"The Picture of Dorian Gray," Vocabulary from Chapters 13-16

This thematic list focuses on death in Oscar Wilde's macabre story of a man who trades his soul for eternal youth and beauty. For general lists for the novel, click the links below.

Here are links to our thematic lists for the novel: Preface-Chapter 4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-12, Chapters 13-16, Chapters 17-20

Here are links to our general lists for the novel: Chapters 1-2, Chapters 3-4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-11, Chapters 12-20
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. sluggish
    moving slowly
    He knew it, and he felt as if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice.
  2. sorrow
    sadness associated with some wrong done or disappointment
    There was neither real sorrow in it nor real joy.
  3. despair
    a state in which all hope is lost or absent
    "Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," cried Dorian with a wild gesture of despair.
  4. leprosy
    communicable disease characterized by wasting of body parts
    Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away.
    Because "leper" became "a pariah who is avoided by others," it and "leprosy" are no longer acceptable medical terms; instead, in honor of the doctor who discovered the bacillus that causes the skin sores and nerve damage, leprosy is now called Hansen's disease. Here, the word is used to describe the effects of sin, which can eat away a person's soul and infect those who come into contact with it.
  5. corpse
    the dead body of a human being
    The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful.
  6. falter
    speak haltingly
    "It is too late, Basil," he faltered.
  7. stifled
    held in check or kept back with difficulty
    There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking with blood.
  8. jagged
    having a sharply uneven surface or outline
    Had it not been for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was simply asleep.
  9. fatal
    having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences
    The friend who had painted the fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his life.
    The adjective also means "controlled or decreed by fate." Fate could be the higher power that granted Dorian's wish; it could also represent death, which is an unavoidable end for all humans. The portrait is fatal for Dorian because of what it motivates him to do; for Basil, it is both positively fatal ("of decisive importance") to his career and negatively fatal to his life.
  10. dreadful
    causing fear or terror
    He could not help seeing the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the long hands looked! It was like a dreadful wax image.
    The adjective also means "exceptionally bad or displeasing." While the chosen definition is a better fit for the overall tone of the situation, Dorian's eye for beauty could see the dead body as a badly done piece of waxwork. This judgmental attitude can be seen more clearly earlier when Dorian described the scenery and orchestra of a play as dreadful.
  11. wince
    draw back, as with fear or pain
    He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came back to him, and he grew cold with passion.
  12. vital
    urgently needed; absolutely necessary
    Every moment was of vital importance.
    The Latin "vita" means "life." Here, every moment is vitally important because it could affect whether the crime of murder, which is punishable by death, is discovered. Dorian does not urgently need every moment as much as he urgently needs Alan Campbell to help him as soon as possible.
  13. precipice
    a very steep cliff
    Time seemed to him to be crawling with feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice.
  14. shudder
    tremble convulsively, as from fear or excitement
    He knew what was waiting for him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight and driven the eyeballs back into their cave.
  15. grotesque
    distorted and unnatural in shape or size
    The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks.
  16. nimble
    moving quickly and lightly
    Yes: that blind, slow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being dead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its grave, and showed it to him.
  17. pallor
    an unnatural lack of color in the skin
    In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coal-black hair and dark eyebrows.
  18. option
    one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen
    You are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to bring you into the matter. I have no option.
  19. vestige
    an indication that something has been present
    What you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs—to destroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left.
    The noun is synonymous with "trace," which Dorian also uses in his request for help ("there must be no trace of him found here"). The Latin "vestigium" means "footprint, trace" and can also be seen in the English "investigate." Dorian wants Alan to destroy Basil's body so that not a vestige of it will be left for the police to investigate and trace to him.
  20. scatter
    distribute loosely
    You, Alan, you must change him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes that I may scatter in the air.
  21. peril
    put in a dangerous, disadvantageous, or difficult position
    Do you think I am going to peril my reputation for you?
    Nowadays, the use of "peril" as a verb often includes the prefix "in" ("imperil" means "pose or present a threat or danger to"). As a noun, "peril" can be "a source of danger" or "a state of danger involving risk." Unknown to Basil, Dorian was a peril; now in peril, Dorian turns to Alan, who does not want to peril his reputation to save him.
