Slaughterhouse 5

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• Incinerate become reduced to ashes, His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes.
• rabid marked by excessive enthusiasm for a cause or idea, The rabid little American I call Paul Lazzaro in this book had about a quart of diamonds and emeralds and rubies and so on.
• covetous immoderately desirous of acquiring something, He would peek into the bag every now and then, and he would roll his eyes and swivel his scrawny neck, trying to catch people looking covetously at his bag.
• sordid morally degraded, The Children’s Crusade struck him as only slightly more sordid than the ten Crusades for grown-ups.
• solemn characterized by a firm belief in your opinions, History in her solemn page informs us that the crusaders were but ignorant and savage men, that their motives were those of bigotry unmitigated, and that their pathway was one of blood and tears.
• piety righteousness by virtue of being religiously devout, Romance, on the other hand, dilates upon their piety and heroism, and portrays, in her most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity...
• idle lacking a sense of restraint or responsibility, They were no doubt idle and deserted children who generally swarm in great cities, nurtured on vice and daring, said Mackay, and ready for anything.
• succumb be fatally overwhelmed, Furthermore, the stately Kreuzkirche tower, from which the enemy’s movements had been watched day and night, stood in flames. It later succumbed.
• obliged having a moral duty to do something, Friederich was obliged finally to give up the siege, because he learned of the fall of Glatz, the critical point of his new conquests.
• devastation an event that results in total destruction, The devastation of Dresden was boundless.
• contempt lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike, I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.
• vile morally reprehensible, Those were vile people in both those cities, as is well known. The world was better off without them.
• recuperate restore to good health or strength, While Billy was recuperating in a hospital in Vermont, his wife died accidentally of carbon-monoxide poisoning. So it goes.
• distinguish mark as different, He could scarcely distinguish between sleep and wakefulness now, on the third day, found no important differences, either, between walking and standing still.
• pretext a fictitious reason that conceals the real reason, And then he would find some pretext for beating the shit out of him.
• rendition the act of expressing something in an artistic performance, A military surgeon would have admired the clinical fidelity of the artist’s rendition of all Christ’s wounds.
• ghastly gruesomely indicative of death or the dead, Billy wasn’t a Catholic, even though he grew up with a ghastly crucifix on the wall.
• unambiguous admitting of no doubt or misunderstanding, The Americans had no choice but to leave trails in the snow as unambiguous as diagrams in a book on ballroom dancing.
• decrepit lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality, He was forty-one years old, and he was visiting his decrepit mother at Pine Knoll, an old people’s home he had put her in only a month before.
• retribution the act of taking revenge, If the death penalty is ever to be imposed for desertion, it should be imposed in this case, not as a punitive measure nor as retribution, but to maintain that discipline upon which alone an army can succeed against the enemy.
• clemency leniency and compassion shown toward offenders, There was no recommendation for clemency in the case and none is here recommended.
• resonant characterized by a loud deep sound, Billy opened his mouth, and out came a deep, resonant tone.
• wrath intense anger, Weary was filled with a tragic wrath.
• convulsive affected by involuntary jerky muscular contractions, Billy was involuntarily making convulsive sounds that were a lot like laughter.
• desolation the state of being decayed or destroyed, Billy drove through a scene of even greater desolation. It looked like Dresden after it was fire-bombed—like the surface of the moon.
• nestle move or arrange oneself in a comfortable and cozy position, Billy Pilgrim nestled like a spoon with the hobo on Christmas night, and he fell asleep
• luminous softly bright or radiant, He felt spooky and luminous, felt as though he were wrapped in cool fur that was full of static electricity.
• imperative some duty that is essential and urgent, It became imperative that he take hold of the bottom rung of the sinuous ladder, which he did.
• wretched very unhappy; full of misery, Now Billy sat up, too— wretched, close to tears.
• acrimonious marked by strong resentment or cynicism, And now there was an acrimonious madrigal, with parts sung in all quarters of the car.
• atrocity an act of shocking cruelty, Nearly everybody, seemingly, had an atrocity story of something Billy Pilgrim had done to him in his sleep.
• induce cause to act in a specified manner, They knew that it was essentially a liquid which could be induced to flow slowly toward cooing and light.
• rarefied of high moral or intellectual value, The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti.
• altercation a noisy quarrel, As the Americans were waiting to move on, an altercation broke out in their rear-most rank.
• feign give a false appearance of, They could feign illness, if they liked, but that wouldn’t earn them a trip anywhere, either.
• hoard save up as for future use, The Englishmen had hoarded these so cunningly that now, as the war was ending, they had three tons of sugar, one ton of coffee, eleven hundred pounds of chocolate, seven hundred pounds of tobacco, seventeen hundred pounds of tea, two tons of flour…
• elated exultantly proud and joyful; in high spirits, They were so elated by their own hospitality, and by all the goodies waiting inside, that they did not take a good look at their guests while they sang.
• hospitality kindness in welcoming guests or strangers, They were so elated by their own hospitality, and by all the goodies waiting inside, that they did not take a good look at their guests while they sang.
• preposterous inviting ridicule, The giraffes accepted Billy as one of their own, as a harmless creature as preposterously specialized as themselves.
• permeate spread or diffuse through, Those beloved, frumpish books gave off a smell that permeated the ward—like flannel pajamas that hadn’t been changed for a month.
