             Now Lennie retorted belligerently, “He ain’t neither.  George won’t do nothing like that” (102).

 

 

 

LIST 3

From The Catcher in the Rye

55.   OSTRACIZE 

a.     I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway…The whole team ostracized me the whole way back on the train (3).

b.      

c.      When I came around the side of the bed and sat down again, she turned her crazy face the other way.  She was ostracizing the hell out of me.  Just like the fencing team at Pencey when I left all the goddam foils on the subway (166).

 

 

 

56.   COMPULSORY            …the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech (17). 

 

 

 

57.   PSYCHOANALYZE     

a.     I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage (38-39). 

 

b.     It was written by a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel (188).

 

 

 

 

58.   UNSCRUPULOUS         If you knew Stradlater, you’d have been worried, too.  I’d double-dated with that bastard a couple of times, and I know what I’m talking about.  He was unscrupulous (40).

 

 

 

 

59.   INCOGNITO   

a.     “Well, the thing is, I don’t want to stay at any hotels…where I might run into some acquaintances of mine.  I’m traveling incognito,” I said.  I hate saying corny things like “traveling incognito” (60).

 

b.     He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an hour.  He was supposed to be incognito or something (168)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

60.   NONCHALANT / BLASÉ

a.     He got stinking [drunk], but I hardly didn’t even show it.  I just got very cool and nonchalant (90).

 

b.     I was getting more and more nonchalant as it went along (94).

 

c.      He was with some gorgeous blond, and the two of them were trying to be very blasé and all, like as if he didn’t even know people were looking at him (126).

 

 

 

 

61.   SPENDTHRIFT            I spent a king’s ransom in about two lousy weeks.  I really had.  I’m a goddam spendthrift at heart (107).

 

 

 

 

LIST 4

62.   BOURGEOIS    He was always saying snotty things about them, my suitcases, for instance.  He kept saying they were too new and bourgeois (108).

 

 

 

 

63.   SACRILEGIOUS          I said old Jesus probably would’ve puked if He could see it—all those fancy costumes and all.  Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist.  I probably am (137). 

 

 

 

 

64.   INANE                         Must I go on with this inane conversation? (146)

 

 

 

65.   DIGRESSION               It’s this course where each boy in class has to get up in class and make a speech.  You know.  Spontaneous and all.  And if the boy digresses at all, you’re suppose to yell ‘Digression!’ at him as fast as you can…The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses.  It’s more interesting and all (183).

 

 

 

 

66.   PEDAGOGY     One short, faintly stuffy, pedagogical question.  Don’t you think there’s a time and place for everything?  Don’t you think if someone starts out to tell you about his father’s farm, he should stick to his guns, then get around to telling you about his uncle’s brace? (184). 

 

 

 

67.   RECIPROCAL Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now.  Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.  You’ll learn from them—if you want to.  Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you.  It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement (189).

 

 

 

LIST 5

From Romeo and Juliet

68.   KINSMAN

(from “Characters in the Play”)

a.     benvolio, their kinsman (to the Montagues)

b.     tybalt,  kinsman to the Capulets

 

 

 

 

69.   PROFANE

a.     Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, / Profaners of this neighbor-stained steel-- / Will they not hear? (1.1.83-85) 

 

b.     If I profane with my unworthiest hand / This holy shrine (1.5.104)

 

 

 

70.   PERNICIOUS              You men, you beasts, / That quench the fire of your pernicious rage / With purple fountains issuing from your veins (1.1.85-87).

 

 

 

71.   CANKER          Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate (1.1.97)

 

 

 

72.   HUMOR          

a.     I…/ pursued my humor, not pursuing his, / And gladly sunned who gladly fled from me (1.1.128-133).

 

b.     Black and portentous must this humor prove (1.1.144)

 

 

 

73.   AUGMENT       Many a morning hath he there been seen, / With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew / Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs (1.1.134-36).

 

 

 

74.   PORTENTOUS                         Black and portentous must this humor prove, / Unless good counsel may the cause remove (1.1.144-45). 

 

 

LIST 6

75.   IMPORTUNE

Benvolio

My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

Montague          

I neither know it nor can learn of him

Benvolio

Have you importuned him by any means?

Montague          

Both by myself and many other friends.

            But he, his own affections’ counselor,

            Is to himself                   (1.1.146-51)

 

 

 

76.   TYRANNY       Alas that love, so gentle in his view, / Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! (1.1.174-75).

 

 

 

77.   PROPAGATE              Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, / Which though wilt propagate to have it pressed / With more of thine (1.1.193-95). 

