Henry Miller - Tropic of Capricorn

Alex Hawkins (United States of America)
654 words 10 learners

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  1. strangulate
    kill by squeezing the throat of so as to cut off the air
    The service wasncrippled, constipated, strangulated.
  2. magnetic core
    (computer science) a tiny ferrite toroid formerly used in a random access memory to store one bit of data; now superseded by semiconductor memories
    And perhaps it is this hard, magneticncore inside you which attracts others to you willynilly.
  3. rhumba
    a folk dance in duple time that originated in Cuba with Spanish and African elements; features complex footwork and violent movement
    The octopus is dancing like a rubber dick -nthe rhumba of Spuyten Duyvil inedit.
  4. ovary
    (vertebrates) one of usually two organs that produce ova and secrete estrogen and progesterone
    He even insinuated that Inmight come home and fuck his wife, if I liked,nthough he warned me that she was having a littlentrouble at present with her ovaries.n28nIn addition to Hymie and McGovem I had asnassistants a pair of beautiful blondes who oftennaccompanied us to dinner in the evening.
  5. gastropod
    a class of mollusks typically having a one-piece coiled shell and flattened muscular foot with a head bearing stalked eyes
    So, on the ovarianntrolley there was this voyage of man and bull-frogncomposed of identical stuff, neither better nor lessnthan Dante but infinitely different, the one notnknowing precisely the meaning of anything, thenother knowing too precisely the meaning ofneverything, hence both lost and confused throughnbeginnings and endings, finally to be deposited atnJava or India Street, Greenpoint, there to bencarried back into the current of life, so-called, by ancouple of sawdust moils with twit...
  6. maculate
    morally blemished; stained or impure
    Of those with fevernfew hatched, among them myself still unhatched,nbut pervious and maculate, knowing with quietnferocity the ennui of ceaseless drift andnmovement.
  7. skeletal structure
    any structure created by the skeleton of an organism
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  8. maturate
    develop and reach maturity; undergo maturation
    Nothing is lousier and emptier than thenmidst of brightn97ngaiety clicked by the mechanical eye of thenmechanical epoch, life maturating in a black box,na negative tickled with add and yielding anmomentaneous simulacrum of nothingness.
  9. fifth wheel
    someone or something that is unwanted and unneeded
    I was the fifthnwheel on the wagon and neither side had any usenfor me, except to exploit me.
  10. amok
    wildly; without self-control
    The atmosphere is at times so electrical that thensoul is summoned out of its body andn39nruns amok.
  11. exfoliate
    remove the surface, in scales or laminae
    Laura thennympho is doing the rhumba, her sex exfoliatednand twisted like a cow's tail.
  12. expropriate
    deprive of possessions
    Then, as in the middle of thenbridge, in the middle of a walk, in the middlenalways, whether of a book, a conversation, ornmaking love, it was borne in on me again that Inhad never done what I wanted and out of not doingnwhat I wanted to do there grew up inside me thisncreation which was nothing but an obsessionalnplant, a sort of coral growth, which wasnexpropriating everything, including life itself, untilnlife itself became this which was denied but whichnconstantly asserted itself...
  13. octopus
    bottom-living cephalopod having a soft oval body with eight long tentacles
    But due to thenfact that my mother had a clutching womb, thatnshe held me in her grip like an octopus, I came outnunder another configuration - with a bad set-up, innother words.
  14. five-spot
    a playing card or a domino or a die whose upward face shows five pips
    Henry, says I to myself,nif you're lucky your old pal MacGregor will be herenand first hell bawl the shit out of you for runningnaway and then he'll lend you a five-spot, and if younjust hold your breath while climbing the stairsnmaybe you'll see the nymphomaniac too and you'llnget a dry fuck.
  15. leitmotif
    a recurring melody in a piece of music
    The leitmotif was disease, becausenbetween fucks, as it were, he worriedn87nhis head off, or rather he worried the head off hisncock.
  16. abortionist
    a person (who should be a doctor) who terminates pregnancies
    I heard men beg fornwork who had been Egyptologists, botanists,nsurgeons, gold-miners, professors of Orientalnlanguages, musicians, engineers, physicians,nastronomers, anthropologists, chemists,nmathematicians, mayors of cities and governors ofnstates, prison warders, cow-punchers,nlumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores,nriveters, dentists, surgeons, painters, sculptors,nplumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists,nwhite slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers,ncloa...
  17. third degree
    interrogation often accompanied by torture to extort information or a confession
    Again they gave him thenthird degree.
  18. saturate
    infuse or fill completely
    I was saturated withnhumanity, with experiences of one kind andnanother.
  19. epileptic
    a person who has a common seizure disorder
    "Be careful - so-and-so is an epileptic!"
  20. warble
    sing or play with trills
    And from the topmost ceiling ofnthis colossal edifice they had suspended a stringnof cages in which the imprisoned canaries warbledntheir senseless warble.
  21. unmotivated
    lacking interest, drive, or ambition
    Boiled alive, the lobstersnswim in ice, giving no quarter and asking nonquarter, simply motionless and unmotivated in thenice-watered ennui of death, life drifting by thenshow-window muffled in desolation, a sorrowfulnscurvy eaten away by ptomaine, the frozen glassnof the window cutting like a jack-knife, dean andnno remainder.
  22. fledge
    grow feathers
    Perhaps henmight leave the prison a full-fledged evangelistninstead of a salesman.
  23. urinate
    eliminate urine
    Every onenis so utterly, confoundedly not himself that younbecome automatically the personification of thenwhole human race, shaking hands with a thousandnhuman hands, cackling with a thousand differentnhuman tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling,ncrooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating,nurinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,nwhimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, andnso on and so forth.
  24. dangle
    hang freely
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  25. annotate
    add explanatory notes to or supply with critical comments
    From the hub of the bull-frog'sneye radiated dean white spokes of sheer luciditynnot to be annotated or categorized, not to bennumbered or defined, but revolving sightless innkaleidoscopic change.
  26. haemorrhoid
    pain caused by venous swelling at or inside the anal sphincter
    All the telegraph operators, all thenmanagers, suffer from haemorrhoids, so O'Rourkentells me.
  27. double-jointed
    having unusually flexible joints especially of the limbs or fingers
    On the sea floor thenoysters are doing the St. Vitus dance, some withnlockjaw, some with double-jointed knees.
  28. chaos
    formless state of matter before the creation of the cosmos
    0NCE you have given up the ghost, everythingnfollows with dead certainty, even in the midst ofnchaos.
  29. Admiral Dewey
    a United States naval officer remembered for his victory at Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War
    I thoughtnof my grandfather sitting on the bench, the way henhad warned my mother one day that I was toonyoung to be reading so much, the pensive look innhis eyes as he pressed the hot iron against thenwet seam of a coat; I thought of the attack on SannJuan Hill which the Rough Riders had made, thenpicture of: Teddy .charging at the head of hisnvolunteers in the big book which I used to readnbeside the workbench; I thought of the battleshipnMaine that floated over my bed in the little roomnw...
  30. cornice
    the topmost projecting part of an entablature
    While he was talking about finger-prints I might bentaking stock of a coping or a cornice on a little rednbrick building just back of his black hat, I wouldnget to thinking of the day the cornice had beenninstalled, who might be the man who had designednit and why had he made it so ugly, so like everynother lousy, rotten cornice which we passed fromnthe East Side up to Harlem and beyond Harlem, ifnwe wanted to push on, beyond New York, beyondnthe Mississippi, beyond the Grand Canyon, ...
  31. spring chicken
    a young chicken having tender meat
    Henry, I saynto myself, you are young yet, you are just a springnchicken and if you let them get you by the ballsnyou're an idiot because you're a better man thannany of them only you need to get rid of your falsennotions about humanity.
  32. coccyx
    the end of the vertebral column in humans and tailless apes
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  33. patchouli
    small East Indian shrubby mint
    The beforedinnernatmosphere, the blend of patchouli, warmnpitchblende, iced electricity, sugared sweat andnpowdered urine drives one on to a fever ofndelirious expectancy.
