Writer's Vocabulary Builder

Question 1

Asperity b

Answer 1

Words I love:
(Fighting airport boredom)

Asperity.

Harshness of tone it manner.

“How could anybody know that the decimals [of pi] go on forever?’
“That’s just the way it is,”said the teacher with some asperity.
P.10, Contact by Carl Sagan

Harsh conditions. “The asperity of a harsh and divided society.”

A rough edge on a surface.
“The asperities of the mountain ridges.”

Related: harsh, irritable, cross, bitter, sharp, rough, abrasive, sarcastic, irritable, cross, abrasive, virulence, severity, acrimony

Question 2

Polyglot

Answer 2

• Knowing or using several languages.
  ‘a polyglot career woman’
• (of a book) having the text translated into several languages.
  ‘polyglot and bilingual technical dictionaries’
• person who knows and is able to use several languages.
  ‘Slovenians, being surrounded by many countries, are mostly polyglots’

Polyglottic
Polyglottal
Polyglottism

Question 3

martinet

Answer 3

A person who demands complete obedience, a strict disciplinarian; especially in the armed forces.

“The woman in charge was a martinet who treated all those beneath her like children.”

Jean Martinet - 17th century, invented the drill system

“He could pretend, when he put his mind to it, that he really cared about you. But he was a martinet. He made his students come over to weed the garden, and then made fun of them after they left.” P.12 contact, Carl Sagan

Disciplinarian, slave driver, taskmaster, tyrant,

Question 4

Ennui

Answer 4

Dread of long familiarity. A feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of excitement or occupation.

“He succumbed to ennui and despair.”

“Ellie had to take care that the tedium did not engulf her. There had been a few brief, torrid but fundamentally casual relationships with local men unconnected with the Argus project. In this area of her life, too, a kind of ennui, a lassitude, had settled over her’” p43 contact, Carl Sagan

Related words: boredom, tedium, listless, weariness, dissatisfaction, despondency

Question 5

Lassitude

Answer 5

“In this area of her life, too, a kind of ennui, a lassitude, had settled over her.” Pg 43

Question 6

Convivial

Answer 6

When she was sufficiently preoccupied, a casual or even convivial exchange of pleasantries would seem to an inexperienced observer like a fragment of a fierce and unprovoked argument unexpected generated amidst the vast radio facility.

Question 7

Colloquium

Answer 7

He had come to Argus to give his weekly scientific colloquium.

Question 8

Solipsism

Answer 8

It was the modern incarnation of geocentric solipsism, the conceit that had captured our ancestors, the notion that we were the centre of the universe. Pg 57

Question 9

Provincial

Answer 9

And if we succeed, we’ll have changed the history of our species, broken the shackles of our provincialism. Ph 57 Contact, Carl Sagan

Question 10

Impedance

Answer 10

?

Question 11

Unctuous

Answer 11

His tone was calming but not unctuous. P81, Contact, Carl Sagan

Question 12

Disconsolate

Answer 12

Did it warm them, when disconsolate

Question 13

Voluble

Answer 13

Peter, not a voluble man even in ordinary circumstances, was content to lean back and listen to their conversation… p117

Question 14

Presage

Answer 14

Perhaps this would presage the mass celestial Ascent. P120, contact, Carl Sagan

Question 15

Sallow

Answer 15

There were leather-skinned, crinkly-eyed men who had spent their whole lives under the open sky, and bookish, sallow-faced students from the University of Arizona in Tucson. P122

Question 16

Portended

Answer 16

But in a way that was difficult for him to articulate, this feeling was in conflict with the beatific image that he had held, and with infinite joy that vision portended. P134 contact, Carl Sagan

Question 17

Exhortatory

Answer 17

Soon Joss found a preaching style that was all his own, not so much exhortatory as explanatory. P134, contact

Question 18

Ecumenical

Answer 18

In simple and homely metaphors, he would explain baptism and the afterlife, the connections of Christian Revelation with the myths of classical Greece and Rome, the idea of God’s plan for the world, and the conformity of science and religion when both were properly understood. This was not the convention preaching, and it was too ecumenical for many tastes. Pg 134

Question 19

Exegesis

Answer 19

He imagines the Message is going to be unacceptable biblical exegesis or something that shakes his faith. P137

Question 20

Infelicities

Answer 20

She was happy to admit the language had infelicities, but they had so many sources and evolved in response to so many pressures that it would be astonishing perfectly coherent and internally consistent. Pg 149

Question 21

Pagination

Answer 21

She carefully explained about the presumed pagination of the Message and hoped-for primer. Pg 170

Question 22

Winnow

Answer 22

?

Question 23

Matriculated

Answer 23

She matriculated at Banares Hindu University. P201

Question 24

Stochastic

Answer 24

Evolution is a stochastic process. P249

Question 25

Chiliasts

Answer 25

?

