Vocabulary
April 2011
Fractious
adjective
*Fractiousness = noun
Definition: stubbornly disobedient or unruly;
readily angered; peevish; irritable; quarrelsome
Sentence: “His speaking voice, a gruff husky
tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness
he conveyed (11). ”
Synonyms: awkward, mean, recalcitrant;
disorderliness, rowdiness, uncontrollableness
Peremptory
adjective
Definition: leaving no opportunity for denial or
refusal; imperative
Sentence: “Something was making him nibble
at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical
egotism no longer nourished his peremptory
heart (25).”
Synonyms: arbitrary, compelling, domineering
Supercilious
adjective
Definition: haughtily disdainful or contemptuous,
as a person or facial expression
Sentence: “The supercilious assumption was
that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better
to do (28).”
Synonyms: arrogant, cocky, scornful
Ectoplasm
noun
Definition: spiritualism – the supposed emanation
from the body of a medium
Sentence: “He informed me that he was in the
‘artistic game’ and I gathered later that he was
a photographer and had made the dim
enlargement of Mrs. Wilson’s mother which
hovered like an ectoplasm on the wall (34).”
Strident
adjective
Definition: making or having a harsh sound;
characterized acoustically by noise of relatively
high intensity
Sentence: “I wanted to get out and walk
eastward toward the park through the soft
twilight but each time I tried to go I became
entangled in some wild strident argument which
pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair
(40).”
Synonyms: blatant, noisy, raucous
Prodigality
noun
Definition: wasteful extravagance in spending;
lavish abundance
Sentence: “Laughter is easier, minute by minute,
spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful
word (44).”
Synonyms: absurdity, extravagance, lavishness
Corpulent
adjective
Definition: large or bulky of body; stout; fat
Sentence: “I had expected that Mr. Gatsby
would be a florid and corpulent person in his
middle years (53).”
Synonyms: obese, rotund, weighty
Provincial
adjective
Definition: belonging or peculiar to some
particular province – a country, territory, district
or region; local;
Sentence: “But young men didn’t – at least in
my provincial inexperience I believed they
didn’t – drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a
palace on Long Island Sound (54).”
Synonyms: country, rural, small-town
Malevolence
noun
Definition: the quality or state of wishing harm or
evil to another or others; showing ill will; malice
Sentence: “In spite of the wives agreement that
such malevolence was beyond credibility the
dispute ended in a short struggle and both wives
were lifted kicking into the night (57).”
Synonyms: evil, hatred
Punctilious
adjective
Definition: strict or exact in the observance of
the formalities or amenities of conduct or
actions
Sentence: “This quality was continually breaking
through his punctilious manner in the shape of
restlessness (68).”
Synonyms: precise, conscientious, exact, formal
Denizen
noun
Definition: an inhabitant; resident; a person who
regularly frequents a place
Sentence: “’He becomes very sentimental
sometimes,’ explained Gatsby. ‘This is one of his
sentimental days. He’s quite a character
around New York – a denizen of Broadway
(77).’”
Synonyms: citizen, habitant, dweller
turgid
Definition: inflated, overblown, or pompous;
bombastic: turgid language
Sentence: “The none too savory ramifications
by which Ella Kaye, the newspaper woman,
played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness
and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common
knowledge to the turgid journalism of 1902
(106).”
Synonyms: inflated, tumid
Euphemism
noun
Definition: the substitution of a mild, indirect or
vague expression for one thought to be
offensive, harsh or blunt
Sentence: “She was appalled by West Egg, this
unprecedented ‘place’ that Broadway had begotten
upon a Long Island fishing village – appalled by its raw
vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by
the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along
and a short cut from nothing to nothing (114).”
Synonyms: inflation, purism, pretense
Dilatory
adjective
Definition: tending to delay or procrastinate;
slow; tardy
Sentence: “The dilatory limousine came rolling
up the drive (115).”
Synonyms: backward, dallying, late, leisurely
Redolent
adjective
Sentence: “There was ripe
mystery about it, a hint of
bedrooms, of gay and
radiant activities taking
place through its corridors
and of romances that were
not musty and laid way
already in lavender but fresh
and breathing and redolent
of this year’s shining motor
cars and of dances whose
flowers were scarcely
withered (155).”
Definition: strongly reminiscent or suggestive of
something; having or emitting fragrance
Sentence: “For Daisy was young and her artificial
world was redolent of orchids and pleasant,
cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the
rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and
suggestiveness of life in the new tunes (158). ”
Synonyms: scented, aromatic
Garrulous
adjective
Definition: excessively talkative in a rambling,
roundabout manner, especially trivial manners
Sentence: “I supposed there’d be a curious crowd
around there all day with little boys searching for dark
spots in the dust and some garrulous man telling over
and over what had happened until it became less and
less real even to him and he could tell it no longer and
Myrtle Wilson’s tragic achievement was forgotten
(163).”
Synonyms: babbling, blabbermouth, chatty
Fortuitous
adjective
Definition: happening or produced by chance,
accidental
Sentence: “A new world, material without being
real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like
air, drifted fortuitously about... like that ashen,
fantastic figure gliding toward him through the
amorphous trees (169).”
Synonyms: arbitrary, casual, incidental,
unplanned