  34. banal
    repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse
    Always it seemed a little crazy to me,nthe earnestness with which he recounted hisnbanal murder stories in the midst of the greatestnmuddle of architecture that man had ever created.
  35. ovarian
    of or involving the ovaries
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could...
  36. sea cow
    any of two families of large herbivorous aquatic mammals with paddle-shaped tails and flipper-like forelimbs and no hind limbs
    The drooling notes are the foam andndribble of the epileptic, the night sweat of thenfornicating nigger frigged by the Jew. All Americanis in the trombone's smear, that frazzlednbrokendown whinny of the gangrened sea cowsnstationed off Point Loma, Pawtucket, CapenHatteras, Labrador, Camarsie and intermediatenpoints.
  37. stream of consciousness
    the continuous flow of ideas and feelings in one's mind
    I havenslipped away to rejoin an older stream ofnconsciousness, a race antecedent to thenbuffaloes, a race that will survive the buffalo.
  38. cough drop
    a medicated lozenge used to soothe the throat
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  39. snooze
    sleep lightly or for a short period of time
    Anweek later, while he's sitting on a bench snoozing,na gang of roughnecks break into the place andnbeat him to a pulp.
  40. poodle dog
    an intelligent dog with a curly, solid-colored coat
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  41. rankle
    make resentful or angry
    Whether I die today or tomorrow is of nonimportance to me, never has been, but that todayneven, after years of effort, I cannot say what Inthink and feel - that bothers me, that rankles.
  42. demented
    affected with madness or insanity
    In a hundred years, Inthought to myself perhaps they would be cagingnlive human beings, gay, demented ones who wouldnsing about the world to come.
  43. revolve about
    center upon
    Everything revolved about thenquestion of food.
  44. batrachian
    any of various tailless stout-bodied amphibians with long hind limbs for leaping; semiaquatic and terrestrial species
    At this Lena smiled again with thatnmirthless batrachian grin.
  45. jujube
    spiny tree having dark red edible fruits
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  46. yokel
    a person who is not intelligent or interested in culture
    Cold energy trapped by cunning brutes and thennset free like explosive rockets, wheels, intricatelyninterwheeled to give the illusion of force andnspeed some for light, some for power, some fornmotion, words wired by maniacs and mounted likenfake teeth, perfect, and repulsive as lepers,ningratiating, soft, slippery, nonsensical movement,nvertical, horizontal, circular, between walls andnthrough walls, for pleasure, for barter, for crime;nfor sex;nall light, movement, power impersonallynconce...
  47. Jewess
    a woman who is a Jew
    First of all there wasnPauline Janowski, a little Jewess of sixteen ornseventeen who was without a home and withoutnfriends or relatives.
  48. maniac
    an insane person
    I sat there and without asking anquestion I took them on in carload lots - niggers,nJews, paralytics, cripples, ex-convicts, whores,nmaniacs, perverts, idiots, any fucking bastard whoncould stand on two legs and hold a telegram in hisnhand.
  49. dose
    a measured portion of medicine taken at any one time
    I walked into thenemployment bureau of the telegraph company - thenCosmodemonic Telegraph Company of NorthnAmerica - towards the dose of the day, prepared tongo through with it.
  50. wheedle
    influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
    I let himnwheedle it out of me to suit his fancy, observingnall the time which way the wind was blowing.
  51. pineal
    having the form of a pine cone
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  52. womb
    a hollow muscular organ in which a developing fetus grows
    I heardnlater, when I had grown up, that they had a hell ofna time bringing me out of the womb.
  53. interstitial
    of or relating to small spaces between things
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactive, i...
  54. rancid
    having an offensive smell or taste
    Thenmeat balls were rotten: the coffee was lousy, thenbutter was rancid.
  55. integer
    any natural number or its negative, or zero
    The whole negative impulse ofnhumanity seemed to coil up into a monstrous inertnmass to create the human integer, the figure one,none and indivisible.
  56. pecker
    horny projecting mouth of a bird
    I lockednit with my one free hand and then I moved her intonthe centre of the room and with the free hand Inunbuttoned my fly and got my pecker out and intonposition.
  57. liniment
    a topical liquid that relieves muscle stiffness and pain
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  58. tonsil
    either of two masses of lymphatic tissue one on each side of the oral pharynx
    I thoughtnof my grandfather sitting on the bench, the way henhad warned my mother one day that I was toonyoung to be reading so much, the pensive look innhis eyes as he pressed the hot iron against thenwet seam of a coat; I thought of the attack on SannJuan Hill which the Rough Riders had made, thenpicture of: Teddy .charging at the head of hisnvolunteers in the big book which I used to readnbeside the workbench; I thought of the battleshipnMaine that floated over my bed in the little roomnw...
  59. wiggle
    move to and fro
    Listen,nif you don't shoot off in your pants when she startsnwiggling, well then I'm a son of a bitch.
  60. rotten
    having decayed or disintegrated
    The whole system was so rotten, soninhuman, so lousy, so hopelessly corruptn19nand complicated, that it would have taken angenius to put any sense or order into it, to saynnothing of human kindness or consideration.
  61. euphoria
    a feeling of great elation
    My friend Kronski used to twit me about myn"euphorias".
  62. sperm
    the male reproductive cell; the male gamete
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  63. glaucous
    having a frosted look from a powdery coating, as on plants
    A glaucous frost of non-comprehension swept dearnby gales of laughter.
  64. cloudburst
    a heavy rain
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods...
  65. phallus
    the male organ of copulation (`member' is a euphemism)
    In Pompeinthey probably hung a phallus up.
  66. interlace
    spin, wind, or twist together
    I relatenthese incidents briefly and hurriedly as they flashnthrough my mind; my memory is packed withnthousands of such details, with a myriad faces,ngestures, tales, confessions all entwined andninterlaced like the stupendous reeling facade ofnsome Hindu temple made not of stone but of thenexperience of human flesh, a monstrous dreamnedifice built entirely of reality and yet not realitynitself but merely the vessel in which the mysterynof the human being is contained.
  67. constipated
    have difficult or incomplete or infrequent evacuation of the bowels
    The service wasncrippled, constipated, strangulated.
  68. budge
    move very slightly
    Why budge?
  69. lockjaw
    an acute and serious infection of the central nervous system caused by bacterial infection of open wounds; spasms of the jaw and laryngeal muscles may occur during the late stages
    On the sea floor thenoysters are doing the St. Vitus dance, some withnlockjaw, some with double-jointed knees.
  70. sentient
    endowed with feeling and unstructured consciousness
    The earth is one greatnsentient being, a planet saturated through andnthrough with man, a live planet expressing itselfnfalteringly and stutteringly;nit is not the home of the white race or the blacknrace or the yellow race or the lost blue race, butnthe home of man and all men are equal before Godnand will have their chance, if not now then anmillion years hence.
  71. elevate
    raise from a lower to a higher position
    Some of themngot lost in the subway or in the labyrinths undernthe skyscrapers; some rode around on thenelevated line all day because with a uniform it wasna free ride and perhaps they had never enjoyednriding around all day on the elevated lines.
  72. magnum opus
    a creator's greatest work of art or literature
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  73. insinuate
    suggest in an indirect or covert way; give to understand
    For, after years of job hunting I hadnnaturally become quite adept, I knew not onlynwhat not to say, but I knew also what to imply,nwhat to insinuate.
  74. bunion
    a painful swelling of the bursa of the first joint of the big toe
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods...
  75. navy yard
    a military shipyard
    I thoughtnof my grandfather sitting on the bench, the way henhad warned my mother one day that I was toonyoung to be reading so much, the pensive look innhis eyes as he pressed the hot iron against thenwet seam of a coat; I thought of the attack on SannJuan Hill which the Rough Riders had made, thenpicture of: Teddy .charging at the head of hisnvolunteers in the big book which I used to readnbeside the workbench; I thought of the battleshipnMaine that floated over my bed in the little roomnw...
