Cheaper by the Dozen: Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Chapters 1–4

by Frank B. Gilbreth
In this memoir, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey recount growing up in a family with a dozen children and two "efficiency experts" for parents.

Here are links to our lists for the memoir: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–9, Chapters 10–14, Chapters 15–19
40 words 31 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. jowl
    a looseness of the flesh of the lower cheek and jaw
    Dad was a tall man, with a large head, jowls, and a Herbert Hoover collar.
  2. ascertain
    learn or discover with confidence
    He was no longer slim; he had passed the two-hundred-pound mark during his early thirties, and left it so far behind that there were times when he had to resort to railway baggage scales to ascertain his displacement.
  3. gall
    the trait of being rude and impertinent
    Dad had enough gall to be divided into three parts, and the ability and poise to backstop the front he placed before the world.
  4. efficiency
    skillfulness in avoiding wasted time and effort
    Frequently, we’d tag along at his side, pencils and notebooks in our hands, when Dad toured a factory which had hired him as an efficiency expert.
  5. bedlam
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    But bear in mind the trouble most parents have in getting just one child off to school, and multiply it by twelve. Some regimentation was necessary to prevent bedlam.
  6. confines
    a bounded scope
    We children used to suspect, though, that one reason he had wanted a large family was to assure himself of an appreciative audience, even within the confines of the home.
  7. hale
    cause to do through pressure or necessity
    "If I ever bring anything else alive into this household,” Dad said, "I hope the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals hales me into court and makes me pay my debt to society. I never felt so ashamed about anything in my life as I do about those sheep. So help me.”
  8. shanty
    a small crude shelter used as a dwelling
    When Dad bought the house in Montclair, he described it to us as a tumbled-down shanty in a run-down neighborhood.
  9. hovel
    small crude shelter used as a dwelling
    We thought this was another one of his surprises, but he finally convinced us that the house was a hovel.
  10. arbor
    a framework that supports climbing plants
    And then he drove us to 68 Eagle Rock Way, which was an old but beautiful Taj Mahal of a house with fourteen rooms, a two-story barn out back, a greenhouse, chicken yard, grape arbors, rose bushes, and a couple of dozen fruit trees.
  11. unrequited
    not returned in kind
    Dad had seen the car in the factory and fallen in love with it. The affection was entirely one-sided and unrequited.
  12. ominously
    in a manner suggesting something bad will happen
    The contraption kicked him when he cranked, spat oil in his face when he looked into its bowels, squealed when he mashed the brakes, and rumbled ominously when he shifted gears.
  13. supplication
    the act of communicating with a deity
    She sat next to him on the front seat—with two of the babies on her lap—and alternated between clutching Dad’s arm and closing her eyes in supplication.
  14. balk
    refuse to proceed or comply
    One day, while we were returning from a particularly trying picnic, the engine balked, coughed, spat, and stopped.
  15. livid
    furiously angry
    He blew on the burned wrist. He was livid.
  16. fraught
    filled with or attended with
    Although Dad’s driving was fraught with peril, there was a strange fascination in its brushes with death and its dramatic, traffic-stopping scenes.
  17. bolster
    support and strengthen
    Dad was a perpetual optimist, confident that brains someday would triumph over inanimate steel; bolstered in the belief that he entered the fray with clean hands and a pure heart.
  18. fray
    a noisy fight
    Dad was a perpetual optimist, confident that brains someday would triumph over inanimate steel; bolstered in the belief that he entered the fray with clean hands and a pure heart.
  19. deportment
    the way a person behaves toward other people
    Anne, as the oldest, also was responsible for the deportment and general appearance of the whole group.
  20. promenade
    a public area set aside as a pedestrian walk
    The Leviathan’s sailing was held up for twenty minutes until Dan was located, asleep in a chair on the promenade deck.
  21. lurid
    glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism
    The other occurrence was slightly more lurid.
  22. garish
    tastelessly showy
    It was night time when we returned, however, and the place was garish in colored lights.
  23. poise
    great coolness and composure under strain
    "Goodness, no,” he stammered, with all of his ordinary poise shattered.
  24. vitality
    a healthy capacity for vigorous activity
    Mother, holding the two babies, seemed to glow with vitality.
  25. pompadour
    a hair style in which the hair is swept up from the forehead
    Her red hair, arranged in a flat pompadour, would begin to blow out in wisps from her hat.
  26. render
    give an interpretation of
    While the peasantry was chuckling, the Pierce Arrow would buck away in clouds of gray smoke, while the professor up front rendered a few bars of Honk Honk Kadookah.
  27. emphatically
    in a forceful manner; with emphasis
    “That,” she said, "is the last straw. Positively and emphatically the ultimate straw.”
  28. penultimate
    next to the last
    "Not the penultimate, nor yet the ante-penultimate,” said Mother. "But the ultimate.”
  29. antepenultimate
    third from last
    "Not the penultimate, nor yet the ante-penultimate,” said Mother. "But the ultimate.”
  30. reprimand
    censure severely or angrily
    Mother was upset, but not too upset to reprimand Anne for swearing.
  31. reprobate
    a person without moral scruples
    "That’s the funniest thing I ever heard in my life. An orphanage on wheels. And me the superintendent. Gilbreth’s Retreat for the Red-Haired Offspring of Unwed but Repentant Reprobates.”
  32. repentant
    feeling or expressing remorse for misdeeds
    As we passed through the outskirts of Hartford, Dad was subdued and repentant; perhaps a little frightened.
  33. pince-nez
    spectacles clipped to the nose by a spring
    "Your Mother hasn’t a very good sense of direction,” he’d say loudly, glaring over his pince-nez at Mother.
  34. philosophical
    meeting trouble with level-headed detachment
    Mother was philosophical about it. Whenever she considered that Dad was hopelessly lost, she’d open a little portable ice box that she kept on the floor of the car under her feet, and hand Jane her bottle.
  35. plumb
    the metal bob of a perpendicular line
    If a factory was nearby, he’d explain how you used a plumb line to get the chimney straight and why the windows had been placed a certain way to let in the maximum light.
  36. gnarled
    old and twisted and covered in lines
    Or if Dad pointed out a tree that had been bent and gnarled, it was Mother who made us sense how the wind, eating against the tree in the endless passing of time, had made its own relentless mark.
  37. relentless
    never-ceasing
    Or if Dad pointed out a tree that had been bent and gnarled, it was Mother who made us sense how the wind, eating against the tree in the endless passing of time, had made its own relentless mark.
  38. delectable
    extremely pleasing to the sense of taste
    Most of us liked our apples without skins, and Dad thought this was wasteful. When he ate an apple, he consumed skin, core and seeds, which he alleged were the most healthful and most delectable portions of the fruit.
  39. ensue
    take place or happen afterward or as a result
    Dad always opened the door of a public rest room with his coattail, and the preparations and precautions that ensued were "unavoidable delay” in its worst aspect.
  40. delicacy
    subtly skillful handling of a situation
    For family delicacy, Dad coined two synonyms for going to the bathroom in the woods. One was "visiting Mrs. Murphy.” The other was "examining the rear tire.”
Created on Tue Aug 06 14:44:09 EDT 2019 (updated Tue Aug 13 09:01:21 EDT 2019)

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