Nine Stories: "Down at the Dinghy" by J.D. Salinger

by J.D. Salinger
In this story, Boo Boo Tanenbaum attempts to discover what is troubling her young son Lionel, who has run away and hidden in a small boat.

Here are links to our lists for other short stories in Nine Stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish,
Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, Just Before the War with the Eskimos, The Laughing Man, Down at the Dinghy, For Esmé–with Love and Squalor, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period, Teddy

Here is a link to our lists for J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. slack
    a cord or rope or cable that is hanging loosely
    This time as she came away, she absently untied and re-tied her apron strings, taking up what little slack her enormous waistline allowed.
  2. enamel
    a colored glassy compound fused to a surface
    Then she went back to the enamel table and lowered her freshly uniformed body into the seat opposite Mrs. Snell.
  3. customary
    commonly used or practiced
    Mrs. Snell having finished the cleaning and ironing was having her customary cup of tea before walking down the road to the bus stop.
  4. helm
    steering mechanism for a vessel
    It was the same interesting, black felt headpiece she had worn, not just all summer, but for the past three summers—through record heat waves, through change of life, over scores of ironing boards, over the helms of dozens of vacuum cleaners.
  5. rancorous
    showing deep-seated resentment
    Sandra stared rancorously at the opposite wall. “I’ll be so gladda get backa the city. I’m not foolin’. I hate this crazy place.”
  6. hostile
    characterized by enmity or ill will
    She gave Mrs. Snell a hostile glance. “It’s all right for you, you live here all year round. You got your social life here and all. You don’t care.”
  7. ermine
    the expensive white fur of a small mammal
    This was the sort of question Mrs. Snell slipped into as if it were an ermine coat.
  8. brittle
    having little elasticity
    She was a small, almost hipless girl of twenty-five, with styleless, colorless, brittle hair pushed back behind her ears, which were very large.
  9. immoderate
    beyond reasonable limits
    Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was—in terms of permanently memorable, immoderately perceptive, small-area faces—a stunning and final girl.
  10. uninhibited
    not restrained
    As she peered inside, with her legs apart and her hands on her knees, she whistled, unmelodically, through her teeth, keeping time with a little uninhibited, pendulum action of her rear end.
  11. pendulum
    an apparatus in which an object is mounted to swing freely
    As she peered inside, with her legs apart and her hands on her knees, she whistled, unmelodically, through her teeth, keeping time with a little uninhibited, pendulum action of her rear end.
  12. sociable
    friendly and pleasant
    "The Mall’s where they all go skatin’ in New York,” Sandra said very sociably to Mrs. Snell. “The kids and all.”
  13. contempt
    lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike
    "They find him?" said Mrs. Snell.
    “Sure they found him!” said Sandra with contempt.
  14. assortment
    a collection containing a variety of kinds of things
    "They found him at a quarter past eleven at night, in the middle of—my God, February, I think. Not a child in the park. Just muggers, I guess, and an assortment of roaming degenerates."
  15. degenerate
    a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable
    "They found him at a quarter past eleven at night, in the middle of—my God, February, I think. Not a child in the park. Just muggers, I guess, and an assortment of roaming degenerates."
  16. refuge
    a shelter from danger or hardship
    “Well, at the age of two-and-a-half,” Boo Boo said biographically, “he sought refuge under a sink in the basement of our apartment house. Down in the laundry.”
  17. glaring
    shining intensely
    She stood on the slight downgrade of her front lawn, with the low, glaring, late afternoon sun at her back.
  18. stern
    the rear part of a ship
    About two hundred yards ahead of her, her son Lionel was sitting in the stern seat of his father’s dinghy.
  19. dinghy
    a small boat of shallow draft
    About two hundred yards ahead of her, her son Lionel was sitting in the stern seat of his father’s dinghy.
  20. pier
    a platform built out from the shore into the water
    Tied, and stripped of its main and jib sails, the dinghy floated at a perfect right angle away from the far end of the pier.
  21. refraction
    the change in direction of a propagating wave
    The sun, though not especially hot, was nonetheless so brilliant that it made any fairly distant image—a boy, a boat—seem almost as wavering and refractional as a stick in water.
  22. audible
    heard or perceptible by the ear
    When she reached the end of the pier, she squatted, her knees audible, at the right edge, and looked down at Lionel.
  23. tiller
    lever used to turn the rudder on a boat
    He swung the dead tiller all the way to the right, then immediately yanked it back in to his side.
  24. admiral
    the supreme commander of a fleet
    “You aren’t an admiral. You’re a lady,” Lionel said.
  25. port
    land where people and goods can leave or enter a country
    “Your daddy’s a nice fella,” she said, “but he’s probably the biggest landlubber I know. It’s perfectly true that when I’m in port I’m a lady—that’s true. But my true calling is first, last, and always the bounding—”
  26. ceremonious
    characterized by pomp and stately display
    Then, ceremoniously, she saluted the opposite shoreline.
  27. profoundly
    to a great depth psychologically
    When she finally reassumed her squat on the pier edge, she seemed to do so with maximum regret, as if she had just been profoundly moved by one of the virtues of naval tradition closed to the public and small boys.
  28. petty
    small and of little importance
    She gazed out at the petty horizon of the lake for a moment, then seemed to remember that she was not absolutely alone.
  29. venerable
    profoundly honored
    She glanced—venerably—down at Lionel, whose mouth was still open.
  30. sextant
    an instrument for measuring angular distance
    She shook her head. She again fixed the sextant of her eye on the horizon.
  31. fleet
    a group of warships organized as a tactical unit
    “If you’re an admiral,” he said, “where’s your fleet?”
  32. deft
    skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands
    A pair of underwater goggles lay on the deck of the dinghy, near the stern seat. For answer, Lionel secured the headstrap of the goggles between the big and second toes of his right foot, and, with a deft, brief leg action, flipped the goggles overboard.
  33. constructive
    tending to improve or promote development
    “That’s nice. That’s constructive,” said Boo Boo.
  34. perception
    the process of becoming aware through the senses
    His eyes reflected pure perception, as his mother had known they would.
  35. defiance
    intentionally contemptuous behavior or attitude
    He then immediately looked up at Boo Boo, his eyes filled not with defiance but tears.
  36. gingerly
    in a manner marked by extreme care or delicacy
    Boo Boo got to her feet, gingerly, like someone whose foot has gone to sleep in the theatre, and lowered herself into the dinghy.
  37. emphatic
    forceful and definite in expression or action
    Lionel worked his head up and down, emphatically.
  38. subside
    wear off or die down
    At any rate, he waited till the hiccupping aftermath of his tears had subsided a little.
  39. muffled
    being or made softer or less loud or clear
    Then his answer was delivered, muffled but intelligible, into the warmth of Boo Boo’s neck.
  40. decorous
    characterized by propriety and dignity and good taste
    Then she put a wild hand inside the seat of his trousers, startling the boy considerably, but almost immediately withdrew it and decorously tucked in his shirt for him.
Created on Fri Oct 20 13:59:50 EDT 2017 (updated Mon Apr 08 16:30:46 EDT 2019)

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