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Winger: Chapters 64–84

Andrew Smith's hilarious and irreverent novel follows fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West as he attempts to navigate friendship, love, and rugby while at boarding school.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: The Toilet World–Chapter 18, Chapters 19–41, Chapters 42–63, Chapters 64–84, Chapter 85–The End
40 words 13 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. humiliating
    causing embarrassment or awareness of your shortcomings
    Then I knew Chas was going to do something to get even with me. Probably something painful, but at the very least humiliating.
  2. lyrical
    suitable for or suggestive of singing
    I guess he’d gotten used to my new name. It did have a lyrical sound to it.
  3. cruel
    able or disposed to inflict pain or suffering
    Casey glared at Kevin. I watched him. Joey was right about Casey Palmer. There was something cruel and cold in that kid’s eyes. Casey Palmer really did know what hate was.
  4. ethical
    relating to the study of moral values and rules
    So it was a real ethical dilemma.
  5. sensibility
    mental responsiveness and awareness
    Okay, that was the precise moment the Wild Boy took complete charge of my sensibilities as the pacifist was sleeping off a binge.
  6. pacifist
    someone opposed to violence as a means of settling disputes
    Okay, that was the precise moment the Wild Boy took complete charge of my sensibilities as the pacifist was sleeping off a binge.
  7. convention
    something regarded as a normative example
    Wild Boy had so taken control that I was losing the ability to express myself with the conventions of spoken language.
  8. fetid
    offensively malodorous
    I could almost feel the fetid gas cloud escaping from the mouth of the bottle and wafting like a moist cadaver’s hand across my face.
  9. jubilation
    a feeling of extreme joy
    I hadn’t really been paying attention to the game, what with my jubilation...but I figured I had a pair of fives, which in my two-shots-in-a-152-pound-sack-of-crap perspective looked pretty good.
  10. depravity
    moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles
    The adrenaline surge that resulted from watching Chas and Casey both fall victim to my depravity was nearly enough to counteract the effects of the whiskey, and even though I could tell I was feverish and sick, I felt like I could take on the world.
  11. technically
    according to the exact meaning; according to the facts
    Luckily, nobody paid much attention to cars coming or leaving on a Sunday night, and technically, we wouldn’t be considered AWOL until tomorrow morning, anyway.
  12. subtle
    difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
    I witnessed firsthand Megan’s subtle teases about me in the backseat of that same car as we all drove back to school from our weekends.
  13. adrenaline
    hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in response to stress
    But knowing all that still didn’t lessen the adrenaline jolt of fear that shot through me.
  14. jolt
    an abrupt spasmodic movement
    But knowing all that still didn’t lessen the adrenaline jolt of fear that shot through me.
  15. brisk
    quick and energetic
    And even if they did, I thought, I knew it would be easy enough to talk Joey into making a run for it.
    Or a brisk walk for that matter.
  16. torrent
    a violently fast stream of water or other liquid
    You know, there is something especially frightening when you’re stuck in the darkest depths of hell, in the middle of a raging torrent of mud, and the insane old lost guy in the front seat starts screaming like he’s going to die.
  17. soothing
    freeing from fear and anxiety
    I could hear the wheels spinning uselessly in the muddy water outside, and the splashy-soothing-fountain sounds of Joey’s and the insane guy’s feet up front.
  18. lunatic
    an insane person
    And I just sat in the backseat with my arms hugged across my bare chest, smiling all the time because of how stupid we were for trying to do a good deed for a lunatic like Ned.
  19. commitment
    the act of binding yourself to a course of action
    But at that moment, I knew I was going to stay away from Megan Renshaw, even if I also knew how difficult she could make keeping that commitment.
  20. demented
    affected with madness or insanity
    Because most of it just wasn’t the kind of stuff I’d want everyone in the whole world finding out about on some new perverted website designed by our demented scrum half.
  21. breadth
    the extent of something from side to side
    I shoved him, and he came within a hair’s breadth of crashing into JP.
  22. glance
    hit at an angle
    He came right back at me and threw a hellacious punch with his right fist, but his foot slipped away in the mud beneath him, so what would probably have knocked me out cold ended up glancing off my left rib cage.
