Cormac McCarthy's 'All The Pretty Horses'

Jake
24 words 25 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. ribald
    humorously vulgar
    The train came boring out of the east like some ribald satellite of the coming sun howling and bellowing in the distance.
  2. elliptic
    rounded like an egg
    The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of blood red cloud before him.
  3. ardent
    characterized by intense emotion
    All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardent-hearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.
  4. primogeniture
    right of inheritance belonging exclusively to the eldest son
    The last two were killed in Puerto Rico in 1898 and in that year he married and brought his bride home to the ranch and he must have walked out and stood looking at his holdings and reflected long upon the ways of God and the law of primogeniture.
  5. circumspect
    careful to consider potential consequences and avoid risk
    ...they rode not under the stars but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric...
  6. javelina
    dark grey peccary with an indistinct white collar
    ...they walked them down a dry creekbed among the tracks of cattle and javelina to a stand of cottonwoods.
  7. suture
    a seam used in surgery
    To the west a mile away ran a wire fence strung from pole to pole like a bad suture across the gray grasslands...
  8. marauder
    someone who attacks in search of loot
    They quartered downstream with the current, the naked riders leaning forward and talking to the horses, Rawlings holding the rifle aloft in one hand, lined out behind one another and making for the alien shore like a party of marauders.
  9. nopal
    any of several cacti of the genus Nopalea resembling prickly pears
    They rode up through low hills covered with nopal and creosote.
  10. rivulet
    a small stream
    A thin blue rivulet of drainwater ran down the clay gully in front of the store and a goat stood in the rutted road looking at the horses.
  11. impropriety
    the condition of being unsuitable or offensive
    She could not laugh for the impropriety of it but the brightness in her eyes did not escape even Blevins.
  12. rowel
    a small spiked wheel at the end of a spur
    He put the long rowels of his spurs to the horse and they moved on.
  13. desiccated
    thoroughly dried out
    What they dredged smoking out of the ground looked like some desiccated effigy from a tomb.
  14. effigy
    a representation of a person
    What they dredged smoking out of the ground looked like some desiccated effigy from a tomb.
  15. plodding
    (of movement) slow and laborious
    Blevins' horse was plodding along behind with an empty saddle.
  16. chaparral
    dense vegetation consisting of stunted trees or bushes
    They pulled the wet saddles off the horses and hobbled them and walked off in separate directions through the chaparral to stand spraddlelegged clutching their knees and vomiting.
  17. Gorgon
    (Greek mythology) any of three winged sister monsters and the mortal Medusa who had live snakes for hair; a glance at Medusa turned the beholder to stone
    A thing smirking deep in the eyes of grace itself like a gorgon in an autumn pool.
  18. bedlam
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    All out bedlam had broken across the lot.
  19. retinue
    the group following and attending to some important person
    The horse squatted and dug in with its hind hooves and Blevins in his underwear atop the big bay horse and attended by a close retinue of howling dogs exploded into the road in a shower of debris from the rotted ocotillo fence he'd put the horse through.
  20. tendril
    slender structure by which some plants attach to an object
    There were storms to the south and masses of clouds that moved slowly along the horizon with their long dark tendrils trailing in the rain.
  21. inoculating
    the act of protecting against disease by introducing a vaccine into the body to induce immunity
    They worked two days in the holdingpens branding and earmarking and castrating and dehorning and inoculating.
  22. hackamore
    rope or canvas headgear for a horse, with a rope for leading
    He watched while John Grady walked up to the animal and tied a twelvefoot length of rope to the hackamore.
  23. tractable
    easily managed
    By dark he'd ridden eleven of the sixteen horses. Not all of them so tractable.
  24. circumspection
    the trait of being cautious and sensible
    When they were done the horses stood in the potrero or stepped about trailing their hackamore ropes over the ground with such circumspection not to tread upon them and snatch down their sore noses that they moved with an air of great elegance and seemliness.
Created on Thu Jan 19 19:04:42 EST 2012 (updated Thu Jan 19 21:53:10 EST 2012)

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