Gatsby Vocabulary and Allusions
You should look these up and define/identify them well before you read the chapter from which they originate.
Chapter 6
Vocabulary
ambitious
transpired
laudable
initiative
notoriety
contemporary
persistent
insidious
Definition/Identification
Allusions
Lake Superior
shiftless
Platonic (as in Plato)
vast
vulgar
meretricious
clam digger
capacity
contemptuous
ignorant
self-absorption
turbulent
riot
grotesque
fantastic
conceits
ineffable
gaudiness
wash-stand
fancies
vivid
oblivious
reveries
founded
St. Olaf
dismayed
ferocious
indifference
Nevada (+silver
fields)
(This is capitalized, so it’s alluding to a specific date and a
specific occurrence. Use context clues to help you decide
what it’s referring to in combination to what you see when
you look this up.)
Seventy-five
softmindedness
(none too) savory
ramifications
Madame de Maintenant
turgid
hospitable
elicited
extravagantly
Duluth
duck trousers
West Indies
Barbary Coast
vague
capacity
steward
mate
skipper
secretary
jailor
contingencies
reposing
inhospitably
florid
debauchee
brothel
intact
substantiality
antecedents
ingratiate
riding habit
profoundly
gruffly
haughtily
highballs
cordial
gratitude
impassioned
foliage
perturbed
oppressiveness
profusion
commotion
pervading
invariably
expended
murmurous
scarcely
orchid
(a woman who sat) in state
hitherto
ceremoniously
oblivion
fox-trot
sauntered
supper
genially
tipsy
septic
inquiry
lethargic
hollowly
proximity
inarguably
gesture
appalled
(Look up what it means to sit “in state”.)
unprecedented
begotten
vigor
chafed
euphemisms
obtrusive
herded
inhabitants
volleying
rouged (and powdered)
contralto
dilatory
radiant
unutterable
incredulously
lurking
bustle
incomparable
incarnation
appalling
sentimentality
elusive
uncommunicable