Heart of Darkness: Vocab 1

Ascetic

Practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and spiritual discipline. A person who practices asceticism

Alienist

Previous term for a psychiatrist / psychiatry

Hyponym

A more specific term; an individual part of a larger group.

Abject

A person in the lowest and worst condition; a castaway; outcast.

Badness experienced to the fullest degree.

August

Awe-inspiring, majestic, noble, venerable. Of noble birth.

Conflagrations

A large fire extending to many objects, or over a large space; a general burning. A large-scale conflict.

Crestfallen

Sad because of a recent disappointment. Depressed.

Immutability

The state of unchangeability

Inscrutable

Cannot be comprehended, understood, or grasped.

Interminable

Hyperbolically endless.

Moribund

Near death or ending.

Insidious

Producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner. Intending to entrap; alluring but harmful.

Sepulcher

A burial chamber.

Impalpable

Not able to be perceived by the senses (especially by touch); Not easily grasped or understood.

Evanescent

Disappearing, vanishing. Barely there; almost imperceptible.

Hullabaloo

A clamour, a commotion; a fuss or uproar.

Farcical

Resembling a farce; ludicrous; absurd.

Perdition

Eternal damnation. Hell. Absolute ruin.

Recondite

Hidden or obscure, hard-to-find.

A scholar or other person who has mastery over his or her field, including its esoteric minutiae.

Absconded

To flee, often secretly, particularly to avoid arrest or prosecution. To withdraw from.

Effaced

To erase (as anything impressed or inscribed upon a surface); to render illegible or indiscernible. To make oneself inobtrusive as if due to modesty or diffidence.

Trenchant

Gutting; sharp. Keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.

Confounded

To perplex or puzzle. To fail to see the difference; to mix up. To make something worse. To cause to be ashamed; to abash. To defeat, to frustrate, to thwart, to stun, amaze

Inestimable

Not able to be estimated; not able to be calculated, computed or comprehended, as because of great scale, degree or magnitude.

Prodigious

Very big in size or quantity; gigantic; colossal; huge. Extraordinarily exciting or amazing. Ominous, portentous. Monstrous; freakish.