Jane Eyre AP Lit Vocab Set 2

Slatternly

untidy; dirty from habitual neglect

"Hardened girl...nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits"

Miss Scatcherd to Jane

Gloaming

twilight; dusk

"She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming!"

Penurious

extremely poor; poverty stricken

"It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between the services."

Eliza Reed

Perfidious

faithless; disloyal; untrustworthy

"...I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition..."

Mrs. Reed

Approbation

approval or praise

"...Miss Miller had praised me warmly...Miss Temple had smiled approbation."

Miss Miller, Miss Temple to Jane

Tenacious

holding fast; holding together firmly; persistent

"Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of flesh..."

Jane

Fetid

smelling extremely unpleasant

"The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation..."

Ostensible

stated or appearing to be true, but not necessarily so

"My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker's to the post-office..."

Grace Poole

Soporific

tending to cause sleep, relating to sleepiness or lethargy; something that induces sleep

"...fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had finished undressing."

The Lowood School

Hamlet

a small settlement, generally one smaller than a village

"Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet..."

Demurely

shy, modest, reserved

"No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair."

Jane and Ms. Fairfax

Cachinnation

loud, excessive laughter

"I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation..."

Grace

Belied

contradicted or proved false

"The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates."

Caprice

a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior

"I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice."

Mr. Rochester to Jane

Piquant

pleasantly stimulating or exciting to the mind.

"Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naïve, and child-like in face and manner, and piquant in form..."

Amy

Celerity

to move with swiftness; rapidity of motion or action

"She hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, etc., with assiduous celerity."

Assiduous

persistent; attentive; diligent

"Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made."

Mary, Ms. Fairfax, Eliza Reed

Brook

tolerate or allow

"...as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel."

Palliate

to make less serious; ease

"I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you."

Salubrious

healthy

"All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen—quite your equal."

Sententious

self-righteous, characterized by moralizing

"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to abuse it."

Arrogate

to take without justification; to assume

"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted."

Expiating

to make up for guilt or sin

"I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work."

Mr. Rochester -- Bertha Mason

Charlatan

one who pretends to have knowledge in order to cheat others

"I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter."

Sardonically

characterized by bitter or scornful derision; mocking; cynical; sarcastically

"He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him."