Snowglobe: List 4

by Soyoung Park
In stark comparison to the outside world's frozen wasteland, Snowglobe is the perfect, climate-controlled environment where inhabitants enjoy privilege and celebrity, captured on a 24-hour television program that the suffering world watches and envies. But reality under the dome is filled with lies, dark secrets, and inhumanity.

This list covers vocabulary from "The Surprise Guest"—"The Doppelganger."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
15 words 7 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. gaggle
    a large, disorganized group of people
    I’m just pulling out the piece and thanking the crew when the studio door flies open and a gaggle of employees who have been pressed against the other side, waiting for their chance to meet with Bonwhe, crowd into the room.
  2. decadent
    relating to indulgence in something pleasurable
    Nuzzling my cheek against Maeryung’s and walking hand in hand with Sanghui are still torture, but I’m getting used to it. You can get used to anything, really. And I do reward myself with the kinds of cures only Snowglobe can offer: daily runs in the park through fresh morning mist, followed by decadent chocolate parfaits.
  3. patently
    unmistakably
    I thank him and return the compliment, telling him how good he looks, which is patently false.
    “I’d better be, with all the Botox I’ve been getting!” he replies.
  4. deference
    courteous regard for people's feelings
    Then, stretching my arms over my head, I sneak a concerned look at the depressed burn patient—also for the cameras—before heading to the blind spot on the opposite end of the deck, as if in deference to the patient’s need for privacy and quiet.
  5. threadbare
    thin and tattered with age
    Suddenly, I realize how cold I am. Air is nipping at my nose, and the only heat is radiating from a lukewarm electric pad topping the mattress under me. What on earth? The dark, drab home, the antiquated TV, the threadbare furniture, the frost in the air…It hits me with the force of a blow. This isn’t Snowglobe.
  6. inflection
    the modification of pitch, tone, or volume when speaking
    It doesn’t take a director to recognize that drive in Serin. She broadcasts her fandom by inhabiting her idol completely. Her pigtails, her smile, her inflections and pauses: she’s all Haeri.
  7. exploit
    use or manipulate to one's advantage
    “You want to live as Haeri, is that it?” she asks, disgust in her tone.
    “No,” I say. Then I stand up and I look her in the eyes. “I want to eliminate Haeri. I want to end her existence so Cha Seol can’t exploit her anymore.”
  8. prematurely
    too soon; earlier than expected
    “What if you back me up, Ajumma? Testify for me? You’ve kept all her letters and—”
    “And you think people will believe a failed director prematurely exiled from Snowglobe over almighty Director Cha Seol? I can already see the headline: Director’s jealous little sister hatches an absurd ruse!”
  9. ruse
    a deceptive maneuver, especially to avoid capture
    “What if you back me up, Ajumma? Testify for me? You’ve kept all her letters and—”
    “And you think people will believe a failed director prematurely exiled from Snowglobe over almighty Director Cha Seol? I can already see the headline: Director’s jealous little sister hatches an absurd ruse!”
  10. coalesce
    fuse or cause to come together
    Then, finally, some lines coalesce in the gloom ahead. At first, it seems like another log cabin, but then I see the wheels. Soon a hulking truck is revealed, the biggest one I’ve ever seen, taller than the double-decker that takes us to the plant back home, with a giant snowplow mounted on its front.
  11. depravity
    moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles
    “I wondered why Seol would go out of her way to send Hyang a crap-ton of apples in an oversized box,” she says with a rueful grin. “I figured she had no idea what her sister liked. But I guess I underestimated her depravity.”
  12. clime
    the weather in some location averaged over a period of time
    When the ice age first came about two hundred years ago, the world order of individual nation-states had already been eroding, with governments and economies falling like dominoes around the globe. At the beginning of the shift—both in climate and in the way of the world—temperate climes remained in certain areas of the earth, but those disappeared as climate change intensified.
  13. fetching
    very attractive; capturing interest
    “Hyang,” she says to her. “Please tell me you’re going to be all right.” Then she turns to me and smiles—her scar dimple making her strangely more fetching—and says, “Best of luck.”
  14. perfunctory
    as a formality only
    “We’re scientists measuring geothermal energy,” she says. He seems happy with her answer, and after a few more perfunctory questions, the engineer takes his leave.
  15. veneer
    an outward appearance that is deliberately misleading
    Hyang’s veneer of calm authority drops the moment the supervisor leaves us, her agitation surfacing as she gnaws at her fingernails like a rodent.
Created on Mon Aug 31 19:49:53 EDT 2026 (updated Tue Sep 22 12:25:43 EDT 2026)

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