Never Let Me Go: Chapters 18-23

by Kazuo Ishiguro
In Ishiguro's chilling dystopian novel, three students at a secluded boarding school learn the truth about their identities and their futures.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-9, Chapters 10-17, Chapters 18-23

Here are links to our lists for other works by Kazuo Ishiguro: A Village After Dark, The Remains of the Day
15 words 350 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. stilted
    artificially formal or stiff
    Or if we did manage to keep up a conversation, the longer we went on, the more stilted and guarded it became.
  2. emaciated
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    Following my example, Tommy and Ruth made their way to another tree trunk, hollow and more emaciated than mine, a short way behind to my left.
  3. tussle
    disorderly fighting
    Then suddenly there’s a mistake, a tussle, and the gun’s with the second person.
  4. lucidity
    a clear state of mind
    It was one of those little islands of lucidity donors sometimes get to in the midst of their ghastly battles, and she looked at me, just for that moment, and although she didn’t speak, I knew what her look meant.
  5. idyllic
    charmingly simple and serene
    A lot of it was really relaxed, almost idyllic.
  6. query
    an instance of questioning
    But I was aware too why the animals had emerged again, and of all the possible layers behind Tommy’s apparently casual query.
  7. reprehensible
    bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure
    So that feeling came again, even though I tried to keep it out: that we were doing all of this too late; that there’d once been a time for it, but we’d let that go by, and there was something ridiculous, reprehensible even, about the way we were now thinking and planning.
  8. revulsion
    intense aversion
    But that revulsion got put away somewhere, and she studied us carefully, squinting in the setting sun.
  9. scrutiny
    the act of examining something closely, as for mistakes
    I looked at Madame carefully, but she seemed to sense my scrutiny and she turned back to Tommy.
  10. disillusioned
    freed from false ideas
    Marie-Claude worked hard for our project. And the way it all ended has left her feeling somewhat disillusioned.
  11. deplorable
    of very poor quality or condition
    All around the country, at this very moment, there are students being reared in deplorable conditions, conditions you Hailsham students could hardly imagine.
  12. culpable
    deserving blame or censure as being wrong or injurious
    “We didn’t see an obvious connection either, Kathy. Not at first. And I often think now, we were culpable not to do so. Had we been more alert, less absorbed with ourselves, if we’d worked very hard at that stage when the news about Morningdale first broke, we might have been able to avert it..."
  13. peripheral
    related to the key issue but not of central importance
    “Lucy Wainright? She was important to you? Forgive me, dear students, I’m forgetting again. Lucy wasn’t with us for long, so for us she’s just a peripheral figure in our memory of Hailsham. And not an altogether happy one. But I appreciate, if you were there during just those years...”
  14. impede
    be a hindrance or obstacle to
    The mud was impeding him too, because one time, when he kicked out, he slipped and fell out of view into the blackness.
  15. nettle
    plant having stinging hairs that cause skin irritation
    All the same, when donors get restless and need to walk it off, that’s where they tend to go, scraping through all the nettles and brambles.
Created on Wed Jan 17 10:48:50 EST 2018 (updated Fri Aug 01 11:26:48 EDT 2025)

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