  76. ennui
    the feeling of being bored by something tedious
    Of those with fevernfew hatched, among them myself still unhatched,nbut pervious and maculate, knowing with quietnferocity the ennui of ceaseless drift andnmovement.
  77. cockroach
    any of numerous chiefly nocturnal insects
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the men...
  78. dislocate
    put out of its usual place, position, or relationship
    Only a few months ago I was standing in thenstreets of New York looking about me as yearsnago I had looked about me;nagain I found myself studying the architecture,nstudying then64nminute details which only the dislocated eye takesnin.
  79. salve
    a preparation applied externally as a soothing remedy
    Or, just to relieve him, the doctor wouldngive him a little box of salve and tell him not tondrink so much.
  80. pimento
    a plant bearing sweet, mild red peppers
    SisternAntolina lying in the convent bed, her guts trussednup, her arms akimbo and waiting for thenResurrection, waiting, waiting for life withoutnhernia, without intercourse, without sin, withoutnevil, meanwhile nibbling a few animal crackers, anpimento, some fancy olives, a little head cheese.
  81. runt
    disparaging terms for small people
    The guy who turned me down was a little runt whonran the switchboard.
  82. stumble
    miss a step and fall or nearly fall
    I pushednthe door open and stumbled into the darkenednroom.
  83. armature
    coil in which voltage is induced by motion through a magnetic field
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  84. hypo
    a piston syringe that is fitted with a hypodermic needle for giving injections
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  85. coagulate
    change from a liquid to a thickened or solid state
    Before dinner the slat and chink of skynlight softly percolating through the boned greyndome, the vagrant hemispheres spored with blueeggednnuclei coagulating, ramifying, in the onenbasket lobsters, in the other the germination of anworld antiseptically personal and absolute.
  86. bacon and eggs
    eggs (fried or scrambled) served with bacon
    If she were knocked up again that would benbad, serious in a way, but more important thannthat was fresh coffee in the morning and the smellnof bacon and eggs.
  87. hypnotize
    induce a state that resembles sleep in
    The plate and what's on it, through thenpredatory power of the intestinal apparatus,ncommands attention and unifies the spirit, firstnhypnotizing it, then slowly swallowing it, thennmasticating it, then absorbing it.
  88. gesticulate
    show, express, or direct through movement
    Every onenis so utterly, confoundedly not himself that younbecome automatically the personification of thenwhole human race, shaking hands with a thousandnhuman hands, cackling with a thousand differentnhuman tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling,ncrooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating,nurinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,nwhimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, andnso on and so forth.
  89. Aquinas
    (Roman Catholic Church) Italian theologian and Doctor of the Church who is remembered for his attempt to reconcile faith and reason in a comprehensive theology; presented philosophical proofs of the existence of God (1225-1274)
    Broadway,nsuch as I see it now and have seen it for twentyfivenyears, is a ramp that was conceived by St.nThomas Aquinas while he was yet in the womb.
  90. arrive
    reach a destination
    By the time Valeska arrived on the scene I hadnhired several army corps of messengers.
  91. degrade
    reduce in worth or character, usually verbally
    I havenwalked the streets in many countries of the worldnbut nowhere have I felt so degraded andnhumiliated as in America.
  92. perversion
    the action of corrupting something
    Every other name involved a theft,nfraud, a brawl, or dementia or perversion or idiocy.
  93. turnover
    the rate at which workers have to be replaced
    I even accomplished the miracle of stopping thencrazy turnover, something that nobody had darednto hope for.
  94. edifice
    a structure that has a roof and walls
    Thenwhole edifice tumbled, collapsed on my hands.
  95. inundate
    fill or cover completely, usually with water
    Yet Inwas obliged to sit there and be inundated, to getnout at night again and receive more, ton61nsleep listening, to dream listening.
  96. encephalitis
    inflammation of the brain usually caused by a virus
    Henry,nis to go and get yourself a frosted chocolate andnwhen you sit at the soda fountain keep your eyesnpeeled and forget about the destiny of mannbecause you might still find yourself a nice lay andna good dean lay will dean your ballbearing out andnleave a good taste in your mouth whereas this onlynbrings on dyspepsia, dandruff, halitosis,nencephalitis.
  97. lava
    rock that in its molten form issues from volcanos
    Finally I'm standingnknee-deep in the lava beds and the gas is chokingnme.
  98. lockout
    a management action resisting employee's demands
    And things being temporarily out of ordernbrought on epilepsy, theft, vandalism, perversion,nniggers, Jews, whores and what-not - sometimesnstrikes and lockouts.
  99. humiliate
    cause to feel shame
    I havenwalked the streets in many countries of the worldnbut nowhere have I felt so degraded andnhumiliated as in America.
  100. statistical
    of or relating to the interpretation of quantitative data
    I was one, a single entity in thenmidst of the greatest jamboree of wealth andnhappiness (statistical wealth, statisticalnhappiness) but I never met a man who was trulynwealthy or truly happy.
  101. deft
    skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands
    Cold energy trapped by cunning brutes and thennset free like explosive rockets, wheels, intricatelyninterwheeled to give the illusion of force andnspeed some for light, some for power, some fornmotion, words wired by maniacs and mounted likenfake teeth, perfect, and repulsive as lepers,ningratiating, soft, slippery, nonsensical movement,nvertical, horizontal, circular, between walls andnthrough walls, for pleasure, for barter, for crime;nfor sex;nall light, movement, power impersonallynconce...
  102. vaudeville
    a genre of variety show with songs, comic acts, etc.
    It might be a part of the human body or anstaircase in a vaudeville house; it might be ansmokestack or a button I had found in the gutter.
  103. dance
    taking a series of rhythmical steps in time to music
    But we went to dinner again that nightnand we had more to drink and we danced andnwhile we were dancing she pressed herselfnagainst me lasciviously.
  104. ramify
    have or develop complicating consequences
    Before dinner the slat and chink of skynlight softly percolating through the boned greyndome, the vagrant hemispheres spored with blueeggednnuclei coagulating, ramifying, in the onenbasket lobsters, in the other the germination of anworld antiseptically personal and absolute.
  105. swindle
    deprive of by deceit
    I didn't own anwhole shirt and often I was so ashamed ofnborrowing from my wife, or robbing the kid's bank,nthat to get the car fare to go to work in thenmorning I would swindle the blind newspapermannat the subway station.
  106. auk
    black-and-white short-necked web-footed diving bird of northern seas
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  107. button
    a round fastener sewn to shirts and coats
    The bull-frog eyes werentrained on me like two collar buttons stuck in coldnfat; they were stuck in the cold sweat of thenprimeval ooze.
  108. calligraphy
    beautiful handwriting
    I had a few American Indians,nCherokees mostly, but no Tibetans, and nonEskimos: I saw names I could never have imaginednand handwriting which ranged from cuneiform tonthe sophisticated and astoundingly beautifulncalligraphy of the Chinese.
  109. groin
    the crease at the junction of the inner part of the thigh with the trunk together with the adjacent region and often including the external genitals
    But going over thenbridge the sun setting, the skyscrapers gleamingnlike phosphorescent cadavers, the remembrancenof the past set in ... remembrance of going backnand forth over the bridge, going to a job which wasndeath, returning to a home which was a morgue,nmemorizing Faust looking down into the cemetery,nspitting into the cemetery from the elevated train,nthe same guard on the platform every morning, annimbecile, the other imbeciles reading theirnnewspapers, new skyscrapers going up, ne...
  110. complicate
    make less simple
    The whole system was so rotten, soninhuman, so lousy, so hopelessly corruptn19nand complicated, that it would have taken angenius to put any sense or order into it, to saynnothing of human kindness or consideration.
  111. confuse
    mistake one thing for another
    He was so damned confused,nso perplexed, so hopelessly muddled and beaten,nthat he put his head in his arms and wept on myndesk.
  112. populate
    inhabit or live in; be an inhabitant of
    Already I knew enoughnpeople to populate a good-sized town.
  113. theft
    the act of taking something from someone unlawfully
    Every other name involved a theft,nfraud, a brawl, or dementia or perversion or idiocy.
