Outliers: Chapter 8–Epilogue

by Malcolm Gladwell
Nonfiction writer Malcolm Gladwell theorizes about the surprising circumstances that create exceptional, successful people.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction–Chapter 2, Chapters 3–5, Chapters 6–7, Chapter 8–Epilogue

Here are links to our lists for other works by Malcolm Gladwell: Blink, The Tipping Point
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. correlation
    a reciprocal connection between two or more things
    In languages as diverse as Welsh, Arabic, Chinese, English and Hebrew, there is a reproducible correlation between the time required to pronounce numbers in a given language and the memory span of its speakers.
  2. efficacy
    capacity or power to produce a desired result
    In this domain, the prize for efficacy goes to the Cantonese dialect of Chinese, whose brevity grants residents of Hong Kong a rocketing memory span of about 10 digits.
  3. sedentary
    requiring sitting or little activity
    After the revolution, in Alsace and the Pas-de-Calais, officials complained that wine growers and independent farmers, instead of undertaking “some peaceful and sedentary industry” in the quieter season, “abandon themselves to dumb idleness.”
  4. recompense
    payment or reward, as for service rendered
    On the other hand, Arkush writes, Chinese proverbs are striking in their belief that “hard work, shrewd planning and self-reliance or cooperation with a small group will in time bring recompense.”
  5. protocol
    code of correct conduct
    In the classroom, they are taught to turn and address anyone talking to them in a protocol known as “SSLANT”: smile, sit up, listen, ask questions, nod when being spoken to, and track with your eyes.
  6. pernicious
    working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way
    Similarly, the pioneer of public education in Massachusetts, Horace Mann, believed that working students too hard would create a “most pernicious influence upon character and habits — Not infrequently is health itself destroyed by over-stimulating the mind.”
  7. respite
    a pause from doing something
    The reformers, Gold writes: strove for ways to reduce time spent studying, because long periods of respite could save the mind from injury.
  8. inherent
    existing as an essential constituent or characteristic
    The first response is that disadvantaged kids simply don’t have the same inherent ability to learn as children from more privileged backgrounds.
  9. desultory
    marked by lack of definite plan, purpose, or enthusiasm
    On the strength of that performance, 90 percent of KIPP students get scholarships to private or parochial high schools instead of having to attend their own desultory high schools in the Bronx.
  10. expound
    add details to clarify an idea
    In the evening, his best friend, Archdeacon Hay, the Anglican pastor who lived on the other side of the hill, would come over and sit on Donald’s veranda, and together they would expound on the problems of Jamaica.
  11. prowess
    a superior skill learned by study and practice
    But it is false in the way that telling the story of Bill Gates without mentioning the computer at Lakeside is false, or accounting for Asian math prowess without going back to the rice paddies is false.
  12. prohibitive
    tending to discourage, especially of prices
    But scholarships were few and far between, and the cost of private schooling was prohibitive for all but a privileged few.
  13. miscegenation
    marriage or reproduction by people of different races
    Laws were passed prohibiting miscegenation, the last of which were not struck down by the US Supreme Court until 1967.
  14. ostracize
    avoid speaking to or dealing with
    A plantation owner who lived openly with a slave woman would have been socially ostracized, and any offspring from the union of black and white would have been left in slavery.
  15. indigenous
    originating where it is found
    He married another mulatto, a woman who was half European and half Arawak, which is the Indian tribe indigenous to Jamaica, and had seven children.
Created on Tue May 20 21:54:44 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Jul 02 18:23:19 EDT 2025)

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