Lord Jim: Chapters 37–45

by Joseph Conrad
Running away from his shameful past, Lord Jim ends up in a remote part of the world where he gets a chance at redemption. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–12 , Chapters 13–23, Chapters 24–36 , Chapters 37–45

Here is a link to our lists for Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. exploit
    a notable achievement
    'It all begins with a remarkable exploit of a man called Brown, who stole with complete success a Spanish schooner out of a small bay near Zamboanga.
  2. cunning
    shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
    The story also reveals unsuspected depths of cunning in the wretched Cornelius, whose abject and intense hate acts like a subtle inspiration, pointing out an unerring way towards revenge.
  3. inaccessible
    capable of being reached with great difficulty or not at all
    All the heat of life seemed withdrawn within some inaccessible spot in her breast.
  4. loquacious
    full of trivial conversation
    It had turned her passion into stone, and it made the surly taciturn Tamb' Itam almost loquacious.
  5. insurgent
    a person who takes part in an armed insurrection
    'His tale goes that when a Spanish patrol cutter captured him he was simply trying to run a few guns for the insurgents.
  6. perceived
    detected by means of the senses
    While he was thus beset he perceived the entrance of the narrow creek (the same which Jim had jumped at low water).
  7. repulse
    an instance of driving away or warding off
    Jim had been away in the interior for more than a week, and it was Dain Waris who had directed the first repulse.
  8. prestige
    a high standing achieved through success or influence
    He had not Jim's racial prestige and the reputation of invincible, supernatural power.
  9. invulnerable
    immune to attack; impregnable
    Moreover, the white man, a tower of strength in himself, was invulnerable, while Dain Waris could be killed.
  10. besiege
    surround so as to force to give up
    These men started at dawn, but before that time Kassim had managed to open communications with the besieged Brown.
  11. enlighten
    make understand
    Of this Brown was not aware, and Kassim, who came up the knoll an hour before sunset, took good care not to enlighten him.
  12. expedient
    serving to promote your interest
    After some reflection Brown judged it expedient to tear a page out of his pocket-book, on which he simply wrote, "We are getting on.
  13. averse
    strongly opposed
    Besides, he was not averse to begin fighting on that Rajah's account, and teach a lesson to those people who had received him with shots.
  14. tortuous
    not straightforward
    Pursuing his tortuous policy, he had dispatched a message to Dain Waris warning him to look out for the white men's ship, which, he had had information, was about to come up the river.
  15. edifice
    a structure that has a roof and walls
    The social fabric of orderly, peaceful life, when every man was sure of tomorrow, the edifice raised by Jim's hands, seemed on that evening ready to collapse into a ruin reeking with blood.
  16. ruthless
    without mercy or pity
    It was then, Brown confessed to me, while, turning his back on his men, he sat looking at it all, that notwithstanding his disdain, his ruthless faith in himself, a feeling came over him that at last he had run his head against a stone wall.
  17. atrocity
    the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane
    The man in utter security had been struck down, in full view of his friends, dropping with a joke on his lips, and they seemed to see in the act an atrocity which had stirred a bitter rage.
  18. pulsate
    expand and contract rhythmically
    A muffled roaring shout rolled down-river over the town; a big drum began to throb, and others responded, pulsating and droning.
  19. pestilence
    any epidemic disease with a high death rate
    The houses in view were silent, as if a pestilence had swept them clean of every breath of life; but many invisible eyes were turned, from within, upon the two men with the creek between them, a stranded white boat, and the body of the third man half sunk in the mud.
  20. earthly
    of or belonging to or characteristic of this world
    On the river canoes were moving again, for Patusan was recovering its belief in the stability of earthly institutions since the return of the white lord.
  21. tributary
    a branch that flows into the main stream
    The old Rajah had fled early in the morning with most of his women to a small house he had near a jungle village on a tributary stream.
  22. preceding
    existing or coming before
    His mission was to go down the river, preceding Brown's boat by an hour or more, to tell Dain Waris finally and formally that the whites were to be allowed to pass out unmolested.
  23. nonchalantly
    in a composed and unconcerned manner
    Brown observed nonchalantly that it would be just as well to avoid him, and with the same detached, musing air Cornelius declared himself acquainted with a backwater broad enough to take Brown's boat past Waris's camp.
  24. stipulate
    make an express demand or provision in an agreement
    Cornelius stipulated that in case he were to pilot Brown out, his canoe should be towed.
  25. retribution
    a justly deserved penalty
    It was not a vulgar and treacherous massacre; it was a lesson, a retribution -- a demonstration of some obscure and awful attribute of our nature which, I am afraid, is not so very far under the surface as we like to think.
  26. lamentation
    the passionate activity of expressing grief
    'A hush had fallen upon the town after the outburst of wailing and lamentation that had swept over the river, like a gust of wind from the opened abode of sorrow.
  27. avert
    turn away or aside
    When Jim appeared, at somebody's exclamation, all the heads turned round together, and then the mass opened right and left, and he walked up a lane of averted glances.
  28. unwieldy
    lacking grace in movement or posture
    'The unwieldy old man, lowering his big forehead like an ox under a yoke, made an effort to rise, clutching at the flintlock pistols on his knees.
  29. alluring
    highly attractive and able to arouse hope or desire
    Not in the wildest days of his boyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an extraordinary success!
  30. evoke
    call forth to appear or occur
    He is one of us -- and have I not stood up once, like an evoked ghost, to answer for his eternal constancy?
Created on Thu Mar 14 10:12:12 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Aug 06 14:36:22 EDT 2018)

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