Question 26

Cononical

Answer 26

Aided perhaps by the imminent worldwide Millennial celebrations, both secular and canonical, the number of armed hostilities between nations per year had diminished still further. Pg 259, contact, Carl Sagan

Question 27

Delphic

Answer 27

“They’re in a hurry,” said Valerian. He was given to occasional Delphic utterances. Pg 265

Question 28

Peroration

Answer 28

The deputy secretary of Defence, (…) stressed Drumlin’s personal qualities- his warmth, his concern for the feelings of others, his brilliance, his remarks athletic ability. If not for this tragic and dastardly event, Drumlin would have gone down I. History as the first American to visit a star.

No peroration from her, Ellie had told dee Heer. P272

Question 29

Spurious

Answer 29

By a certain reasoning - she recognized it immediately as convoluted and spurious - she believed herself responsible. P274 contact, Carl Sagan

Found guilty, Essie shocked no one by pleading her belly, although the town matrons who assessed such claims (which were usually spurious) were surprised when they were forced to agree that Essie was indeed with child. P126, American Gods

Question 30

Abstemiously

Answer 30

Abstemiously he was nursing a diet cola. P283

Question 31

propitiously

Answer 31

Propitiously enough, they arrived in time for the Tanabata Festival. P311

Question 32

Laconic

Answer 32

?

Question 33

Brachiating

Answer 33

She would discover, she was sure, what else is possible, what could be accomplished by other beings, great beings - beings who had, it seemed likely, been voyaging between the stars when the ancestors of humans were still brachiating from branch to branch in the dappled sunlight of the forest canopy. P322

Question 34

Solicitude

Answer 34

?

Question 35

Perfunctory

Answer 35

But it was perfunctory compared with the interrogations administered to them by project personnel. P378

Question 36

Animus

Answer 36

He trusted she would not mistake the directness of his questions for some sort of animus. Pg 378

Question 37

Pat

Answer 37

Your story is just too pat. It’s not imaginative enough. P 379

Question 38

epistemological

Answer 38

She felt a moment of epistemological panic - as when your car is not where you parked it, or the door you locked last night is ajar in the morning. P379 Carl Sagan

Question 39

Punctiliously

Answer 39

If you were really serious, you should include family photographs, a punctiliously detailed autobiography, all the books and tapes you’ve enjoyed, and as much else about yourself as possible. P.395

Question 40

Eschatological

Answer 40

After all, the age had produced a sustained eschatological delirium. It was only natural to think of you own end as everyone else was contemplating the demise of the species, or of the planet, or the mass celestial assent of the Elect. P395

Question 41

Simulacrum

Answer 41

She thought of her father… well, the simulacrum of her father… p426

Question 42

recividism

Answer 42

He didn’t answer back, didn’t say anything about job security for guards, debate the nature of redemption, or rates of recidivism. P15 American Gods

Question 43

Transmuted

Answer 43

The lights inside the limo transmuted from orange to red, and black to purple.” American Gods, pg 70

Question 44

Susurrus

Answer 44

There was a whispering noise that began then to run through the hall, a low susurrus that caused Shadow, in his dream, to experience a chilling and inexplicable fear. Pg 78

Question 45

Vicissitudes

Answer 45

Essie gave thanks for her escapes from her vicissitudes to all the creatures that she had been told about as a child, to the piskies p125

Question 46

Millifuous

Answer 46

She told them, in her mellifluous Cornish drawl, which trees they should be wary of… p137

Question 47

Tumbril

Answer 47

Liberty is a bitch who needs t he bedded on the mattress of corpses. (…) That’s who they have a statute to, in their New York harbour: a bitch, who liked to be fucked on the refuse of the tumbril.” American gods p136

Question 48

Perspicacity

Answer 48

He was now wearing a dark blue jacket, with matching trousers, a blue knit tie, a thick blue sweater, a white shirt, and black shoes. He looked like a security guard, and Shadow said so.
“What can I possibly say to that, young man,” (…) “other than to congratulate you on your perspicacity.” American gods, p143

Question 49

tumescent

Answer 49

He reaches out, rests his hand on the ifrit’s tumescent cock and, comforted, he sleeps. P241

Question 50

Perforce

Answer 50

(…) Store brands maintained and visible across the entire country. Wherever you go, you will get something that is, with small regional differences, the same.
In the field of funeral homes, however, thing are, perforce, different. You need to feel that you are getting small-town personal service from someone who has a calling to the profession. “ P244

Question 51

Impecunious

Answer 51

”..our temporarily impecunious Abraham sets off in search of his wallet.” P298

Question 52

taurine

Answer 52

?

Question 53

Prestidigitation

Answer 53

“Hello, Mister Ainsley. Leon says you were doing magic for him.”

“Just a little prestidigitation, ma’am.” P375 American gods

Question 54

punctiliously

Answer 54

(…) he is faithful and to his wife,he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. P. 407

Question 55

Irascible

Answer 55

“He was an irascible old fuck but I drank his mess and I’m still working for him. That’s all.” P566