Junior Midterm Exam

Vocabulary Powerpoint

Definition: to burn or reduce to charcoal (verb)

“They scrabbled through the charred ruins of houses they would not have entered before.”(92)

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The house was charred to a crisp.

“…Slumped and cowled and shivering in their rags like mendicant friars sent forth to find their keep.” (McCarthy, 126)

The mendicant hobo from New York desperately sought food from the soup kitchen.

Def: Noun; a person who lives by begging; a member of any several orders of friars that forbade ownership of property and lived solely on alms.

Emaciated

• “Emaciated, clothed in rags. Holding lengths of pipe” (McCarthy 185).

• Adjective; to cause, or to become thin and wasted.

• The girl looked extremely emaciated because she looked like she weighed 2 lbs.

Floundered

• “They struggled on for some hours and then floundered off through the roadside brush…” (McCarthy 187).

• Verb; To move clumsily or with difficulty.

• The fox floundered quickly into the woods after it saw a car coming down the road.

Sumptuous

• “They ate a sumptuous meal by candlelight” (McCarthy 154).

• Adjective; excessively costly, rich, or luxurious.

• Walker and Christina ate a very sumptuous meal at the fancy schmancy 5 star hotel.

Quaint

• Attractively odd

• Old fashioned

“The quaint concerns,”(McCarthy,28).

Adjective

Desolation

“The dead grass thrashed softly. Out there a

gray desolation. The endless seacrawl (McCarthy 221).”

sorrow; grief; woe; devastation; ruin.

Noun

the barren fields, no food, desolation set on to the people.

Congealing

“Light the color of wash water congealing in the dirty pines of glass (McCarthy 262).“

to change from a soft or fluid state to a rigid or solid state, as by cooling or freezing

Verb

As I watched the pan that I made breakfast in the bacon fat was congealing in front of

me.

Bleak• DEFINITION: Adjective;

Barren, desolate, often windswept

“ He stood in the back door and looked out at the fields and the road beyond and the bleak country” (McCarthy 132).

The desert land was bleak.

Starkly• Adjective; harsh, grim, or desolate

“ The fire blacked boulders like the shapes of bears on the starkly wooded slopes.” (McCarthy 30).

It was a very stark landscape.

Evasive

• Adjective

• tending or seeking to avoid; not straightforward; tricky

Trepidation

• noun

• fearful uncertainty, anxiety, apprehension

Defamation

• noun

• a false statement that harms the reputation of another

Contentious

• Adjective

• always ready to argue; quarrelsome

Prodigious

• Adjective

• wonderful; amazing of great size, power, extent, enormous; huge

Gaunt

• Adjective

• excessively thin and pale

Obstinate

• Adjective

• firmly or stubbornly sticking to one's purpose, or opinion; not yielding to argument

Irreverent

• Adjective

• lacking proper respect or seriousness

Formidable

• Adjective

• of great strength; forceful; powerful

Apathetic

• Adjective

• having or showing little or no emotion; not interested or concerned; indifferent

Intimation

• Noun

• to indicate or make known indirectly; hint; imply; suggest.

“The country was stripped and plundered years ago and they found nothing in the houses and buildings by the roadside” (McCarthy 181).

Plundered

Definition: to rob of goods or valuables by open force, as in war, hostile raids, brigandage

Part of Speech: verb

The town was plundered by those leaving nothing left but dust.

Dwindling

“When he looked back the old man had set out with his cane, tapping his way, dwindling slowly on the road behind them like some storybook peddler from an antique time, dark and bent and spider thin and soon to vanish forever” (McCarthy 174).

Definition: to become smaller and smaller; shrink; waste away

Part of Speech: verb

The flower was dwindling as time went on, dying and wasting away to almost nothing.

“He looked at the boy out of his sunken haggard eyes.”(McCarthy190)

• Part of Speech: Adjective• Definition: Appearing worn and exhausted.

Haggard