  114. epilepsy
    a nervous disorder characterized by convulsions
    And things being temporarily out of ordernbrought on epilepsy, theft, vandalism, perversion,nniggers, Jews, whores and what-not - sometimesnstrikes and lockouts.
  115. medical student
    a student in medical school
    Finally I added another man to thenstaff - Kronski, a young medical student, who wasndiabolically interested in the pathological cases ofnwhich we had plenty.
  116. monstrous
    distorted and unnatural in shape or size
    I relatenthese incidents briefly and hurriedly as they flashnthrough my mind; my memory is packed withnthousands of such details, with a myriad faces,ngestures, tales, confessions all entwined andninterlaced like the stupendous reeling facade ofnsome Hindu temple made not of stone but of thenexperience of human flesh, a monstrous dreamnedifice built entirely of reality and yet not realitynitself but merely the vessel in which the mysterynof the human being is contained.
  117. tenderloin
    the tender meat of the loin muscle on each side of the vertebral column
    In thenmidst of the most gruesome murder I could thinknof the pork tenderloin which we would be sure tonget at a certain place farther up the line andnwonder too what sort of vegetables they wouldnhave on the side to go with it, and whether I wouldnorder pie afterwards or a custard pudding.
  118. fascinate
    attract; cause to be enamored
    His daydreamingnfascinated me.
  119. skeletal
    relating to a structure made of bones and cartilage
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  120. Zarathustra
    Persian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism
    Ten page letters aboutnlove with footnotes on Thus Spake Zarathustra.
  121. gardenia
    any of various shrubs and small trees of the genus Gardenia having large fragrant white or yellow flowers
    Thenmusic is sprinkled with rat poison, with thenrattlesnake's venom, with the fetid breath of thengardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, thenbolloxed sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugarcoatednnostalgia.
  122. tightrope
    tightly stretched rope or wire on which acrobats perform high above the ground
    Inwas walking again in Dreamland and a man wasnwalking above me on a tightrope and above him anman was sitting in an aeroplane spelling letters ofnsmoke in the sky.
  123. cerebellum
    a major division of the vertebrate brain
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  124. Spanish Armada
    the great fleet sent from Spain against England by Philip II in 1588
    Itnwas meant originally to be used only by snakesnand lizards, by the homed toad and the red heron,nbut when the great Spanish Armada was sunk thenhuman kind wriggled out of the ketch and sloppednover, creating by a sort of foul, ignominious squirmnand wiggle the cunt-like cleft that runs from thenBattery south to the golf links north through thendead and wormy centre of Manhattan Island.
  125. gratis
    costing nothing
    Why comenout of a nice warm place, a cosy retreat in whichneverything is offered you gratis?
  126. parole
    a conditional release from imprisonment
    Mr. Mallory of the Welfare League wouldnlike to know if I could spare a few minutes somentime to tell me about the model prisoners whonwere on parole and who would be glad to serve innany capacity, even as messengers.
  127. emanate
    give out, as breath or an odor
    There were vibrations emanating from me,novertones and undertones, which charged thenatmosphere unpleasantly.
  128. jellyfish
    a marine animal with a bulbous body and long tentacles
    After putting things in order for thenbastards up above I had to be taken down from mynhigh horse, had to be kicked around like a football,nhad to be stepped on, squelched, humiliated,nfettered, manacled, made impotent as a jellyfish.
  129. lucubration
    laborious cogitation
    Each collar button was an ovarynthat had come unglued, an illustration out of thendictionary without benefit of lucubration;nlacklustre in the cold yellow fat of the eyeballneach buttoned ovary produced a subterraneannchill, the skating rink of hell where men stoodnupside down in the ice, the legs free and waitingnfor a bite.
  130. imbue
    spread or diffuse through
    I was so furious that I took on anything andneverything; I would have taken on broncos andngorillas if I could have imbued them with thenmodicum of intelligence which was necessary tondeliver messages.
  131. saturated
    unable to dissolve still more of a substance
    I was saturated withnhumanity, with experiences of one kind andnanother.
  132. common denominator
    a shared multiple of the bottom number of two or more fractions
    You have to be carbonized andnmineralized in order to work upwards from the lastncommon denominator of the self.
  133. ramble
    move about aimlessly or without any destination
    Butnthey live inside me, warm and vivid, just as hencreated them in our rambles through the park.
  134. ooze
    pass gradually or leak or as if through small openings
    I wasnjumping from the bridge head first, down into thenprimeval ooze, the legs dear and waiting for a bite;nlike that Satan had plunged through the heavens,nthrough the solidn48ncore of the earth, head down and ramming throughnto the very hub of the earth, the darkest, densest,nhottest pit of hell.
  135. radiate
    send out rays or waves
    From the hub of the bull-frog'sneye radiated dean white spokes of sheer luciditynnot to be annotated or categorized, not to bennumbered or defined, but revolving sightless innkaleidoscopic change.
  136. operating table
    table on which the patient lies during a surgical operation
    His wife had died on the operating table.
  137. President McKinley
    25th President of the United States
    It would have been better if,nlike the mad Czolgosz, I had shot some goodnPresident McKinley, some gentle, insignificantnsoul like that who had never done anyone the leastnharm.
  138. amnesia
    partial or total loss of memory
    I am surenthat the shock of crucifixion would have been songreat that he would have suffered a completenamnesia as regards humanity.
  139. camphor
    a resin obtained from the camphor tree
    I could see Hymie arriving at eightnsharp, the switchboard already buzzing withndemands for help, the applicants climbing up thenwide wooden stairway, the strong smell ofncamphor from the dressing room.
  140. meningitis
    infectious disease characterized by inflammation of the meninges (the tissues that surround the brain or spinal cord) usually caused by a bacterial infection; symptoms include headache and stiff neck and fever and nausea
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods...
  141. electric chair
    an instrument of execution by electrocution
    Andnwhen he got through I felt for the first time thatnthere had really been a war and that the man I wasnlistening to had been in it and that despite hisnbravery the war had made him a coward and that ifnhe did any more killing it would be wide-awakenand in cold blood, and nobody would have the gutsnto send him to the electric chair because he hadnperformed his duty towards his fellow men, whichnwas to deny his own sacred instincts and soneverything was just and fair because one crim...
  142. seethe
    foam as if boiling
    No race toncome, except perhaps the race of blind poets, willnever be able to imagine the seething chaos out ofnwhich this future history was composed.n65nChaos!
  143. molecule
    the simplest structural unit of an element or compound
    Down to the last sentient molecule justice must bendone - and will be done!
  144. umbilical
    relating to or resembling the umbilicus
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  145. muddle
    make clouded as with sediment
    He was so damned confused,nso perplexed, so hopelessly muddled and beaten,nthat he put his head in his arms and wept on myndesk.
  146. contaminate
    make impure
    Henspoke as though she might contaminate thenmessengers.
  147. include
    have as a part; be made up out of
    Agonizing spirits, incapable of living in thenpresent Disgraceful cowards, all of them, myselfnincluded.
  148. compose
    form the substance of
    So, on the ovarianntrolley there was this voyage of man and bull-frogncomposed of identical stuff, neither better nor lessnthan Dante but infinitely different, the one notnknowing precisely the meaning of anything, thenother knowing too precisely the meaning ofneverything, hence both lost and confused throughnbeginnings and endings, finally to be deposited atnJava or India Street, Greenpoint, there to bencarried back into the current of life, so-called, by ancouple of sawdust moils wi...
  149. poison gas
    a gas that is poisonous to breath or contact
    It wasn't the lava that killed the Pompeians, itnwas the poison gas that predpitated the eruption.
  150. gorilla
    largest anthropoid ape
    I was so furious that I took on anything andneverything; I would have taken on broncos andngorillas if I could have imbued them with thenmodicum of intelligence which was necessary tondeliver messages.
  151. linguistic
    consisting of or related to language
    Henknew about twelve languages and he was rathernproud of his linguisticn35nability.
