H.O.D vocab #1

Question 1

In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the LUMINOUS space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of
canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits.

Answer 1

Luminous

Full of or shedding light; bright or shining, especially in the dark.

Question 2

Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an INTERMINABLE waterway.

Answer 2

Interminable

having or seeming to have no end.

Question 3

He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an **ASCETIC **aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol.

Answer 3

Ascetic
- practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline

Question 4

the very mist on the Essex marsh
was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in **DIAPHANOUS **folds.

Answer 4

Diaphanous
* characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through

Question 5

We looked at the
VENERABLE stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories.

Answer 5

Venerable
* accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character.

Question 6

And farther west on the upper
reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a** LURID **glare under the stars.

Answer 6

Lurid
* very vivid in color, especially so as to create an unpleasantly harsh or unnatural effect.

Question 7

The
slim one got up and walked straight at me— still knitting with downcast
eyes—and only just as I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a SOMNAMBULIST, stood still, and looked up.

Answer 7

Somnambulist
* a person who walks around, eats, or performs other motor acts while asleep

sleepwalker

Question 8

Are you an alienist?’ I interrupted. Every doctor should be—a little,’ answered that original, IMPERTURBABLY.

Answer 8

Imperturbably
* unable to be upset or excited; calm.

Question 9

I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples,’ he said SENTENTIOUSLY, emptied his glass with great resolution, and we rose.

Answer 9

Sententiously
* in a way that is self-righteous or excessively moralizing:

Question 10

I watched the coast. Watching a
coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an ENIGMA.

Answer 10

Enigma
* a person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand.

Question 11

Therewas a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of **LUGUBRIOUS **drollery in the sight

Answer 11

Lugubrious
* looking or sounding sad and dismal

Question 12

A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden RECRUDESCENCE of glare.

Answer 12

Recrudescence
* the recurrence of an undesirable condition.

Question 13

A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up
earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the* DECLIVITY*

Answer 13

Declivity
* a downward slope.

Question 14

How INSIDIOUS he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther

Answer 14

Insidious
* proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects

Question 15

It might have been connected with the PHILANTHROPIC desire of giving the criminals something to do.

Answer 15

Philanthropic
* seeking to promote the welfare of others, especially by donating money to good causes; generous and benevolent.

Question 16

Was it a badge—an ornament—a charm— a
**PROPITIATORY **act?

Answer 16

Propitiatory
* intended to reconcile or appease

Question 17

These MORIBUND shapes were free as air
—and nearly as thin

Answer 17

Moribund
* (of a thing) in terminal decline; lacking vitality or vigor

Question 18

for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the
mistress of his existence and as INSCRUTABLE as Destiny.

Answer 18

Inscrutable
* impossible to understand or interpret

Question 19

He had served three terms of three
years out there . . . Because triumphant health in the general ROUT of constitutions is a kind of power in itself.

Answer 19

Rout
* a state of wild confusion or disorderly retreat

Question 20

He was quiet. He allowed his boy’—an
overfed young negro from the coast—to treat the white men, under his
very eyes, with provoking INSOLENCE

Answer 20

Insolence
* rude and disrespectful behavior

Question 21

A taint of imbecile RAPACITY blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse.

Answer 21

Rapacity
* aggressive greed

Question 22

They* BEGUILE* the time by back-biting and intriguing against each other
in a foolish kind of way.

Answer 22

Beguile
* help (time) pass pleasantly.