The Golden Compass: Chapters 14–17

by Philip Pullman
This first book of His Dark Materials trilogy starts off at Oxford's Jordan College, where eleven-year-old Lyra Belacqua and her dæmon Pantalaimon are given a device called an alethiometer that Lyra learns to interpret in order to discover truths, especially in connection to the kidnapping of children.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–9, Chapters 10–13, Chapters 14–17, Chapters 18–23

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. meticulous
    marked by precise accordance with details
    Lee Scoresby knew he’d see nothing from the sky, so he had to content himself with checking his equipment, though it was all in meticulous order.
  2. forlorn
    marked by or showing hopelessness
    From the way she was being jerked and bounced about, Lyra could tell how fast they were going, and though she strained to hear the sounds of battle, all she made out was a forlorn volley of shots, muffled by the distance, and then the creak and rush and soft paw thuds in the snow were all there was to hear.
  3. marmot
    a coarse-furred burrowing rodent with a short bushy tail
    But Pantalaimon answered it in his own fashion by becoming a falcon, and launching himself from her shoulder at the man’s
    dæmon, a large marmot, which struck up at Pantalaimon with a swift movement and spat as he circled past on swift wings.
  4. sweltering
    excessively hot and humid; marked by sweating and faintness
    Once they were through the inner doorway, Lyra found herself sweltering in what seemed unbearable heat, and had to pull open her furs and push back her hood.
  5. insignificant
    of little importance or influence or power; of minor status
    Lyra had been told that she was small for her age, whatever that meant. It had never affected her sense of her own importance, but she realized that she could use the fact now to make Lizzie shy and nervous and insignificant, and shrank a little as she went into the room.
  6. pert
    characterized by a lightly saucy or impudent quality
    Her pert neat little dæmon trotted along at her heels just as brisk and blank as she was.
  7. quell
    suppress or crush completely
    Pantalaimon fluttered in protest, but Lyra quelled him with a scowl.
  8. assent
    agree or express agreement
    That wasn’t an answer, and whereas Lyra would have pointed that out and asked for more information, she didn’t think Lizzie Brooks would; so she assented dumbly in the dressing and said no more.
  9. sanguine
    confidently optimistic and cheerful
    It wasn’t Lyra’s way to brood; she was a sanguine and practical child, and besides, she wasn’t imaginative.
  10. scuffle
    disorderly fighting
    Such brisk fights or scuffles between children’s dæmons were common, luckily, and no one took much notice, but Roger went pale at once.
  11. haughty
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    He looked up at the blank haughty stare she gave him, and the color flooded back into his cheeks as he brimmed over with hope, excitement, and joy; and only Pantalaimon, shaking Salcilia firmly, was able to keep Roger from shouting out and leaping up to greet his best friend, his comrade in arms, his Lyra.
  12. conspicuous
    obvious to the eye or mind
    All the children there were more or less at the same age, and it was the age when most boys talk to boys and girls to girls, each making a conspicuous point of ignoring the opposite sex.
  13. audible
    heard or perceptible by the ear
    “Yes, sir?” she said, her voice hardly audible.
  14. hostel
    inexpensive supervised lodging
    Billy had heard from a nurse that children who had had the operation were often taken to hostels further south, which might explain how Tony Makarios came to be wandering in the wild.
  15. maelstrom
    a violent commotion or disturbance
    Roger tugged Billy Costa’s arm and soon all three of them were together in a maelstrom of running children.
  16. hummock
    a small natural mound
    Lyra and the others scrambled over the curved roof of one of the tunnels, and found themselves in a strange moonscape of regular hummocks and hollows, all swathed in white under the black sky and lit by reflections from the lights around the arena.
  17. sunder
    break apart or in two, using violence
    But they’ll never be one again. They’re sundered forever.
  18. fledgling
    young bird that has just become capable of flying
    He spoke, and one by one they changed, though you could see the effort it cost them, until they were all birds; and like fledglings they followed the witch’s dæmon, fluttering and falling and running through the snow after him, and finally, with great difficulty, taking off.
  19. spectral
    resembling or characteristic of a phantom
    They rose in a ragged line, pale and spectral against the deep black sky, and slowly gained height, feeble and erratic though some of them were, and though others lost their will and fluttered downward; but the great gray goose wheeled round and nudged them back, herding them gently on until they were lost against the profound dark.
  20. erratic
    having no fixed course
    They rose in a ragged line, pale and spectral against the deep black sky, and slowly gained height, feeble and erratic though some of them were, and though others lost their will and fluttered downward; but the great gray goose wheeled round and nudged them back, herding them gently on until they were lost against the profound dark.
