Vocabulary

(Chris)

Quack: A fraud pretending to be a medical physician

Pg:74- “He understands nothing! and yet it was exactly the type of cheap quack that gave you the medicine in the first place”

Bunk: Nonsense

Pg:77- “Enough to know it’s a load of bunk.”

Consumption: The old name for tuberculosis

Pg:79- “It’s what you thought. He’s got consumption.”

Sanatorium: A hospital for the treatment of chronic diseases and mental disorders

Pg:79- “He’ll have to go to a sanatorium.”

Over-the-hills-to-the-poorhouse: a movie in the 1920’s about a woman who can not enjoy life due to her many children. In the context of the book it is used to emphasize how stingy tyrone is by saying he will tell tragic stories of his financial situation to save money.

Pg:79- “Well, don’t give hardy your old over-the-hills-to-the-poorhouse song about taxes and mortgages.

Old Sod: A person’s home country

Pg:80- “Then before his father can react to this insult to the Old Sod, he adds dryly, shrugging his shoulders.”

Cynicism: A distrust for other’s motives

Pg:97- “She has hidden deeper within herself and found refuge and release in a dream where present reality is but an appearance to be accepted and dismissed unfeelingly-even with a hard cynicism-or entirely ignored.”

Gay: Light-hearted and carefree

Pg:97- “There is at times an uncanny gay, free youthfulness in her manner, as if in spirit she were released to become again, simply and without self-consciousness, the naive, happy, chattering schoolgirl of her convent days.”

Rheumatism: Any one of the painful disorders involving muscles, joints, or connective tissue.

Pg:99- “The damp is in Bridget’s rheumatism and she’s like a raging devil.

Coquette: a flirtatious woman.

Pg:105- “Coquettishly”

(Gillian)

Automaton: a mechanical device, operated electronically, that functions automatically, without continuous input from an operator

Pg: 123- "Goes slowly to the windows at right like an automaton - looking out, a blank, far-off quality in her voice."

Goad: something that encourages, urges, or drives; a stimulus

Pg: 130- Tyrone: “Forgive me, lad. I forgot- You shouldn't goad me into losing my temper.”

Soused: drunk; intoxicated

Pg: 130- Edmund: “Forget it, Papa. I apologize, too. I had no right being nasty about nothing. I am a bit soused, I guess.”

Wallop: to strike with a vigorous blow; belt; sock

Pg: 134- Edmund: “It did pack a wallop, all right. On you, too. Even if you’ve never missed a performance!”

Rogue: a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel

Pg 141- Tyrone: “She was a bit of a rogue and a coquette, God bless her, behind all her shyness and blushes.”

Tightwad: a close-fisted or stingy person

Pg: 148- Edmund: “But to think when it’s a question of you son having consumption, you can show yourself up before the whole town as such a stinking old tightwad!”

Miser: a person who lives in wretched circumstances in order to save and hoard money

Pg: 151- Tyrone: “It was in those old days I learned to be a miser.”

Ossified: drunk

Pg: 159- Jamie: “What’s the matter with the Old Man tonight? Must be ossified to forget he left this out.”

Mauldin: William Henry ("Bill") 1921–2003, U.S. political cartoonist

Pg 164- “He pauses - then with maudlin humor, in a harm-actor tone.”

Bunk: humbug; nonsense

Pg 166- Jamie: “Yet I’ll bet you’ve heard Mama and old Gaspard spill so much bunk about my hoping for the worst .."

(Thando)

Rheumatism: A medical problem that affects the joints and/or connective tissue.

Pg 12- “Her hands are never still. They were once beautiful hands, with long, tapering fingers, but rheumatism has knotted the joints and warped the fingers, so now they have an ugly crippled look.”

Confab: An informal private conversation or discussion

Pg 15- “It’s a secret confab they don’t want me to hear, I suppose.”

Huffy: Annoyed or irritated and quick to take offense at petty things.

Pg 15- “Huffily”

Dissipation: Complete disintegration

Pg 19- “His [Jamie] face is still good looking, despite marks of dissipation, but it has never been handsome like Tyrone’s, although Jamie resembles him rather than his mother.”

Scathingly: Harshly critical

Pg 21

Scathingly

“If it takes my snoring so make you remember Shakespeare instead of the dope sheet on the ponies, I hope I’ll keep on with it.”

Shanty Mick: poor or disreputable person of Irish descent

Pg 22- “He’s a wily Shanty Mick, that one.”

Plutocrat: a person whose power derives from their wealth.

Pg 24- “A very bonehead play! If I needed any further proof that our ruling plutocrats, especially the one who inherited their boodle, are not mental giants, that would clinch it.”

Scoundrel: A dishonest or unscrupulous person; a rogue

Pg 25- “That damned old scoundrel! By God, you can’t beat him!”

Flurriedly: Sudden commotion, excitement, or confusion; nervous hurry

Pg 42- “Suddenly she is self-consciously aware that they are both staring fixedly at her-- flurriedly, raising her hands.”

Vehemently: An extremely strong, powerful, or intense emotion or force

Pg 48 “Too vehemently I didn’t think anything!”