  23. stimulus
    any information or event that acts to arouse action
    On the Ryan Dean West Stimulus-Satisfaction scale of things, it was without a doubt one of the best physical sensations of my entire, pathetic life.
  24. escort
    accompany
    I was convinced that JP wouldn’t show up, that someone would come in to escort me to the headmaster’s office for what I’d done.
  25. glare
    look at with a fixed or angry gaze
    I wanted to look away when he came in, because of the way he was glaring at me, but I thought that would seem too much like backing down, so I kept my eyes fixed right on his.
  26. laceration
    the act of tearing irregularly
    She said, “Your chart says you came in with a laceration on your . . .scrotum.”
  27. milestone
    a significant event in your life or in a project
    She actually did tell me to stand up and drop my pants, which made it a milestone in my life, being that Nurse Hickey was a smoking five-out-of-five-toothless-one-eyed-hillbillies on the Ryan Dean West Drop-Yer-Pants-Boy Tote Board.
  28. cadaverous
    of or relating to a corpse
    They were kissing, and it wasn’t one of those innocent oh-hello-you-frosty-and-cadaverous-old-hag-from-downstairs-so-nice-to-see-you-this-afternoon pecks on the cheek, either.
  29. crafty
    marked by skill in deception
    Then Mrs. Singer looked up at me, but I was too crafty for her. I kept my eyes fixed straight down on the floor until she left and I heard the door close behind her.
  30. communal
    for or by a group rather than individuals
    . . . the communal bathroom was always nasty and crowded, and bunk beds are for prisons.
  31. collapse
    break down due to fatigue, an illness, or a sudden attack
    Then I don’t know if she laughed or was going to cry, but she kind of shook and she put both of her hands on my shoulders and said, “I do love you, Ryan Dean,” and then we just about collapsed into each other’s arms.
  32. exist
    have a presence
    We hardly ate anything at all because we just stared at each other, and I could tell it started to annoy Joey and Isabel that we were so focused in our own thing—it was like the rest of our friends didn’t exist.
  33. mope
    be apathetic, gloomy, or dazed
    JP had long since stopped talking to me, and Megan just moped around like she was so depressed.
  34. notorious
    known widely and usually unfavorably
    None of us really liked playing against club teams; they were notorious cheaters as far as things like player eligibility were concerned, and most club coaches’ only priority was winning, so they’d do anything unethical to get there.
  35. eligibility
    the state of being qualified for something
    None of us really liked playing against club teams; they were notorious cheaters as far as things like player eligibility were concerned, and most club coaches’ only priority was winning, so they’d do anything unethical to get there.
  36. awkward
    socially uncomfortable; unsure and constrained in manner
    I didn’t feel awkward talking to Joey, or being in a situation where we were alone together, and I know that’s a crappy thing for me to even point out in the first place, like I have to defend myself to myself for being best friends with a guy who happens to be gay.
  37. tense
    in or of a state of physical or nervous strain
    But most guys just got all tense around Joey in normal social situations, like any time when we weren’t out on the pitch and bashing each others’ brains in playing rugby.
  38. limp
    walk unevenly due to pain, injury, or weakness
    Joey walked slowly and carefully. He limped. There really isn’t too much in the world that hurts worse than a guy’s body does the night after a rugby game, and the fly half almost always takes more shots than any other player on the field.
  39. contract
    become smaller or draw together
    “You know, nothing ever goes back exactly the way it was. Things just expand and contract. Like the universe, like breathing. But you’ll never fill your lungs up with the same air twice. Sometimes, it would be cool if you could pause and rewind and do over. But I think anyone would get tired of that after one or two times.”
  40. literally
    in a sense limited to explicit meaning
    And I can’t even explain how much I wanted to rip into Casey about what I knew, and out him in front of his hairy, tattooed roommate, but I literally bit down on my tongue and went to bed without saying another word.
Created on Wed Jul 26 16:38:54 EDT 2017 (updated Tue Apr 09 15:24:28 EDT 2019)

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