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_Heart of Darkness_ Vocabulary 4

3/20/2017

5 Comments

 

  1. motley
    a garment made of a multicolored woolen fabric
    There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous.
  2. abscond
    run away, often taking something or somebody along
    There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous.
  3. inexplicable
    incapable of being explained or accounted for
    His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering.
  4. destitution
    a state without money or prospects
    The glamour of youth enveloped his parti-coloured rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings.
  5. futile
    producing no result or effect
    The glamour of youth enveloped his parti-coloured rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings.
  6. gallant
    lively and spirited
    For months--for years--his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase; and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearances indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity.
  7. fatalism
    a doctrine that all events are predetermined in advance
    It came to him, and he accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism.
  8. impenetrable
    impossible to understand
    I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness.
  9. brusque
    marked by rude or peremptory shortness
    And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass.
  10. vengeance
    harming someone in retaliation for something they have done
    But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion.
  11. crestfallen
    brought low in spirit
    "The admirer of Mr. Kurtz was a bit crestfallen.
  12. indistinct
    not clearly defined or easy to perceive or understand
    In a hurried, indistinct voice he began to assure me he had not dared to take these--say, symbols--down.
  13. petrify
    cause to become stonelike or stiff or dazed and stunned
    The knot of men with the stretcher had stopped, too, halfway to the steamer, as if petrified.
  14. atrocious
    shockingly brutal or cruel
    I resented bitterly the absurd danger of our situation, as if to be at the mercy of that atrocious phantom had been a dishonouring necessity.
  15. apparition
    a ghostly appearing figure
    I could not hear a sound, but through my glasses I saw the thin arm extended commandingly, the lower jaw moving, the eyes of that apparition shining darkly far in its bony head that nodded with grotesque jerks.
  16. voracious
    devouring or craving food in great quantities
    I saw him open his mouth wide--it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.
  17. languor
    inactivity; showing an unusual lack of energy
    I was struck by the fire of his eyes and the composed languor of his expression.
  18. factitious
    not produced by natural forces
    However, he had enough strength in him-- factitious no doubt--to very nearly make an end of us, as you shall hear directly.
  19. fecund
    capable of producing offspring or vegetation; got genuine
    And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
  20. tenebrous
    dark and gloomy
    And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
  21. partisan
    an enthusiastic supporter of some person or activity
    My hour of favour was over; I found myself lumped along with Kurtz as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe: I was unsound!
  22. pacify
    ease the anger, agitation, or strong emotion of
    It pacified me, in fact, so much that I did not raise an alarm.
  23. aversion
    a feeling of intense dislike
    This clearly was not a case for fisticuffs, even apart from the very natural aversion I had to beat that Shadow--this wandering and tormented thing.
  24. litany
    any long and tedious address or recital
    When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies; they shook towards the fierce river-demon a bunch of black feathers, a mangy skin with a pendent tail--something that looked a dried gourd; they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language; and the deep murmurs of the crowd, interrupted suddenly, were like the responses of some satanic litany.
  25. placid
    not easily irritated
    The manager was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, he took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance: the 'affair' had come off as well as could be wished.
  26. noxious
    injurious to physical or mental health
    'This noxious fool' (meaning the manager) 'is capable of prying into my boxes when I am not looking.'
  27. ratchet
    device consisting of a toothed wheel moving in one direction
    I lived in an infernal mess of rust, filings, nuts, bolts, spanners, hammers,ratchet-drills--things I abominate, because I don't get on with them.
  28. evanescence
    the event of fading and gradually vanishing from sight
    And it is not my own extremity I remember best--a vision of greyness without form filled with physical pain, and a careless contempt for the evanescence of all things--even of this pain itself.
  29. abominable
    unequivocally detestable
    It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions.
  30. incalculable
    not capable of being computed or enumerated
    'It would be an incalculable loss if,' etc., etc.
  31. desolation
    sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned
    But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time.
  32. blunder
    make one's way clumsily or blindly
    I asked myself what I was doing there, with a sensation of panic in my heart as though I had blundered into a place of cruel and absurd mysteries not fit for a human being to behold.
  33. persistent
    never-ceasing
    "I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. 'The horror! The horror!'
  34. somber
    grave or even gloomy in character
    The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

Source: https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/262706

5 Comments
Edoardo Munoz
3/20/2017 23:48:33

The [somber] boy had immense [aversion] for the village that had condemned him for his [voracious] habits. This aversion had originally started off as a feeling of [desolation] and slowly grew into something much more malicious. Though the young boy was once [placid] this was no longer the case due to all the negative feelings he had for his once "home."

Reply
Jackeline Ahtziri Martinez
3/26/2017 12:01:10

3.- Maybe he sought her out for some [inexplicable] reason.

4.- I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of [destitution] proceeded.

8.-He couldn't decide if he'd be pleased or disappointed if a woman with an [impenetrable] mind melted at his feet like every other woman.

9.- His manner was [brusque], and his advocacy of the causes which he had at heart, though always perfectly sincere, was vehement to the point sometimes of recklessness.

12.- The path became more [indistinct] with each step, eventually coming to an end in dense underbrush.

14.- In its severer forms it was only inflicted for more [atrocious] crimes which the secular law would have punished with death

18.- But as a matter of fact no more entirely [factitious] book ever issued from the press.

22.- Troops were sent to [pacify] the country, and in one village a soldier found a copy of Moses' laws and tore it up in public with jeers and blasphemies.

30.- These invasions were fortunately not frequent, but when they occurred they caused an [incalculable] amount of devastation and suffering.

31.- [Desolation] absorbed her into her thoughts, until Jade spoke again.


Reply
Pedro Polanco
3/30/2017 21:38:12

I have always loved the word "apparition", it has a very eerie vibe and i have literally known this word for a very long time. Since i was a young boy i enjoyed watching "Ghost Adventures", oblivious to the vocabulary used in the show i liked the scary aspect of these shows; ever since i have learned these words while not actually paying attention to the exact words they said. This is very interesting because i found out i pretty much stuffed a word in my brain by my peripheral "vision" if you will.

Reply
Chris Bautista
4/6/2017 23:21:27

hahaha its funny because I also learned this word when I was young by watching similar show as the one you mentioned I would say that I love the word like how you said it but its funny how you can learn a word by watching tv and not even pay attention to the actual word itself.

Reply
Sergio Avendano
4/2/2017 19:26:05

Something that really intrigues me about this book, isint the really the idea behind the story or the geography of it, its the syntax of it. The words all on their own add a certain amount of mystery and darkness to the already somber story, and truly gives you a surealistic sense of whats going on and what might happen next in the "lost" journey.

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