  152. douche
    irrigation with a jet of water into or around a body part
    The thought of that, thenhumorousness of it, I mean, acted like a coldndouche.
  153. earth
    the third planet from the sun
    I am of the very essencenof that proud, boastful Nordic people who havennever had the least sense of adventure but whonnevertheless have scoured the earth, turned itnupside down, scattering relics and ruinsneverywhere.
  154. cosmos
    the universe considered as a whole
    But everything happens according to law - andnwith the full consent and collaboration of thenwhole cosmos.
  155. vitiate
    make imperfect
    And this joy of living, because it is unnaturallynacquired, is a poison which eventually vitiates thenwhole world.
  156. continent
    one of the large landmasses of the earth
    The whole continent is annightmare producing the greatest misery of thengreatest number.
  157. red-handed
    in the act of committing a crime or other reprehensible act
    My friend MacGregor standing atnthe sink scrubbing his cock... the abortionists onnthe East Side caught red-handed ... the nuns layingnin bed and masturbating one another ... thenauctioneer with an alarm in his hand ... thentelephone girls at the switchboard ...
  158. impersonate
    pretend to be someone you are not
    In the same cunty deft, trapped andnundazzled, millions have walked before me, amongnthem one, Blaise Cendrars, who afterwards flew tonthe moon, thence back to earth and up the Orinoconimpersonating a wild man but actually sound as anbutton, though no longer vulnerable, no longernmortal, a splendiferous hulk of a poem dedicatednto the archipelago of insomnia.
  159. amaze
    affect with wonder
    Andnonce it happened that we did get a bonus and Inpaid Hymie back to the last penny - which sonamazed him that he took me out that night tonDelmonico's and spent a fortune on me.
  160. cerebrum
    anterior part of the brain consisting of two hemispheres
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  161. cadaver
    the dead body of a human being
    But going over thenbridge the sun setting, the skyscrapers gleamingnlike phosphorescent cadavers, the remembrancenof the past set in ... remembrance of going backnand forth over the bridge, going to a job which wasndeath, returning to a home which was a morgue,nmemorizing Faust looking down into the cemetery,nspitting into the cemetery from the elevated train,nthe same guard on the platform every morning, annimbecile, the other imbeciles reading theirnnewspapers, new skyscrapers going...
  162. bereaved
    sorrowful through loss or deprivation
    Especially if the bereaved were annattractive young blonde with sparkling blue eyes.
  163. human being
    any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae characterized by superior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage
    You have tonbe wiped out as a human being in order to be bornnagain an individual.
  164. nihilist
    someone who rejects all theories of morality
    His old man was a Nihilist.
  165. pancreas
    a large gland that secretes insulin and digestive enzymes
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  166. manacle
    shackle that can be locked around the wrist
    After putting things in order for thenbastards up above I had to be taken down from mynhigh horse, had to be kicked around like a football,nhad to be stepped on, squelched, humiliated,nfettered, manacled, made impotent as a jellyfish.
  167. devastate
    cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
    Christ will never more comendown to earth nor will there be any law-giver, nornwill murder cease nor theft, nor rape, and yet...nand yet one expects something, somethingnterrifyingly marvellous and absurd, perhaps a coldnlobster with mayonnaise served gratis, perhaps anninvention, like the electric light, like television,nonly more devastating, more soul rending, anninvention unthinkable that will bring a shatteringncalm and void, not the calm and void of death butnof life such as the...
  168. Methuselah
    a patriarch who is said to have lived 969 years
    On one side of thenledger are the books man has written, containingnsuch a hodge-podge of wisdom and nonsense, ofntruth and falsehood, that if one lived to be as oldnas Methuselah one couldn't disentangle the mess;non the other side of the ledger things like toennails, hair, teeth, blood, ovaries, if you will, allnincalculable and all written in another kind of ink,nin another script, an incomprehensible,nundecipherable script.
  169. evocative
    serving to bring to mind
    Incan think of no more evocative image to conveynthe atmosphere of this place than the painting bynHieronymus Bosch in which the magician, afternthe manner of a dentist extracting a live nerve, isnrepresented as the deliverer of insanity.
  170. encompass
    include in scope
    Today, when I thinknof the circumstances under which I wrote thatnbook, when I think of the overwhelming materialnwhich I tried to put into form, when I think of whatnI hoped to encompass, I pat myself on the back, Ingive myself a double A. I am proud of the fact thatnI made such a miserable failure of it; had Insucceeded I would have been a monster.
  171. entrain
    board a train
    I was my own boss and I hadnmy own hours, but unlike other bosses I entrainednonly my own ruin, my own bankruptcy.
  172. diarrhoea
    frequent and watery bowel movements
    The music is a diarrhoea, a lakenof gasolene, stagnant with cockroaches and stalenhorse piss.
  173. plethora
    extreme excess
    Living in the midst of a world where there was anplethora of the new I attached myself to the old.
  174. oblige
    force somebody to do something
    Freed, he wasnhaunted by the fear that he might be obliged toncommit a crime and be sent back to prison again.
  175. submerge
    put under water
    Most ofnus live the greater part of our lives submerged.
  176. Javanese
    of or relating to or characteristic of Java or its inhabitants or its language
    I had two brothers who were still sunworshippers,ntwo Nestorians from the old Assyriannworld; I had two Maltese twins from Malta and andescendant of the Mayas from Yucatan; I had anfew of our little brown brothers from thenPhilippines and some Ethiopians from Abyssinia; Inhad men from the pampas of Argentina andnstranded cowboys from Montana; I had Greeks,nLetts, Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Ruthenians,nCzechs, Spaniards, Welshmen, Finns, Swedes,nRussians, Danes, Mexicans, Porton30nRicans, Cuban...
  177. index finger
    the finger next to the thumb
    And to make itnworse Valeska takes "it" under her wing, takes "it"nhome that night and under pretense of sympathyngives "it" a thorough examination, including anvaginal exploration with the index finger of thenright hand.
  178. full stop
    a punctuation mark that ends a declarative sentence
    Full stop - orneke a leap in the dark and no coming back.
  179. gestation
    the period during which an embryo develops
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could destro...
  180. mucus
    protective secretion of membranes lining internal organs
    The great dynamic soul caught in the click of thencamera's eye, in the heat of rut, bloodless as anfish, slippery as mucus, the soul of the peoplenmiscegenating on the sea floor, pop-eyed withnlonging, harrowed with lust.
  181. bloodstream
    the blood flowing through the circulatory system
    This is one of the ideas which pushednme outside the warm, comfortable bloodstreamnwhere, buffaloes all, we once grazed in peace.
  182. pampas
    the vast grassy plains of northern Argentina
    I had two brothers who were still sunworshippers,ntwo Nestorians from the old Assyriannworld; I had two Maltese twins from Malta and andescendant of the Mayas from Yucatan; I had anfew of our little brown brothers from thenPhilippines and some Ethiopians from Abyssinia; Inhad men from the pampas of Argentina andnstranded cowboys from Montana; I had Greeks,nLetts, Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Ruthenians,nCzechs, Spaniards, Welshmen, Finns, Swedes,nRussians, Danes, Mexicans, Porton30nRicans...
  183. bagatelle
    something of little value or significance
    Why, I could killnmyself for a bagatelle!
  184. dreadnought
    battleship that has big guns all of the same caliber
    One after thenother, all the same, all goaded to desperation, outnof the goad and whip of hunger building the loftiestnskyscrapers, the most redoubtable dreadnoughts,nmaking the finest steel, the flimsiest lace, thenmost delicate glassware.
  185. appraise
    consider in a comprehensive way
    So that the American people maynenjoy the fastest form of communication known tonman, so that they may sell their wares morenquickly, so that the moment you drop dead in thenstreet your next of kin may be appraisednimmediately, that is to say within an hour, unlessnthe messenger to whom the telegram is entrustedndecides to throw up the job and throw the wholenbatch of telegrams in the garbage can.
  186. temporarily
    for a limited time only; not permanently
    Whatnwas needed was a mechanic, but according to thenlogic of the higher-ups there was nothing wrongnwith the mechanism, everything was fine andndandy except that things were temporarily out ofnorder.
