Lord of the Flies Flashcards
Specious
(Adj) Misleading in appearance, especiallymisleadingly attractive “Ralph had been deceived before now by the specious appearance of depth in a beach pool and he approached this one preparing to be disappointed” (12).
Effulgence
(n) a brilliant radiance or shining forth; “With that word the heat seemed to increase till it became a threatening weight and the lagoon attacked them with a blinding effulgence” (14).
Enmity
(n) The state of being or feeling actively opposed or hostile to someone or something; “He trotted through the sand, enduring the sun’s enmity, crossed the platform, and found his scattered clothes” (14).
Decorous
(adj) in keeping with good taste and propriety; polite and restrained; “Suddenly Piggy was a-bubble with decorous excitement” (15).
Indignation
(n) anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment; “Piggy stood and the rose of indignation faded slowly from his cheeks” (25).
Hiatus
(n) a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process; “There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of the bony arm” (31).
Ebullience
(n) the quality of being cheerful and full of energy; exuberance; “Then, with the martyred expression of a parent who has to keep up with the senseless ebullience of the children, he picked up the conch, turned toward the forest, and began to pick his way over the tumbler scar” (38).38).
Recrimination
(n) An accusation to response to one from someone else; ‘’That’s what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you say shut up—’ His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination” (43).
Tumult
(n) confusion or disorder; “He paused in the tumult, standing, looking beyond them and down the unfriendly side of the mountain to the great patch where they had found dead wood” (43).
Furtive
(adj) attempting to avoid notice or attention, typically because of guilt or a belief that discovery would lead to trouble; secretive; “Jack himself shrank at this cry with a hiss of indrawn breath, and for a minute became less a hunter than a furtive thing, ape-like among the tangle of trees” (49).
Inscrutable
(adj) impossible to understand or interpret; “Jack lifted his head and stared at the inscrutable masses of creeper that lay across the trail” (49).
Incredulous
(adj) (of a person or their manner) unwilling or unable to believe something; “‘But you can feel as if you’re not hunting, but–-being hunted, as if something’s behind you all the time in the jungle.’ They were silent again: Simon intent, Ralph incredulous and faintly indignant” (53).
Belligerence
(n) aggressive or warlike behavior; “Percival was mouse-colored and had not been very attractive even to his mother; Johnny was well built, with fair hair a natural belligerence” (60).
Chastisement
(n) severe criticism and punishment; a rebuke or strong reprimand; “In his other life Maurice had received chastisement for filling a younger eye with sand. Now, though there was no parent to let fall a heavy hand, Maurice still felt the unease of wrongdoing” (60).
Incursion
(n) an invasion or attack, especially sudden or brief one; “Perhaps food had appeared where at the last incursion there had been none; bird droppings, insects perhaps, any of the strewn detritus of landward life” (61).
Disinclination
(n) a reluctance or lack of enthusiasm; “There had grown up tacitly among the biguns the opinion that Piggy was an outsider, not only by accent, which did not matter, but by fat, and ass-mar, and specs, and a certain disinclination for manual labor” (65).
Derisive
(adj) expressing contempt or ridicule; “‘There’s enough silly talk about the beasts, without the littluns seeing you gliding about like a—’ The derisive laughter that rose had fear in it and condemnation” (86).
Discursive
(adj) digressing from subject to subject; “The assembly shredded away and became a discursive and random scatter from the palms to the water and away along the beach, beyond night-sight” (92).
Incantation
(n) a series of words said as a magic spell or charm; “Percival Wemys Madison, of the Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, lying in the long grass, was living through circumstances in which the incantation of his address was powerless to help him” (94).
Interminable
(adj) endless; “Soon the darkness was full of claws, full of the awful unknown and menace. An interminable dawn faded the stars out, and at last light, sad and grey, filtered into the shelter” (99)
Tremulously
(adverb) to a very great extent; “‘Sam ‘n Eric. Call them to an assembly. Quietly. Go on.’ The twins, holding tremulously to each other, dared the few yards to the next shelter and spread the dreadful news” (99).
Leviathan
(n) a very large aquatic creature, especially a whale; “Then the sleeping leviathan breathed out, the water rose, the weed steamed, and the water boiled over the table rock with a roar” (105).
Decorum
(n) behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety; “Not one of them was an obvious subject for a shower, and yet–hair, much too long, tangled here and there, knotted round a dead leaf or a twig; faces cleaned fairly well by the process of eating and sweating but marked in the less accessible angles with a kind of shadow; clothes, worn away, stiff like his own with sweat, put on, not for decorum or comfort but out of custom; the skin of the body, scurfy with brine–” (110).
Apprehension
(n) anxiety or fear that something bad or unpleasant will happen; “The boar was floundering away from them. They found another pig-run parallel to the first and Jack raced away. Ralph was full of fright and apprehension and pride” (113).