• ardent characterized by strong enthusiasm, He was experimenting with being ardently sympathetic with everybody he met.
• ferocity the property of being aggressive or forceful, He expected them to fear that the Earthling combination of ferocity and spectacular weaponry might eventually destroy part or maybe all of the innocent Universe.
• prosperous in fortunate circumstances financially, His father-in-law had given him a new Buick Roadmaster, an all-electric home, and had made him manager of his most prosperous office, his Ilium office, where Billy could expect to make at least thirty thousand dollars a year.
• estimable deserving of respect or high regard, Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor.
• reproach express criticism towards, His daughter Barbara was reproaching him for writing ridiculous letters to the newspapers.
• myriad a large indefinite number, Now she turned her head to see the myriads of Tralfamadorians outside the dome.
• patronizing characteristic of those who treat others with arrogance, The Blue Fairy Godmother left, amused and patronizing.
• rebuke censure severely or angrily, Billy Pilgrim rebukes them. “If you protest, if you think that death is a terrible thing, then you have not understood a word I’ve said.”
• travesty a composition that imitates or misrepresents a style, He was the central clown in an unconscious travesty of that famous oil painting, “The Spirit of ’76.”
• stupor marginal consciousness, Most of the Americans were in stupors or asleep.
• balmy mild and pleasant, The noontime was balmy.
• tremulous quivering as from weakness or fear, Derby was imagining letters to home, his lips working tremulously:
• voluptuous displaying luxury and furnishing gratification to the senses, The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd.
• ascertain learn or discover with confidence, The eight ridiculous Dresdeners ascertained that these hundred ridiculous creatures really were American fighting men fresh from the front.
• roguish playful in an appealingly bold way, He was enchanted by the architecture of the city. Merry amoretti wove garlands above windows. Roguish fauns and naked nymphs peeked down at Billy from festooned cornices.
• palpate examine (a body part) by tactual exploration, The fingertips got inside the lining. They palpated the lumps, the pea-shaped thing and the horseshoe-shaped thing.
• abominable exceptionally bad or displeasing, It seemed to him that Billy was in abominable taste, supposed that Billy had gone to a lot of silly trouble to costume himself just so.
• meager deficient in amount or quality or extent, Billy wanted to be friendly, to help, if he could, but his resources were meager.
• ravenous extremely hungry, A moment went by, and then every cell in Billy’s body shook him with ravenous gratitude and applause.
• shabby mean and unworthy and despicable, Campbell was the one who had written the monograph about the shabby behavior of American prisoners of war.
• repatriate admit back into the country, “Once the Russians are defeated, ” he went on, “you will be repatriated through Switzerland.”
• lumber move heavily or clumsily, Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life.
• listless marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm, There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces.
• stance standing posture, His stance was that of a punch-drunk fighter.
• scornful expressing extreme contempt, “What are you?” Trout asked the boy scornfully. “Some kind of gutless wonder?”
• avid marked by active interest and enthusiasm, He had never met a fan before, and Billy was such an avid fan.
• adulation exaggerated flattery or praise, The adulation that Trout was receiving, mindless and illiterate as it was, affected Trout like marijuana.
• solicitous full of anxiety and concern, He looked so peculiar that several people commented on it solicitously when the song was done.
• haggard showing the wearing effects of overwork or care or suffering, They thought he might have been having a heart attack, and Billy seemed to confirm this by going to a chair and sitting down haggardly.
• shrewd good at tricking people to get something, Valencia stayed with him, and Kilgore Trout, who had been on the fringe of the crowd, came closer, interested, shrewd.
• wheedle influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering, She could send him to the refrigerator, which was decorated with the blank couple on the bicycle built for two—or, as now, she could wheedle, “Tell me a story, Billy boy.”
• obliterate do away with completely, without leaving a trace, We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city, said Harry Truman.
• indiscriminate failing to make or recognize distinctions, I think it would have been well for Mr. Irving to have remembered, when he was drawing the frightful picture of the civilians killed at Dresden, that V- l’s and V-2’s were at the very time falling on England, killing civilian men, women, and children indiscriminately, as they were designed and launched to do.
• appall fill with apprehension or alarm, Those who approved it were neither wicked nor cruel, though it may well be that they were too remote from the harsh realities of war to understand fully the appalling destructive power of air bombardment in the spring of 1945.
• negligible so small as to be meaningless; insignificant, It was preparing letters and lectures about the flying saucers, the negligibility of death, and the true nature of time.
• peevish easily irritated or annoyed, “He isn’t doing it now, ” said Rumfoord peevishly. “The minute you go away, he’ll start doing it again.”
• commiserate feel or express sympathy or compassion, The speakers were commiserating with somebody lyrically.
• translucent allowing light to pass through diffusely, The woman was softly beautiful, translucent from having eaten potatoes for so long.
• gaunt very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold, Potatoes had made him gaunt.
• beguiled filled with wonder and delight, But Billy Pilgrim wasn’t beguiled by the back of the store.
• emaciated very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold, There wasn’t a sound inside the emaciated chest cavity.
• serenity a disposition free from stress or emotion, Engraved on the outside of the locket were these words: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.
• implement a piece of equipment or a tool used for a specific purpose, We were to march with these implements to such and such a place in the ruins, ready to go to work.

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