  187. nullity
    the state of nonexistence
    I sawnthe Horatio Alger hero, the dream of a sicknAmerican, mounting higher and -higher, firstnmessenger, then operator, then manager, thennchief, then superintendent, then vice-president,nthen president, then trust magnate, then beernbaron, then Lord of all the Americas, the moneyngod, the god of gods, the clay of clay, nullity onnhigh, zero with ninety-seven thousand decimalsnfore and aft.
  188. telepathy
    extrasensory communication from one mind to another
    So I just lay there with anstiff prick up against her ass and I gave it to her bynmental telepathy.
  189. seize
    take hold of; grab
    I thought, when I camenupon her, that I was seizing hold of life, seizingnhold of something which I could bite into.
  190. denominator
    the divisor of a fraction
    You have to be carbonized andnmineralized in order to work upwards from the lastncommon denominator of the self.
  191. moment
    an indefinitely short time
    The moment anything was expected or demandednof me I balked.
  192. hernia
    rupture in tissue through which a bodily structure protrudes
    SisternAntolina lying in the convent bed, her guts trussednup, her arms akimbo and waiting for thenResurrection, waiting, waiting for life withoutnhernia, without intercourse, without sin, withoutnevil, meanwhile nibbling a few animal crackers, anpimento, some fancy olives, a little head cheese.
  193. hydra
    trouble that cannot be overcome by a single effort because of its many aspects or its persistent and pervasive quality
    And yet,nsomehow, I preferred these animated stomachs tonthe hydra-headed sorrow of the Jew. At bottom Incouldn't feel sorry for Kronski - I would have tonfeel sorry for his whole tribe.
  194. cathartic
    emotionally purging
    Meanwhile Hymie kept taking catharticnpills -enough to blow out his rear end if he had badna rear end, but he hadn't one any more, he onlynimagined he was taking a crap, he only imaginednhe was shitting on his can.
  195. cuneiform
    an ancient wedge-shaped script used in Mesopotamia
    I had a few American Indians,nCherokees mostly, but no Tibetans, and nonEskimos: I saw names I could never have imaginednand handwriting which ranged from cuneiform tonthe sophisticated and astoundingly beautifulncalligraphy of the Chinese.
  196. employment
    the state of having a job
    I walked into thenemployment bureau of the telegraph company - thenCosmodemonic Telegraph Company of NorthnAmerica - towards the dose of the day, prepared tongo through with it.
  197. anaesthetic
    a drug that causes temporary loss of bodily sensations
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could...
  198. magneto
    a small dynamo with a secondary winding that produces a high voltage enabling a spark to jump between the poles of a spark plug in a gasoline engine
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  199. fanatic
    a person motivated by irrational enthusiasm
    That is, to be more precise, Inwas born a fanatic.
  200. cajole
    influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
    Every onenis so utterly, confoundedly not himself that younbecome automatically the personification of thenwhole human race, shaking hands with a thousandnhuman hands, cackling with a thousand differentnhuman tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling,ncrooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating,nurinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,nwhimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, andnso on and so forth.
  201. molten
    reduced to liquid form by heating
    Between the dangling tentaclesnthe music shimmers and flashes, now breaks in ancascade of sperm and rose water, forms again intonan oily spout, a column standing erect withoutnfeet, collapses again like chalk, leaving the uppernpart of the leg phosphorescent, a zebra standing inna pool of golden marshmallow, one leg striped, thenother molten.
  202. sluggard
    an idle slothful person
    Becausenpeople are naturally idiots, naturally sluggards,nnaturally cowards.
  203. ingratiate
    gain favor with somebody by deliberate efforts
    Cold energy trapped by cunning brutes and thennset free like explosive rockets, wheels, intricatelyninterwheeled to give the illusion of force andnspeed some for light, some for power, some fornmotion, words wired by maniacs and mounted likenfake teeth, perfect, and repulsive as lepers,ningratiating, soft, slippery, nonsensical movement,nvertical, horizontal, circular, between walls andnthrough walls, for pleasure, for barter, for crime;nfor sex;nall light, movement, power impersonall...
  204. gland
    a small organ that synthesizes and secretes chemicals
    Pretending that henunderstood the secret regulations of the glands,ninvested with the powers of a mediaeval monarch,noblivious of the pain he inflicted, ignorant ofneverything butn38nhis medical knowledge, he went to work on thenhuman organism like a plumber sets to work onnthe underground drainpipes.
  205. memorize
    learn by heart
    But going over thenbridge the sun setting, the skyscrapers gleamingnlike phosphorescent cadavers, the remembrancenof the past set in ... remembrance of going backnand forth over the bridge, going to a job which wasndeath, returning to a home which was a morgue,nmemorizing Faust looking down into the cemetery,nspitting into the cemetery from the elevated train,nthe same guard on the platform every morning, annimbecile, the other imbeciles reading theirnnewspapers, new skyscrapers going...
  206. stickler
    someone who insists on something
    If I had been a stickler for etiquette nobody wouldnever have been hired.
  207. callous
    emotionally hardened
    Well, atnfirst I was probably sorry for him and perhaps nownand then I called at his house to inquire about him;nbut after a month or two had elapsed I grew quitencallous about his suffering.
  208. venom
    toxin secreted by animals
    Even while the laughter wasnstill drying off the venom was beginning to makenitself felt.
  209. Egyptian
    of or relating to or characteristic of Egypt or its people or their language
    Everything American will disappear one day, morencompletely than that which was Greek, or Roman,nor Egyptian.
  210. Thomas Aquinas
    (Roman Catholic Church) Italian theologian and Doctor of the Church who is remembered for his attempt to reconcile faith and reason in a comprehensive theology; presented philosophical proofs of the existence of God (1225-1274)
    Broadway,nsuch as I see it now and have seen it for twentyfivenyears, is a ramp that was conceived by St.nThomas Aquinas while he was yet in the womb.
  211. tome
    a large and scholarly book
    It was a colossal tomenand faulty from start to finish.
  212. wean
    gradually deprive of mother's milk
    It's as though my mothernfed me a poison, and though I was weaned youngnthe poison never left my system.
  213. illusion
    an erroneous mental representation
    So that even when I hadnreason to be miserable, to complain, to weep, Inhad the illusion of participating in a common, anuniversal misery.
  214. colossal
    so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe
    It was a colossal tomenand faulty from start to finish.
  215. joint
    junction by which parts or objects are linked together
    In other words I was to be a spy for a fewnmonths and after that I was to have the run of thenjoint.
  216. decompose
    break down
    To be decomposed, divested of light andnstone, variable as the molecule, durable as thenatom, heartless as the earth itself.
  217. appreciate
    be fully aware of; realize fully
    The Mayor of NewnYork would appreciate it if I would give mynpersonal attention to the bearer of the said letternwhom he could vouch for in every way -but whynthe hell he didn't give said bearer a job himselfnwas an24nmystery.
  218. germinate
    sprout; produce buds or branches
    From the idea of diseasednovaries there germinated in one lightning-like flashna sort of tropical growth made up of the mostnheterogeneous assortment of odds and ends in thenmidst of which, securely lodged, tenaciouslynlodged, I might say, were Dante and Shakespeare.
  219. insatiable
    impossible to fulfill, appease, or gratify
    And the more I read, thenmore insatiable I become.
  220. adventitious
    associated by chance and not an integral part
    My adventures were alwaysnadventitious, always thrust on me, always endurednrather than undertaken.
  221. create
    bring into existence
    Butnthey live inside me, warm and vivid, just as hencreated them in our rambles through the park.
  222. chicanery
    the use of tricks to deceive someone
    I sat riveted to my desk and I travellednaround the world at lightning speed, and I learnednthat everywhere it is the same -hunger,nhumiliation, ignorance, vice, greed, extortion,nchicanery, torture, despotism: the inhumanity ofnman to man: the fetters, the harness, the halter,nthe bridle, the whip, the spurs.
