Fun Home Chpts 3-4 Vocab

Multivalent

Adjective. Having many values, meanings, or appeals

Qualmish

Adjective. Feeling qualms; nauseated; overly scrupulous; squeamish

Doleful

Adjective. Full of/expressing grief; causing grief; sad

Noblesse oblige

The inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility towards less privileged people

Discomfit

Verb. To put into a state of perplexity/embarrassment (disconcert); to frustrate the plans of (thwart)

Mercenary

Adjective. Serving only for pay or sordid (ignoble) advantage; hired for service in the army of a foreign country

Harbinger

Noun. Something that foreshadows a future event, gives an anticipatory sign of what is to come; one that initiates a major change

Epistle

Noun. A letter (especially a formal/elegant one); one of the letters adopted as books in the New Testament

Peignoir

Noun. A woman’s loose negligee or dressing gown

Redolent

Adjective. Exuding fragrance (aromatic); full of a specific fragrance (scented); evocative/suggestive

Ardently

Adjective. Characterized by warmth of feeling/sentiment (typically expressed by eager zealous support or activity)

Fecundity

Noun form of adjective. Fruitful in offspring or vegetation; intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degree

Aureole

Noun. A radiant light around the head or body of a sacred person; radiance; aura; the luminous area surrounding the sun or other bright light when seen through thin cloud or mist; a ring shaped zone around an igneous intrusion

Prestidigitation

Noun. Sleight of hand; legerdemain

Perusal

Noun. A reading or examining of something

Demiglace

Noun. A highly concentrated, reduced brown sauce frequently used as a base for other sauces

Converge

Verb. Come together (in one common interest or focus); meet; tend to move toward one point

Welter

Verb. To writhe, toss, or wallow; rise and fall and toss about in or with waves; become deeply sunk, soaked, or involved

Humectant

Noun. A substance that promotes retention of moisture

Cartilaginous

Adjective. Composed of, relating to, or resembling cartilage.

Postlapsarian

Adjective. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the time or state after the fall of humankind described in the Bible

Lissome

Adjective. Easily flexed; lithe; nimble