Code Name Verity: Part 1: Ormaie 20.X1.43 JB-S–Ormaie 28.X1.43 JB-S

by Elizabeth Wein
Set during World War II, this historical novel tells the story of Julie, a British spy, and Maddie, a pilot. When the friends' plane goes down, Julie must fight to survive in Nazi-occupied France.

Here are links to our lists for the novel:
Part 1: Ormaie 8.X1.43 JB-S–Ormaie 10.X1.43 JB-S
Part 1: Ormaie 11.X1.43 JB-S–Ormaie 18.X1.43 JB-S
Part 1: Ormaie 20.X1.43 JB-S–Ormaie 28.X1.43 JB-S
Part 2
15 words 51 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. flabbergasted
    as if struck dumb with astonishment and surprise
    I was flabbergasted to find they still had it — I suppose it must be part of my file and they are still hunting for unrevealed code in the paisley.
  2. guise
    an artful or simulated semblance
    I feel sure she has fashion sense lurking beneath the Teutonic Mädchen guise she affects for the Gestapo.
  3. prodigious
    great in size, force, extent, or degree
    She is about a foot taller than me and walks with a stick and a prodigious limp.
  4. verity
    an enduring or necessary ethical or aesthetic truth
    "I'm looking for verity."
  5. assimilate
    become like one's environment
    I said I was a wireless operator, parachuted here in civilian clothes so I might not attract attention, and that I had been caught because I made a cultural blunder — we chatted a bit about the difficulty of being a foreigner and trying to assimilate yourself into French daily life.
  6. emissary
    someone sent to represent another's interests
    “I am a military emissary caught in enemy territory masquerading as a civilian. I count as a spy. The Geneva Convention doesn’t protect me.”
  7. stentorian
    very loud or booming
    What happened was that when they brought me in this morning, poor Fräulein Engel was sitting at the table with her back to the door, busily numbering my countless recipe cards, and I frightened the living daylights out of her by braying in a deep, stentorian voice of command and discipline, “Achtung, Anna Engel! Heil Hitler!”
  8. liaison
    a means of communication between groups
    “I am merely here doing my job as Berlin’s interpretive liaison” — oh yes, I said that — “and how DARE you call me ENGLISH!”
  9. inexorably
    in a manner impervious to change or persuasion
    I mention my sweater’s advent here because I think of it as part of the endgame—as though my poor loving nanny is a sort of Mme. Defarge, knotting my fate inexorably into the stitches of this nobly field-tested woolen garment.
  10. skulk
    lie in wait or behave in a sneaky and secretive manner
    The rest of a Resistance circuit, the web of contacts and couriers, skulks in shadows, squirreling away explosives and carrying messages that can’t be trusted to a postman, moving every day, never meeting in the same place twice.
  11. cipher
    a message written in a secret code
    Learning yards and yards of code — you know (all too well) that the wireless code gets keyed to poems so that it is easier to remember, and I was rather hoping von Linden would make his cipher breakers try to crack the “Tam o’Shanter” so I could laugh at them.
  12. insinuate
    introduce or insert in a subtle manner
    And bouncing on her flat heels, full of coffee and nerve and code, was Eva Seiler, Berlin’s interpretive liaison with London, soon to insinuate herself into the German-speaking underworld of Ormaie.
  13. flak
    artillery designed to shoot upward at airplanes
    “Dratted antiaircraft guns in Angers. The tail’s been hit. I think it was flak, not a night fighter, or we’d be dead. We don’t stand a chance against a Messerschmitt 110.”
  14. caustic
    capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action
    She has diluted it with alcohol — she wore gloves to do the mixing, as it is incredibly caustic.
  15. sanctimonious
    excessively or hypocritically pious
    I can’t say I honestly believe such sanctimonious twaddle.
Created on Tue Jan 30 20:32:00 EST 2018 (updated Wed Jul 30 11:47:45 EDT 2025)

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