Ella Minnow Pea: List 5

by Mark Dunn
Eighteen-year-old Ella Minnow Pea fights to save her family, friends, and neighbors after the local government forbids the use certain letters of the alphabet in written and spoken communications.

This list covers "October 16"–"November 22."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
40 words 17 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. brash
    offensively bold
    It began this way: brash Council representatives, upon reaching his northern acreage, gave him papers that gave them authority to appropriate his property.
  2. vermilion
    of a vivid red to reddish-orange color
    Rory was seething, his countenance nearly vermilion in hue.
  3. treacle
    anything that is excessively sweet and sentimental
    The Council representative—his voice: even, treacly polite—gave his response again, with slight elaboration: “Mr. Cummels, it
 is the Council’s earnest conviction that there is no other Supreme Being but Almighty Nollop. None whatsoever. Praise Nollop. Nollop eternal.”
  4. apoplectic
    marked by extreme anger
    But he became at that moment positively apoplectic—moving to assault the representative with everything available to him in his verbal arsenal, utterly without restraint—letting loose with a veritable, vituperative salvo—nothing printable here.
  5. vituperative
    marked by harshly abusive criticism
    But he became at that moment positively apoplectic—moving to assault the representative with everything available to him in his verbal arsenal, utterly without restraint—letting loose with a veritable, vituperative salvo—nothing printable here.
  6. salvo
    an outburst resembling the discharge of firearms
    But he became at that moment positively apoplectic—moving to assault the representative with everything available to him in his verbal arsenal, utterly without restraint—letting loose with a veritable, vituperative salvo—nothing printable here.
  7. cursory
    hasty and without attention to detail; not thorough
    There was a cursory exchange between us—an impotent attempt at a chin-up bon voyage replete with the now customary, almost prosaic parting anguish.
  8. prosaic
    not challenging; dull and lacking excitement
    There was a cursory exchange between us—an impotent attempt at a chin-up bon voyage replete with the now customary, almost prosaic parting anguish.
  9. solvent
    capable of meeting financial obligations
    As the ship was pulling away, Rory gave the store hasty mention. It is mine now. I will try to run it as best I can, preserving solvency until his return.
  10. listless
    marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm
    “Banishment.” You hear it all over. In urgent whispers; in hopeless cries. Companion to the listless, vacant stares—stares belonging to those who live in resignation to the grimmest possible outcome, all but put to seal.
  11. expunge
    remove by erasing or crossing out or as if by drawing a line
    Expunging each entry in his Heavenly Lexicon—one at a time—until the tome’s pages stop resembling pages at all. Until they become pure expurgatory-tangibull.
  12. expurgate
    edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate
    Expunging each entry in his Heavenly Lexicon—one at a time—until the tome’s pages stop resembling pages at all. Until they become pure expurgatory-tangibull.
  13. tenebrous
    dark and gloomy
    Tenebrous night in thin tissue.
  14. morose
    showing a brooding ill humor
    Am I being morose? I’m sorry. I cannot help it.
  15. spate
    a large number or amount or extent
    With the recent spate in migrations to the States, there is now a shortage: not nearly enough six- to seven-year-youngs to write the sentences.
  16. crepuscular
    like or relating to twilight; dim
    That isn’t all: the Council has put crepuscular-to-auroric house arrest upon all Nollop civilians not in league with the cult.
  17. victuals
    a stock or supply of foods
    As there are no more customers, the store is no longer open. This is all right, though, she says; victuals were starting to run scarce.
  18. renounce
    turn away from; give up
    To leave or not to leave.
    To waive claim to our homes. To renounce our mother soil.
  19. rapacious
    excessively greedy and grasping
    To give up everything to those who warrant only our lowest contempt—to those who aspire to reign in outright tyranny, who misperceive Nollopian thoughts in service to rapacious intentions.
  20. prostrate
    stretched out and lying at full length along the ground
    Are we to them only silent, witless nonessentials—prostrate irrelevancies to step over in their march to own, to expropriate, to steal everything in sight—even our very tongues!
  21. unconscionable
    greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation
    Satan is alive and well, right here in all his z-q-j-d-k-f-b, jumpy-brown-fox-slothful-pooch-quick-and-the-dead-glory—right here upon this devil’s island of hatred and anger and unconscionable, inconsolable loss.
  22. eschew
    avoid and stay away from deliberately
    You will eschew its use or receive penalties as per earlier Council proclamata.
  23. expropriate
    deprive of possessions
    Our home, our property—it’s all that we have, you see. Were we all to leave, they will expropriate it. They expropriate property, you’re aware, are you not?
  24. exonerate
    pronounce not guilty of criminal charges
    Please exonerate me. In your heart. I am so sorry that I was the one to report your violations.
  25. ensuing
    following immediately and as a result of what went before
    I have spent the entire postnoon, all the early hours ensuing my arrival in town, waiting.
  26. magisterial
    of or relating to a civil officer who administers the law
    Tom tells me that the state operates now only to relate the next letters to omit. There are no other magisterial assertions.
  27. apotheosis
    the elevation of a person, as to the status of a god
    The high priests generate their alpha-elisions, then return to their lairs to eat what tasties were put there, while praying to Nollop, paying homage to Nollop, stooping, prostrating, salaaming to Nollop. Ignoring all humanity in their Nollop- apotheosis.
  28. austere
    of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor
    The others who remain on this isle plow their energies into hunting aliments, into maintaining shelter in these unsure, austere times.
  29. arroyo
    a stream or brook
    I slept in sewer- arroyos.
  30. proffer
    present for acceptance or rejection
    Mr. Lyttle, on behalf of the High Council, has accepted my sentence—the thirty-two letter sentence which I proffered three hours prior to deadline.
  31. render
    cause to become
    I asked Mr. Lyttle why all of this was spared in the wake of the antialphabetical edicts which had rendered to dust and ash virtually everything else found in print upon this island.
  32. immure
    lock up or confine, in or as in a jail
    It seems that efforts were indeed underway to find masons to seal off the vault, entombing it behind a solid brick wall, burying as unintended time capsule, these immurement-destined remnants of a time when discourse came without stricture—without posthumous Nollopian challenges-cum-curses.
  33. stricture
    a principle that restricts the extent of something
    It seems that efforts were indeed underway to find masons to seal off the vault, entombing it behind a solid brick wall, burying as unintended time capsule, these immurement-destined remnants of a time when discourse came without stricture—without posthumous Nollopian challenges-cum-curses.
  34. shoal
    a stretch of shallow water
    “I am floundering upon the shoals of despair, forsaken by the Great and Powerful Nollop!”
  35. approbation
    official recognition or commendation
    There were some among the survivors who wanted to erect a monument to me; others thought Pop, as the actual creator of the sentence that was to serve as vehicle for our emancipation, deserving of all the national approbation.
  36. fortuitous
    lucky; occurring by happy chance
    I suggested that neither of us was an appropriate candidate given the fortuity of the sentence’s conception.
  37. preclude
    keep from happening or arising
    But this fact does not preclude the erection of some other concrete memorial to those who lost life, property, strips of dorsal epidermis, and/or sanity to the tyranny of the last four months.
  38. facade
    the front of a building
    And upon the bandiford beneath the sculpture, writ not on tiles, but chiseled deeply into the marble façade, the following sentence nineteen letters in length, containing a mere ten different graphemes of the English alphabet:
    “Dead dogs tell no tails.”
  39. zephyr
    a slight wind
    Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.
  40. galvanize
    stimulate to action
    Few quips galvanized the mock jury box.
Created on Mon Jan 31 13:38:31 EST 2022 (updated Thu Feb 10 10:14:19 EST 2022)

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