English 2H 1984
Book One Vocabulary
Sordid (adj.): foul and run-down and repulsive.
"...and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger path and there had sprung up sordid colonies
of wooden dwellings like chicken houses?" (3).
Interminable (adj.): tiresomely long; seemingly without end.
"All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head...." (7-8).
Specious (adj.): plausible but false.
"And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein’s specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army…” (12-13).
Impedimenta (n.): equipment for an activity or expedition, especially when considered as bulky or an encumbrance.
"Games impedimenta--hockey sticks, boxing gloves, a burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out--lay all over the floor..." (21).
Labyrinthine (adj.): (of a system) intricate or confusing.
"His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies..." (35).
Repudiate (v.): refuse to acknowledge, ratify, or recognize as valid
"...to repudiate morality while laying claim to it...." (35).
Inscrutable (adj.): difficult or impossible to understand
"His face remained completely inscrutable" (36).
Rectify (v.): to put something right; correct.
"The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to rectify" (38).
Protuberant (adj.): protruding; bulging.
"He was a tiny creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large, protuberant eyes..." (48).
Subsidiary (adj.): less important than but related or supplementary to something.
"Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten." (52).
Fulminate (v.): to express vehement protest.
"He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army..." (54).
Dominion (n.): sovereignty or control.
"...little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party." (60).
Impregnable (adj.): (of a fortified position) unable to be captured or broken into; unable to be defeated or destroyed.
"The women of the Party were all alike. Chastity was as deeply ingrained in them as Party loyalty. By careful early conditioning...the natural feeling had been driven out of them. His reason told him that there must be exceptions, but his heart did not believe it. They were all impregnable, as the Party intended that they should be" (68).
Flog (v.): beat (someone) with a whip or stick as punishment or torture.
"Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines..." (70-71).
Array (v.): display or arrange (things) in a particular way.
"His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer" (81).
Convoluted (adj.): extremely complex or difficult to follow.
"It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other...At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone (95).
Tableau (n.): a group of models or motionless figures representing a scene from a story or from history.
"It was a museum used for propaganda displays of various kinds--scale models of rocket bombs and Floating Fortresses, a waxwork tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like" (98).
Incongruous (adj.): not in harmony with the surroundings or other aspects of something.
"Winston did not buy the picture. It would have been an even more incongruous possession than the glass paperweight, and impossible to carry home, unless it were taken out of its frame" (99).
Folly (n.): lack of good sense; foolishness.
"The serious piece of folly had been to come back here in the first place, after buying the diary and without knowing whether the proprietor of the shop could be trusted " (100).
Lassitude (n.): a state of physical or mental weariness; lack of energy.
"A deadly lassitude had taken hold of him. All he wanted was to get home quickly and then sit down and be quiet" (102).
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