Name: ______Per: _____
Vocabulary – John Gardner’s Grendel Page 5
For EACH word, write an original sentence demonstrating how to use it correctly.
1. docile (6) - Ready and willing to be taught; teachable; yielding to supervision, direction, or management; tractable…some rotting, docile stump, some spraddle-legged ewe.
2. sycophant (7) - a person who tries to gain favor by flattering influential people
“No offense,” I say, with a terrible, sycophantish smile, and tip an imaginary hat.
3. fuliginous (10) - full of smoke, sooty
I toy with shouting some tidbit more--some terrifying, unthinkable threat, some blackly fuliginous riddling hex--but my heart's not in it.
4. futile (13) - having no useful result
The dogs fall silent at the edge of my spell, and where the king's hall surmounts the town, the blind old Shaper, harp clutched tight to his fragile chest, stares futilely down, straight at me.
5. dirge (13) - a funeral hymn, a song or poem of grief
Then the groaning and praying stop, and on the side of the hill the dirge-slow shoveling begins.
6. dogmatism (14) - the arrogant assertion of an opinion without proof or evidence
… industrious and witless as worker ants--except that they make small, foolish changes, adding a few more iron pegs, more iron bands, with tireless dogmatism.
7. degenerate (15) - having fallen below a normal or desirable level, especially in physical or moral qualities; deteriorated; degraded
Rushing, degenerate mutter of noises I send out before me wherever I creep, like a dragon burning his way through vines and fog.
8. putrefaction (19) - decomposition of organic matter
I seemed to see the whole universe, even the sun and sky, leaping forward, then sinking away again, decomposing. Everything was wreckage, putrefaction.
9. inviolable (21) - not able to be ruined; intact
(Were they my brothers, my uncles, those creatures shuffling brimstone-eyed from room to room, or sitting separate, isolated, muttering forever like underground rivers, each in his private, inviolable gloom?)
10. enmity (22) - hostility, often mutual; antagonism
I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears.
11. ominous (32) - evil, threatening, sinister
It was slightly ominous because of its strangeness--no wolf was so vicious to other wolves--but I half believed they weren't serious.
12. recompense (42) - to repay, reward
Oft Scyld Shefing shattered the forces / of kinsman-marauders, dragged away their / meadhall-benches, terrified earls--after first men found him / castaway. (He got recompense for that!)
13. petulant (49) – irritable; moved to or showing sudden, impatient irritation, especially over some trifling annoyance:
“And by changing men's minds he makes the best of it. Why not?" But it sounded petulant; and it wasn't true, I knew.
14. intimation (50) - hint
I could feel it all around me, that invisible presence, chilly as the first intimation of death, the dusty unblinking eyes of a thousand snakes.
15. undulant (57) – waving; resembling waves in occurrence, appearance, or motion.
Vanishing away across invisible floors, there were things of gold, gems, jewels, silver vessels the color of blood in the undulant, dragon-red light.
16. debauched (59) – corrupted; displaying the effect of excessive indulgence in sensual pleasure
The dragon smiled. Horrible, debauched, mouth limp and cracked, loose against the teeth as an ancient dog's.
17. supplicant (63) - one who petitions, entreats, or implores
And even if, say, I interfere--burn up somebody's meadhall, for instance, whether because I just feel like it or because some supplicant asked me to--even then I do not change the future…
18. paltry (64) – worthless; ridiculously or insultingly small
They'd map out roads through Hell with their crackpot theories, their here-to-the-moon-and-back lists of paltry facts.
19. dubious (65) – doubtful; of doubtful quality or propriety; questionable
They have dim apprehensions that such propositions as 'God does not exist' are somewhat dubious at least in comparison with statements like 'All carnivorous cows eat meat.'
20. immanence (68) - belief that God is present throughout the universe; existing or remaining within; inherent
In some sense or other--we can skip the details--importance is derived from the immanence of infinitude in the finite.
21. irascible (70) - easily provoked by anger
He stretched his wings--it was like a huge, irascible yawn—then settled again.
22. dictum (74) - an expression of a general truth, especially an aphoristic one
'Know thyself,' that's my dictum.
23. credulity (74) - belief; without doubt
I knew that his scorn of my childish credulity was right.
24. futile (75) – useless; ineffective; incapable of producing any result
… the blind old Shaper, harp clutched tight to his fragile chest, stares futilely down, straight at me.
