East of Eden: Part Four

by John Steinbeck
Inspired by the biblical story of Cain and Abel, this novel tells the interlinked stories of the Trask and Hamilton families.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

Here are links to our lists for other works by John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. avarice
    extreme greed for material wealth
    Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil.
  2. venerable
    profoundly honored
    Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
  3. baleful
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    Salinas had two grammar schools, big yellow structures with tall windows, and the windows were baleful and the doors did not smile.
  4. opulence
    wealth as evidenced by sumptuous living
    The opulence of having a teacher for each grade made a deep impression on them.
  5. precocious
    characterized by exceptionally early development
    Adults were impressed with what seemed to them a precocious maturity, and they were a little frightened at it too.
  6. obsequious
    attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery
    Although he had no friends he was welcomed by his obsequious classmates and took up a natural and cold position of leadership in the schoolyard.
  7. poised
    marked by balance or equilibrium and readiness for action
    On the ranch his possessions had never really been unpacked, for Lee had lived poised to go someplace else.
  8. earmark
    give or assign a resource to a particular person or cause
    He had never before spent a needless penny, since all money had been earmarked for his bookstore.
  9. reprove
    reprimand, scold, or express dissatisfaction with
    Abra reproved him. “Don’t you blame your father.
  10. ingenuous
    characterized by an inability to mask your feelings
    And what was charming in the blond ingenuousness of Aron became suspicious and unpleasant in the dark-faced, slit-eyed Cal.
  11. rebuff
    reject outright and bluntly
    Where
 Aron was received, Cal was rebuffed for doing or saying exactly the same 
thing.
  12. nonchalance
    the trait of remaining calm and seeming not to care
    But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy.
  13. effusive
    uttered with unrestrained enthusiasm
    Rabbit greeted Cal effusively, as a country man always greets an acquaintance in a strange place.
  14. wallow
    roll around
    One moment he was dedicated and pure and devoted; the next he wallowed in filth; and the next he groveled in shame and emerged rededicated.
  15. sluggish
    lacking energy, quickness, or alertness
    Aron was caught in the roil of change too, but his impulses were more sluggish than Cal’s.
  16. imperceptibly
    in a manner that is difficult to discern
    The nation slid imperceptibly toward war, frightened 
and at the same time attracted.
  17. dirge
    a song or hymn of mourning as a memorial to a dead person
    They were sheepish, and the Salinas Band marched ahead of them, playing the “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and the families walking along beside them were crying, and the music sounded like a dirge.
  18. goad
    a pointed instrument used to provoke into motion
    Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant.
  19. geniality
    a disposition to be friendly and approachable
    Joe sensed a mild geniality in her and it made him feel good.
  20. ingratiating
    capable of winning favor
    “Any way you want it,” he said ingratiatingly, and a surge of pleasant expectation grew in him.
  21. abate
    become less in amount or intensity
    The pain in her hands was abated, and it seemed to her that her fingers were straighter, the knuckles not so swollen.
  22. surplice
    a loose-fitting ecclesiastical vestment with wide sleeves
    She could see him, moving slowly past, his white surplice edged with lace, his sweet chin down and his hair glowing under the candlelight.
  23. intransigent
    impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, or reason
    The war years were wet years, and there were many people who blamed the strange intransigent weather on the firing of the great guns in France.
  24. foppish
    overly concerned with extreme elegance in dress and manner
    Men began to wear their handkerchiefs in their sleeves and some foppish lieutenants carried swagger sticks.
  25. oblique
    not direct, explicit, or straightforward
    Everybody had a secret that he had to spread obliquely to keep its identity as a secret.
  26. querulous
    habitually complaining
    His face was querulous. “No,” he said, “you’re right. A man couldn’t.”
  27. solemn
    dignified and somber in manner or character
    Henry liked fun and avoided when he could any solemn or serious matter, for he confused these with sorrow.
  28. ascetic
    characteristic of the practice of rigorous self-discipline
    She lay for a day in Muller’s Funeral Chapel in an ebony and silver casket, her lean and severe profile made
 even more ascetic by the four large candles set at the four corners of the
 casket.
  29. catholic
    comprehensive or broad-minded in tastes and interests
    But a strange and catholic selection of citizens tiptoed to the chapel door and peered in and went away—lawyers and laborers and clerks and bank tellers, most of them past middle age.
  30. palaver
    loud and confused and empty talk
    She gives me a job now and then and she’s generous and quick to pay. Probably nothing to all the palaver about her. Still, when you think of it, she’s a pretty cold piece of woman.
  31. perfidy
    an act of deliberate betrayal
    Alf was angry at Joe’s perfidy, so he put in a needle.
  32. careen
    move sideways or in an unsteady way
    Cal’s mind careened in anger at himself and in pity for himself.
  33. contempt
    lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike
    And then a new voice came into it, saying coolly and with contempt, “If you’re being honest—why not say you are enjoying this beating you’re giving yourself? That would be the truth. Why not be just what you are and do just what you do?”
  34. plaintively
    in a manner expressing sorrow
    She grimaced with the extra pain lifting her hands had caused. “Makes you feel hopeless,” she said plaintively.
  35. intrepid
    invulnerable to fear or intimidation
    We knew he was intrepid, for he had held his own in various gunfights; besides, he looked like a sheriff—the only kind we knew
 about.
  36. mundane
    concerned with the world or worldly matters
    We are mundane and materialistic—and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals?
  37. proportion
    relation with respect to comparative quantity or magnitude
    We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion.
  38. decadence
    the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities
    We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture.
  39. pervasive
    spreading or spread throughout
    But people also turned inward to their private joys and tragedies to escape the pervasive fear and despondency.
  40. astringent
    acidic or bitter in taste or smell
    The kitchen was sweet with tarts, and some of the berries had boiled over in the oven and burned, making the sharp, bitter-sweet smell pleasant and astringent.
Created on Sat Aug 27 20:46:38 EDT 2016 (updated Mon Sep 24 15:30:20 EDT 2018)

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