  22. fetid
    offensively malodorous
    You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow through, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject.
  23. accustomed
    in the habit of or adapted to
    What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at.
  24. linger
    remain present although waning or gradually dying
    The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away.
  25. ghastly
    gruesomely indicative of death or the dead
    As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell back in his chair.
    While Wilde does not tell his readers the contents of the note, the assumption can be made that Dorian knows some awful secret that, if revealed, could imperil Alan's reputation. Thus, Alan is looking ghastly pale because he is aghast ("struck with fear, dread, or consternation"). Dorian's blackmailing of Alan could also be described as ghastly ("shockingly repellent"), especially since the two were once friends.
  26. agony
    intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain
    The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be borne.
  27. culminate
    end, especially to reach a final or climactic stage
    "Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In doing what I am going to do—what you force me to do—it is not of your life that I am thinking."
    Alan uses the verb in a negative way to describe the direction of Dorian's life. But its Latin root suggests a more desirable end: "culmen" means "top, peak, summit, roof." In astronomy, when a celestial body culminates, it reaches its highest altitude. Figuratively, when a situation culminates, it reaches its most decisive point.
  28. gleam
    be shiny, as if wet
    What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood?
    "Glistening" is used as a participial adjective in the example sentence, but in its verb form, it is synonymous with "gleam." Earlier, "gleam" was used as both a noun and verb to describe happy things (such as "the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms," "a gleam of pleasure," and "a copper-green sky gleamed through the windows"). But here, it is used to describe blood.
  29. mausoleum
    a large burial chamber, usually above ground
    She had proved an excellent wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed, and married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she devoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery, and French esprit when she could get it.
  30. singe
    burn superficially or lightly
    The smell of the singeing clothes and burning leather was horrible.
    When Dorian first puts the clothes into the fire, they are singeing. But his intent is not to lightly or superficially burn this evidence of Basil's presence in his house. Rather, he builds a huge, blazing fire in order to consume ("destroy completely") everything.
  31. listless
    marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm
    Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city
  32. oblivion
    total forgetfulness
    There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.
  33. atonement
    the act of making amends for sin or wrongdoing
    Ah! for that there was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.
  34. malady
    any unwholesome or desperate condition
    Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away.
    The Latin phrase "male habitus" means "doing poorly, feeling sick." In passing through Old French, it became one word that means "sickness, illness, disease." But similar to the earlier mention of leprosy, the malady here is not a physical breakdown of the body; rather, the example sentence uses the word to compare unpleasant memories to a disease affecting the soul.
  35. brutal
    able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
    Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself, he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat.
    "Brutal" and "callous" can be synonyms, since someone who has emotional calluses that desensitize feelings or morals might resemble an inhuman beast that is likely to inflict pain. Here, "callous" is used to describe Dorian, while "brutal" is used to describe James. While Dorian can be connected to both adjectives, James cannot be considered callous; even though he is set on murder, his motive is not from evil but from grief and a warped sense of justice.
  36. wrench
    twist or pull violently or suddenly
    He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the tightening fingers away.
  37. wreck
    smash or break forcefully
    "You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return.
  38. brink
    the limit beyond which something happens or changes
    "You have been on the brink of committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly.
    Earlier, Dorian imagines himself being pushed to the edge of a precipice, which can also be called a brink. Here, Dorian uses "brink" more figuratively. Believing that he has just been saved from falling off a precipice (or more accurately, from swinging from a hangman's noose), Dorian does not want to die. So he lies, and then tries to recover from his cowardice by scolding James and pretending that he is saving him from getting into murderous trouble.
  39. vengeance
    harming someone in retaliation for something they have done
    "Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own hands."
  40. haggard
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    "Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting her haggard face quite close to his.
Created on Wed Mar 16 13:58:16 EDT 2016 (updated Thu Mar 22 08:51:58 EDT 2018)

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