25. insinuation (87) - an indirect or covert suggestion, especially of a derogatory nature
"You think me a witless fool," he whispered. "Oh, I heard what you said. I caught your nasty insinuations.
26. cynicism (89) – belief that only selfishness motivates human actions
I thought he would laugh at the bottomless stupidity of my cynicism, but while the laugh was still starting at the corners of his eyes, another look came, close to fright.
27. delude (89) – deceive; to mislead the mind or judgment of
"You think me deluded. Tricked by my own walking fairytale.”
28. portent (93) - an indication or omen of something about to happen, especially something momentous
Three dead trees on the moor below, burned up alive by lightning, are ominous portents.
29. nihilism (93) - a philosophy that denies the existence of knowledge or truth; a belief in nothingness, that nothing beyond the individual exists
I have not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.
30. decimate (94) - destroy a great number of
It was the second year of my raiding. The army of the Scyldings was weakened, decimated.
31. blight (96) - something that implies growth, withers hopes and ambitions, or impedes progress and prosperity
The grass, the withering leaves were full of whispering, but the campground was hushed, muffled by their presence, as if blighted.
32. paradox (104) – seemingly self-contradictory statement that may be true
… killing himself would be, like his life, unheroic. It was a paradox nothing could resolve but a murderous snicker.
33. wiles (104) – a trick, artifice, or stratagem meant to fool, trap, or entice; device; artful or beguiling behavior
She lay beside the sleeping king--I watched wherever she went, a crafty guardian, wealthy in wiles--and her eyes were open, the lashes bright with tears.
34. brooding (107) - preoccupied with depressing or painful memories or thoughts
The bear irritably watched the dogs. Then others sang. Old Hrothgar watched and listened, brooding on dangers.
35. brachiating (112) - to move by swinging with the arms from one hold to another, like apes do
Thus poor Grendel, anger's child, red eyes hidden in the dark of verbs, brachiating with a hoot from rhyme to rhyme.
36. transmogrified (121) - transformed or changed completely, especially in a fantastic or bizarre way
The civilization he meant to build has transmogrified to a forest thick with traps.
37. marauder (121) - someone who attacks in search of plunder or loot
A man plunders to build up wealth to pay his men and bring peace to the kingdom, but the hoard he builds for his safety becomes the lure of every marauder that happens to hear of it.
38. impute (123) - to attribute to another, usually something evil or criminal
I have thought up a horrible dream to impute to Hrothgar.
39. obsequious (127) - excessively willing to serve, overly submissive
The priests approach them, carrying torches, their shaggy white heads bent, obsequious.
40. impish (131) - characteristic of an imp; mischievous
Then, suddenly impish--at times I cannot resist these things: "Tell us what you know of the King of the Gods."
41. doctrine (131) - a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated
He rolls his blind eyes, figuring the odds, snatching through his mind for doctrines.
42. temporal (132) - of this world; worldly (as opposed to other-worldly, spiritual)
"O the ultimate evil in the temporal world is deeper than any specific evil, such as hatred, or suffering, or death!”
43. epitomize (132) - sum up
The nature of evil may be epitomized, therefore, in two simple but horrible and holy propositions: 'Things fade' and 'Alternatives exclude.'
44. uncanny (135) - beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary; seeming to have a supernatural basis
But now at last, sweet fantasy has found root in your blessed soul! The absurd, the inspiring, the uncanny, the awesome, the terrifying, the ecstatic--none of these had a place, for you, before.
45. nether (137) - below, under; in a lower place
There is no sound on earth but the whispering snowfall. I recall something. A void boundless as a nether sky.
46. doggedly (139) - persistent in effort; stubborn
He lifts his head, considers me, then lowers it again to keep an eye on crevasses and seams, icy scree, slick rocky ledges--doggedly continuing.
47. omnipotence (146) - unlimited power
My wickedness five years ago, or six, or twelve, has no existence except as now, mumbling, mumbling, sacrificing the slain world to the omnipotence of words, I strain my memory to regain it.
48. epoch (149) - a particular period of time marked by distinctive features, events, etc.
End of an epoch, I could tell the king. We're on our own again. Abandoned.
49. nihil ex nihilo (150) - from Latin meaning “nothing comes from nothing”
A stupid business. Nihil ex nihilo, I always say.
50. inexorable (152) – unyielding’ unalterable
That beat--steady, inhumanly steady; inexorable.
51. credulous (160) - willing to believe or trust too readily; gullible
Seven nights you swam, so people say." He made his face credulous, and the Danes laughed again.