 

 

78.   SIEGE              She will not stay the siege of loving terms (1.1.220) 

 

 

 

79.   ASSAIL           Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes (1.1.221)

 

 

80.   POSTERITY                For beauty, staved with her severity, /Cuts beauty off from all posterity (1.1.228).

English 210—Literature and World History    Name:                                                        

website:   http://www.geocities.com/reinsteinalan     email:  [email protected]  

 

 

LIST 1

81.   TRUDGE                                              Go, sirrah, trudge about

Through fair Verona, find those persons out

Whose names are written there, and to them say

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.       (1.2.35-39)

 

82.   LANGUISH      One desperate grief cures with another’s languish. / Take thou some new infection to thy eye, / And the rank poison of the old will die (1.2.50-52).

 

 

 

 

83.   SCANT            And she shall scant show well that now seems best (1.3.106).

 

 

 

84.    BESEECH        I beseech you, follow straight (1.4.109-10).

 

 

85.   PROLIXITY    The date is out of such prolixity (Benvolio to Romeo, 1.4.3)

 

 

 

86.   PROROGUE     My life were better ended by their hate / Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love (Romeo to Juliet, 2.2.82-83).

 

 

 

87.   DOTE

ROMEO:                       Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAWRENCE:       For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.         (2.3.86-87)

 

 

 

 

 

LIST 2

88.   POULTICE      Is this the poultice for my aching bones? (Nurse to Juliet, 2.5.68-69)

 

 

 

89.   CONSORT      

TYBALT                  Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.

MERCUTIO             Consort?  What, dost thou make us minstrels  (3.1. 46-47)

 

 

 

 

90.   DEXTERITY                …and with the other sends / It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity / Retorts it (Benvolio to the Prince, 3.1.170-72).

 

 

 

91.   PERJURE                     There’s no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men.  All perjured, / All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers (Nurse to Juliet, 3.2.92-94).

 

 

 

92.   DISSEMBLER              There’s no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men.  All perjured, / All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers (Nurse to Juliet, 3.2.92-94).

 

 

 

 

93.   LAMENTATION          …modern lamentation might have moved (Juliet to Nurse, 3.2.131).

 

 

 

 

94.   BEGUILE                     Poor ropes, you are beguiled, / Both you and I…(Juliet, 3.2.145).

 

 

 

LIST 3

95.   VESTAL                       …her lips, / Who even in pure and vestal modesty / Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin (Romeo to Friar Lawrence 3.3.39-41). 

 

 

 

 

96.   USURER                      

Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,

Which, like a userer, abound’st in all

And usest none in that true use indeed

Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.  (Friar Lawrence to Romeo, 3.3.132-135)

 

 

 

 

97.   WOO                These times of woe afford no times to woo (Paris to Capulet, 3.4.8).

 

 

 

98.   JOCUND          Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day / Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops (Romeo to Juliet, 3.5.9-10).

 

 

 

 

99.   ASUNDER       

Villain and he be many miles asunder (Juliet, 3.5.86).

 

O, what more favor can I do to thee / Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain / To sunder his that was thine enemy (Romeo, 5.3.100).

 

 

 

 

100.                  ARBITRATE

‘Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife

Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that

Which the commission of thy years and art

Could to no issue of true honor bring.         (Juliet, 4.1.63-66)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

101.                  APOTHECARY            I do remember an apothecary / (And hereabout he dwells) which late I noted…(Romeo, 5.1. 40-41)

 

 

 

 

LIST 4

102.                  PENURY                     

Noting his penury, to myself I said

“An if a man did need a poison now,

Whose sale is present death in Mantua,

Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.”  (Romeo, 5.1.52-55)

 

 

 

 

103.                  PESTILENCE               …Suspecting that we both were in a house / Where the infectious pestilence did reign (Friar John, 5.2.9-10)

 

 

 

104.                  HAUGHTY                   This is that banished haughty Montegue…(5.3.49) 

 

 

 

105.                  PARAMOUR

            Shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps

Thee here in the dark to be his paramour?  (Romeo, 5.3.102-105)

 

 

 

 

106.                  AUSPICIOUS             

        O, here

Will I set up my everlasting rest

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh!      (Romeo, 5.3.109-112)

 

 

 

 

107.                  ENGROSS        …seal with a righteous kiss / A dateless bargain to engrossing death (5.3.113-115)

 

 

 

LIST 5

From The Joy Luck Club

108.                  CEREBRAL

 

 

 

109.                  BETROTH

 

 

 

110.                  PRESUMPTUOUS

 

 

 

111.                  APPARITION

 

 

 

112.                  JAUNTY

 

 

 

113.                  GAWKER

 

 

 

114.                  SWOON

 

 

 

LIST 6

115.                  IMPERTINENT

 

 

 

116.                  KOWTOW

 

 

 

117.                  LOATHE

 

 

 

118.                  INSIDIOUS

 

 

 

119.                  REVERENTIAL

 

 

 

120.                  PIOUS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English 210—Literature and World History    Name:                                                        

website:   http://www.geocities.com/reinsteinalan     email:  [email protected]  

 

 

 

 

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