  223. delirious
    experiencing hallucinations
    The absolutenimpersonality of it brings you to a pitch of warmnhuman delirium which makes you run forward likena blind nag and wag your delirious ears.
  224. fundamentally
    in essence; at bottom or by one's (or its) very nature
    Whereupon, according to thisnlogic, you took a big broom and you swept thenstable dean, or you took clubs and guns and younbeat sense into the poor idiots who were sufferingnfrom the illusion that things were fundamentallynwrong.
  225. antediluvian
    of or relating to the period before the biblical flood
    The continent is full of buried violence, of thenbones of antediluvian monsters and of lost racesnof man, of mysteries which are wrapped in doom.
  226. jostle
    make one's way by pushing or shoving
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactive, inte...
  227. tic
    a local and habitual twitching, especially in the face
    She has thenloose, jaunty swing and perch of the doublebarrellednsex, all her movements radiating fromnthe groin, always in equilibrium, always ready tonflow, to wind and twist, and clutch, the eyes goingntic-toc, the toes twitching and twinkling, the fleshnrippling like a lake furrowed by a breeze.
  228. staggers
    a disease of the central nervous system affecting especially horses and cattle; characterized by an unsteady swaying gait and frequent falling
    He was like a horse withnthe blind staggers and the best thing you could donfor him was to shoot him on the spot.
  229. peddle
    sell or offer for sale from place to place
    If I had had the courage that Whitmannhad, I would have peddled it from door to door.
  230. continence
    voluntary control over urinary and fecal discharge
    She said shenhad sinned against the Holy Ghost and for that shenwould have to lead a life of continence.
  231. sanatorium
    a medical facility that treats people with chronic illnesses
    Over this cesspool the spirit of work weaves anmagic wand; palaces and factories spring up sidenby side, and munition plants and chemical worksnand steel mills and sanatoriums and prisons andninsane asylums.
  232. dementia
    mental deterioration of organic or functional origin
    Every other name involved a theft,nfraud, a brawl, or dementia or perversion or idiocy.
  233. sultry
    attractive and suggesting hidden passion
    It was warm and sultryndespite the breeze that was blowing off the river.
  234. empty
    holding or containing nothing
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the men...
  235. irremediable
    impossible to correct or redress
    Atnbottom I sensed in others a distrust, annuneasiness, an antagonism which, because it wasninstinctive, was irremediable.
  236. vandalism
    willful and malicious destruction of the property of others
    And things being temporarily out of ordernbrought on epilepsy, theft, vandalism, perversion,nniggers, Jews, whores and what-not - sometimesnstrikes and lockouts.
  237. farce
    a comedy characterized by broad satire
    A waste of men, material andneffort A hideous farce against a backdrop of sweatnand misery.
  238. misery
    a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune
    It was a purely negative quality,na weakness which blossomed at the mere sight ofnhuman misery.
  239. whinny
    the characteristic sounds made by a horse
    The drooling notes are the foam andndribble of the epileptic, the night sweat of thenfornicating nigger frigged by the Jew. All Americanis in the trombone's smear, that frazzlednbrokendown whinny of the gangrened sea cowsnstationed off Point Loma, Pawtucket, CapenHatteras, Labrador, Camarsie and intermediatenpoints.
  240. modicum
    a small or moderate or token amount
    I was so furious that I took on anything andneverything; I would have taken on broncos andngorillas if I could have imbued them with thenmodicum of intelligence which was necessary tondeliver messages.
  241. gimlet
    hand tool for boring holes
    Andnthen, seizing the lapel of my coat, he would bringnhis face dose to mine and talk into my eyes, eachnword boring in like the turn of a gimlet.
  242. testicle
    one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  243. cubicle
    small area set off by walls for special use
    I wentnimmediately to the main offices of the telegraphncompany ... up to the 25th floor or wherever it wasnthat the president and the vice-presi-n17ndents had their cubicles.
  244. caisson
    a chest to hold ammunition
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could...
  245. oblivious
    lacking conscious awareness of
    Pretending that henunderstood the secret regulations of the glands,ninvested with the powers of a mediaeval monarch,noblivious of the pain he inflicted, ignorant ofneverything butn38nhis medical knowledge, he went to work on thenhuman organism like a plumber sets to work onnthe underground drainpipes.
  246. primeval
    having existed from the beginning
    I wasnjumping from the bridge head first, down into thenprimeval ooze, the legs dear and waiting for a bite;nlike that Satan had plunged through the heavens,nthrough the solidn48ncore of the earth, head down and ramming throughnto the very hub of the earth, the darkest, densest,nhottest pit of hell.
  247. atmosphere
    the envelope of gases surrounding any celestial body
    It changed thenwhole atmosphere of the joint.
  248. venerate
    regard with feelings of respect and reverence
    Soon I too would become like thesenobjects which I venerated, a thing apart, a nonusefulnmember of society.
  249. logic
    the branch of philosophy that analyzes inference
    Whatnwas needed was a mechanic, but according to thenlogic of the higher-ups there was nothing wrongnwith the mechanism, everything was fine andndandy except that things were temporarily out ofnorder.
  250. reminiscence
    a mental impression retained and recalled from the past
    The first drink or two always plunged him intonreminiscence.
  251. yak
    large, long-haired ox of Tibet
    Thenmusic is sprinkled with rat poison, with thenrattlesnake's venom, with the fetid breath of thengardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, thenbolloxed sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugarcoatednnostalgia.
  252. mathematician
    a person skilled in the logic of quantity and arrangement
    I heard men beg fornwork who had been Egyptologists, botanists,nsurgeons, gold-miners, professors of Orientalnlanguages, musicians, engineers, physicians,nastronomers, anthropologists, chemists,nmathematicians, mayors of cities and governors ofnstates, prison warders, cow-punchers,nlumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores,nriveters, dentists, surgeons, painters, sculptors,nplumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists,nwhite slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers,ncloa...
  253. couple
    two items of the same kind
    That was how it stood at Sunset Place after ancouple of years had rolled by.
  254. accordion
    a portable box-shaped free-reed instrument
    This timenI wander through the side streets following a blindnman with an accordion.
  255. solitary confinement
    confinement of a prisoner in isolation from other prisoners
    Henhad been beaten almost to death before henconfessed; then solitary confinement, starvation,ntorture, perversion, dope.
  256. normal
    being approximately average or within certain limits
    Some whom we hired fornNew York turned up in Philadelphia a month laternas though it were normal and according to Hoyle.
  257. substantiate
    establish or strengthen as with new evidence or facts
    I felt that nothing would be proved,nsubstantiated, added or subtracted by continuingnan existence which I had not asked for.
  258. woodruff
    any plant of the genus Asperula
    It would happen as itnalways happened, that just as he was saying -n"Now you take Woodruff, for instance.
  259. fecundity
    the state of being fertile or capable of producing offspring
    I wanted the dark fecunditynof nature, the deep well of the womb, silence, ornelse the lapping of the black waters of death.
  260. poignancy
    a quality that arouses emotions, especially pity or sorrow
    At the opera, the musicnmakes no sense; here in the street it has just thenright demented touch to give it poignancy.
  261. scrubs
    protective garment worn by surgeons during operations
    Standing knee-deep in the lava beds and my eyesnchoked with sperm; J. P. Morganana is placidlynwiping his ass while the telephone girls plug thenswitchboards, while dicks with rubber hosesnpractice the third degree, while my old friendnMacGregor scrubs the germs out of his cock andnsweetens it and examines it under thenmicroscope.
  262. peripheral
    on or near an edge or constituting an outer boundary
    Perhaps innreading this, one has still the impression of chaosnbut this is written from a live centre and what isnchaotic is merely peripheral, the tangental shreds,nas it were, of a world which no longer concernsnme.
  263. regulating
    the act of controlling or directing according to rule
    The feelings of his subjectnwere of no importance to him; whatever reactionnhe succeeded in obtaining was merely andemonstration or manifestation of the lawsnregulating the operation of the internal glands ofnsecretion.