  21. resentment
    a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will
    It was quite common for struggles between children to be settled by their dæmons in this way, with one accepting the dominance of the other. Their humans accepted the outcome without resentment, on the whole, so Lyra knew that Annie would do as she asked.
  22. strut
    brace consisting of a bar or rod used to resist compression
    She was crouching in a narrow metal channel supported in a framework of girders and struts.
  23. rectify
    make right or correct
    Unfortunately, both alarms are on the same circuit; that’s a design fault that will have to be rectified. What it meant was that when the fire bell was turned off after the practice, the laboratory alarm was turned off as well.
  24. scalpel
    a thin straight surgical knife
    But the first big breakthrough was the use of anesthesia combined with the Maystadt anbaric scalpel. We were able to reduce death from operative shock to below five percent.
  25. alloy
    a mixture containing two or more metallic elements
    He discovered that an alloy of manganese and titanium has the property of insulating body from dæmon.
  26. guillotine
    instrument of execution used for beheading people
    So we’ve developed a kind of guillotine, I suppose you could say. The blade is made of manganese and titanium alloy, and the child is placed in a compartment—like a small cabin—of alloy mesh, with the dæmon in a similar compartment connecting with it. While there is a connection, of course, the link remains. Then the blade is brought down between them, severing the link at once.
  27. stanchion
    any vertical post or rod used as a support
    Lyra couldn’t help it: a little cry escaped her, and at the same time she tensed and shivered, and her foot knocked against a stanchion.
  28. poised
    marked by balance or equilibrium and readiness for action
    The fear she felt was almost a physical pain; it was a physical pain, as they pulled her and Pantalaimon over toward a large cage of pale silver mesh, above which a great pale silver blade hung poised to separate them forever and ever.
  29. succession
    a following of one thing after another in time
    But Pantalaimon, in answer, had twisted free of those hateful hands—he was a lion, an eagle; he tore at them with vicious talons, great wings beat wildly, and then he was a wolf, a bear, a polecat—darting, snarling, slashing, a succession of transformations too quick to register, and all the time leaping, flying, dodging from one spot to another as their clumsy hands flailed and snatched at the empty air.
  30. haggard
    showing the wearing effects of overwork or care or suffering
    Through tear-blurred eyes Lyra saw her totter and clutch at a bench; her face, so beautiful and composed, grew in a moment haggard and horror-struck.
  31. solicitous
    full of anxiety and concern
    The golden monkey darted from her side in a flash, and tugged Pantalaimon out from the mesh cage as Lyra fell out herself. Pantalaimon pulled free of the monkey’s solicitous paws and stumbled to Lyra’s arms.
  32. innocuous
    not injurious to physical or mental health
    He became a mouse and crept away from Lyra’s hand to sniff timidly at the drink in the monkey’s clutch. It was innocuous: an infusion of chamomile, nothing more.
  33. plausible
    apparently reasonable, valid, or truthful
    She had to be careful not to say anything obviously impossible; she had to be vague in some places and invent plausible details in others; she had to be an artist, in short.
  34. girder
    a beam used as a main support in a structure
    The fire in the kitchen had taken quickly, and whether it was the flour or the gas, something had brought down part of the roof. People were clambering over twisted struts and girders to get up to the bitter cold air.
  35. querulous
    habitually complaining
    "I en’t a gyptian,” a boy said.
    “Don’t matter. They’ll take you anyway.”
    “Where?” someone said querulously.
  36. dawdle
    hang or fall in movement, progress, development, etc.
    But it gave her a surge of strength, and she hauled one girl up out of a snowdrift, and shoved at a boy who was dawdling, and called to them all: “Keep going! Follow the bear’s tracks! He come up with the gyptians, so the tracks’ll lead us to where they are! Just keep walking!”
  37. obscure
    make unclear or less visible
    Thick clouds obscured the sky, so there was neither moon nor Northern Lights; but by peering closely, the children could make out the deep trail lorek Byrnison had plowed in the snow.
  38. phantasmagoria
    a constantly changing medley of real or imagined images
    It was all a phantasmagoria now: white, black, a swift green flutter across her vision, ragged shadows, racing light—
  39. incandescence
    light from heat
    Great swathes of incandescence trembled and parted like angels’ wings beating; cascades of luminescent glory tumbled down invisible crags to lie in swirling pools or hang like vast waterfalls.
  40. chasm
    a deep opening in the earth's surface
    Soft peaks and vaporous chasms rose or opened here and there, but mostly it looked like a solid mass of ice.
Created on Fri Jul 14 13:49:51 EDT 2017 (updated Thu Aug 17 10:00:36 EDT 2023)

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