Slaughterhouse five

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• 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.
• 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...
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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
• 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.
• rarefield 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.
• 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.
• fray a noisy fight And they imagined that they were singing to fellow officers fresh from the fray.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• proserous 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.
• 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.”
• ascerain 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.
• diffident lacking self-confidence There were diffident raps on the factory window.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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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