One Day in the Life Of Ivan Denisovich Flashcards
screw
noun: (informal) a prisoner’s derogatory word for a warder (i.e., a prison guard).
gang
noun: an organized group of people doing manual work
palm off
verbal phrase: to sell or dispose of something by misrepresentation or fraud.
““The gang boss was worried and was going to try to fix things, try to palm the job off on some other gang, one that was a little slower on the uptake.”
Excerpt From
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
https://books.apple.com/us/book/one-day-in-the-life-of-ivan-denisovich/id1595913691
This material may be protected by copyright.
fatback
noun: fat from an upper part of a side of a pork, especially when dried and salted in strips.
“Of course you couldn’t go empty-handed. It would take a pound of fatback for the chief clerk. Or even two.”
Excerpt From
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
https://books.apple.com/us/book/one-day-in-the-life-of-ivan-denisovich/id1595913691
This material may be protected by copyright.
Tartar
noun: 1) a central Asiatic person such as a Mongol or Turk, 2) a harsh, fierce, or intractable person.
drawl
verb: to speak in a slow, lazy way with prolonged vowel sound.
the can
noun: (informal), the prison, or the toilet
groat
noun: a hulled or crushed grain, especially oats.
“hulled” - having the outer covering of a seed (i.e., hull) removed.
millet
noun: a cereal grown in a warm country and regions with poor soils, bearing a large crop of small seeds which are chiefly used to make flour.
the runs
noun: diarrhea
scurvy
noun: a disease caused by a deficiency in vitamin C, characterized by swollen bleeding gums, and the opening of previously healed wounds.
mess hall
noun: a room or building where people, especially soldiers, eat together.
gruel
noun: a thin liquid food of oatmeal or other meal boiled in water or milk—a thinner version of porridge, more often drunk rather than eaten.
mush
noun: 1) a soft, welt, pulpy mass; 2) thick maize porridge.
on the sly
adjectival phrase: in a secretive fashion:
“The guys with tobacco were smoking on the sly.”
Excerpt From
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=1595913691
This material may be protected by copyright.
kulak /’kuːlak/
► noun
historical a peasant in Russia wealthy enough to own a farm and hire labour. Emerging after the emancipation of serfs in the 19th century the kulaks resisted Stalin’s forced collectivization, but millions were arrested, exiled, or killed.
Russian, literally ‘fist, tight-fisted person’, from Turkic kol ‘hand’.
gyp3 /dʒɪp/
► verb
(gyps, gypping, gypped) [with obj.] cheat or swindle (someone): a young inventor gypped by greedy financiers.
► noun
an act of cheating someone; a swindle.
giddy /’gɪdi/
► adjective
(giddier, giddiest )having a sensation of whirling and a tendency to fall or stagger; dizzy: Luke felt almost giddy with relief.
■ disorientating and alarming, but exciting: her giddy rise to power.
■ excitable and frivolous: Isobel’s giddy young sister-in-law.
► verb
(giddies, giddying, giddied) [with obj.] make (someone) feel excited to the point of disorientation.
my giddy aunt!
dated used to express astonishment.
play the giddy goat
dated behave in an irresponsible, silly, or playful way.
giddily adverb
giddiness noun.
Old English gidig ‘insane’, literally ‘possessed by a god’, from the base of God. Current senses date from late Middle English.
cadge
► verb
[with obj.] Brit. informal ask for or obtain (something to which one is not strictly entitled): he cadged fivers off old school friends.
► noun
Falconry a padded wooden frame on which hooded hawks are carried to the field. [Origin: apparently an alteration of cage, perhaps confused with the dialect verb cadge ‘carry about’.]
hoist /hↄɪst/
► noun: an apparatus for lifting or raising something.
sidle /’sʌɪd(ə)l/
► verb
[no obj., with adverbial of direction] walk in a furtive, unobtrusive, or timid manner, especially sideways or obliquely: I sidled up to her.
clout /klaʊt/
► noun
1. informal a heavy blow with the hand or a hard object: a clout round the ear.
► verb [with obj.]
1. (informal) hit (someone or something) hard: I clouted him round the head.
going-over
► noun
[in sing.] (informal) a thorough cleaning or inspection: give the place a going-over with the Hoover.
■ a physical or verbal attack.
■ a heavy defeat: Pontypool gave them a 35–6 going-over.
stool pigeon
► noun informal
1. a police informer.
2. a person acting as a decoy.
late 19th cent.: so named from the original use of a pigeon fixed to a stool as a decoy.
frisk /frɪsk/
► verb
- [with obj.] (of a police officer or other official) pass the hands over (someone) in a search for hidden weapons, drugs, or other items.
- [no obj., with adverbial of direction] skip or leap playfully; frolic: spaniels frisked around me.
► noun
- [in sing.] an act of frisking someone.
- a playful skip or leap.
frisker noun.
early 16th cent. (in sense 2): from obsolete frisk ‘lively, frisky’, from Old French frisque ‘alert, lively, merry’, perhaps of Germanic origin. Sense 1, originally a slang term, dates from the late 18th cent.
paddock /’padək/
► noun
a small field or enclosure where horses are kept or exercised.
■ an enclosure adjoining a racecourse or track where horses or cars are gathered and displayed before a race.
■ Austral./NZ a field or plot of land enclosed by fencing or defined by natural boundaries.
► verb
[with obj.] keep (a horse) in a paddock: horses paddocked on a hillside.
early 17th cent.: apparently a variant of dialect parrock, of unknown ultimate origin.