  264. bookkeeping
    the activity of recording business transactions
    And whenevernthey quit they wanted their pay immediately,nwhich was impossible, because in the complicatednbookkeeping which ruled no one could say what anmessenger had earned until at least ten days later.
  265. crooning
    singing in a soft low tone
    Every onenis so utterly, confoundedly not himself that younbecome automatically the personification of thenwhole human race, shaking hands with a thousandnhuman hands, cackling with a thousand differentnhuman tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling,ncrooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating,nurinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,nwhimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, andnso on and so forth.
  266. logician
    a person skilled at symbolic reasoning
    Thus men scurrying through a cunty deft of anstreet called Broadway every day at regular hours,nin search of this or that, tend to establish this andnthat, which is exactly the method ofnmathematicians, logicians, physicists,nastronomers and such like.
  267. undermine
    weaken or impair, especially gradually
    Instead of supporting my efforts theynundermined me.
  268. planet
    a celestial body that revolves around the sun
    The earth is one greatnsentient being, a planet saturated through andnthrough with man, a live planet expressing itselfnfalteringly and stutteringly;nit is not the home of the white race or the blacknrace or the yellow race or the lost blue race, butnthe home of man and all men are equal before Godnand will have their chance, if not now then anmillion years hence.
  269. cage
    an enclosure made of wire or metal bars in which birds or animals can be kept
    And from the topmost ceiling ofnthis colossal edifice they had suspended a stringnof cages in which the imprisoned canaries warbledntheir senseless warble.
  270. lethargic
    deficient in alertness or activity
    If thenvictim were lethargic he shouted at him, slappednhim in the face, pinched his arm, cuffed him,nkicked him.
  271. squelch
    suppress or crush completely
    After putting things in order for thenbastards up above I had to be taken down from mynhigh horse, had to be kicked around like a football,nhad to be stepped on, squelched, humiliated,nfettered, manacled, made impotent as a jellyfish.
  272. automation
    the act of implementing the control of equipment
    She was so drugged with sleep that itnwas almost like working on an automation.
  273. intestine
    the part of the alimentary canal between the stomach and the anus
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  274. tortoise
    a land turtle with clawed limbs
    I had no timento make a world of my own: I had to stay fixed likenAtlas, my feet on the elephant's back and thenelephant on the tortoise's back.
  275. arid
    lacking sufficient water or rainfall
    It's in thenair, in the climate, in the ultra-grandiosenlandscape, in the stone forests that are lyingnhorizontal, in the torrential rivers that bite throughnthe rocky canyons, in the supra-normal distances,nthe supernal arid wastes, the over-lush crops, thenmonstrous fruits, the mixture of quixotic bloods,nthe fatras of cults, sects, beliefs, the opposition ofnlaws and languages, the contra-dictoriness ofntemperaments, principles, needs, requirements.
  276. eel
    voracious snakelike marine or freshwater fishes with smooth slimy usually scaleless skin and having a continuous vertical fin but no ventral fins
    Inmanaged to tumble her on to the couch withoutnlosing ground and she was hot as hell now,ntwisting and squirming like an eel.
  277. underestimate
    make too low an approximation of
    But I underestimated the profession.
  278. burlesque
    a theatrical entertainment of broad and earthy humor
    I started towards the burlesque onnFourteenth Street.
  279. guinea pig
    stout-bodied nearly tailless domesticated cavy
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  280. zero
    the mathematical symbol 0 denoting absence of quantity
    I sawnthe Horatio Alger hero, the dream of a sicknAmerican, mounting higher and -higher, firstnmessenger, then operator, then manager, thennchief, then superintendent, then vice-president,nthen president, then trust magnate, then beernbaron, then Lord of all the Americas, the moneyngod, the god of gods, the clay of clay, nullity onnhigh, zero with ninety-seven thousand decimalsnfore and aft.
  281. adept
    having or showing knowledge and skill and aptitude
    For, after years of job hunting I hadnnaturally become quite adept, I knew not onlynwhat not to say, but I knew also what to imply,nwhat to insinuate.
  282. chimpanzee
    a species of great ape native to African forests
    But if you dreamnsomething different you are not in America, ofnAmerica American, but a Hottentot in Africa, or anKalmuck, or a chimpanzee.
  283. fetid
    offensively malodorous
    Thenmusic is sprinkled with rat poison, with thenrattlesnake's venom, with the fetid breath of thengardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, thenbolloxed sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugarcoatednnostalgia.
  284. balk
    refuse to proceed or comply
    The moment anything was expected or demandednof me I balked.
  285. overtone
    (usually plural) an ulterior implicit meaning or quality
    There were vibrations emanating from me,novertones and undertones, which charged thenatmosphere unpleasantly.
  286. Milky Way
    the galaxy containing the solar system
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactive, inte...
  287. divest
    take away possessions from someone
    I wantednsomething purely terrestrial and absolutelyndivested of idea.
  288. animate
    make lively
    All things, all objects animate or inanimate thatnare different, are veined with ineradicable traits.
  289. tentacle
    a flexible appendage adapted for grasping or feeling
    Between the dangling tentaclesnthe music shimmers and flashes, now breaks in ancascade of sperm and rose water, forms again intonan oily spout, a column standing erect withoutnfeet, collapses again like chalk, leaving the uppernpart of the leg phosphorescent, a zebra standing inna pool of golden marshmallow, one leg striped, thenother molten.
  290. perverse
    deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper
    I was fillednwith a perverse love of the thing-in-itself-not anphilosophic attachment, but a passionate,ndesperately passionate hunger, as if in thendiscarded, worthless thing which everyone ignorednthere was contained the secret of my ownnregeneration.
  291. murder
    unlawful premeditated killing of a human being
    Because in the bottom of my heart therenwas murder: I wanted to see America destroyed,nrazed from top to bottom.
  292. bronco
    an unbroken or imperfectly broken mustang
    I was so furious that I took on anything andneverything; I would have taken on broncos andngorillas if I could have imbued them with thenmodicum of intelligence which was necessary tondeliver messages.
  293. miserable
    very unhappy
    So that even when I hadnreason to be miserable, to complain, to weep, Inhad the illusion of participating in a common, anuniversal misery.
  294. scraper
    any of various hand tools for scraping
    In thisnsky"n53nscraper there are no elevators, no 73rd storynwindows to jump from.
  295. browse
    feed as in a meadow or pasture
    Just browsing about, killing time.
  296. endure
    undergo or be subjected to
    My adventures were alwaysnadventitious, always thrust on me, always endurednrather than undertaken.
  297. vanish
    become invisible or unnoticeable
    I couldn't say thatnhe was better off because after all the "he" hadnvanished.
  298. whistle
    the sound made when someone forces breath through pursed lips
    And just as one can whistle annairn62nof Bach and be thinking of a woman he wants tonsleep with, so, listening to O'Rourke, I would benthinking of the moment when he would stopntalking and say "what'll you have to eat?"
  299. healthy
    free from infirmity or disease
    I'm strong and healthy, ain't I?" he shouts, and tonprove it he picks up a chair with his good arm andnsmashes it to bits.
  300. ironclad
    inflexibly entrenched and unchangeable
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the mennhigher...
  301. negative
    characterized by denial or opposition or resistance
    It was a purely negative quality,na weakness which blossomed at the mere sight ofnhuman misery.
  302. cataclysm
    a sudden violent change in the earth's surface
    I longed for annearthquake, for some cataclysm of nature whichnwould plunge the lighthouse into the sea.
  303. wake
    stop sleeping
    He woke up thatnway, as if struck by a monsoon.
  304. goad
    stab or urge on as if with a pointed stick
    One after thenother, all the same, all goaded to desperation, outnof the goad and whip of hunger building the loftiestnskyscrapers, the most redoubtable dreadnoughts,nmaking the finest steel, the flimsiest lace, thenmost delicate glassware.
  305. insomnia
    an inability to sleep
    In the same cunty deft, trapped andnundazzled, millions have walked before me, amongnthem one, Blaise Cendrars, who afterwards flew tonthe moon, thence back to earth and up the Orinoconimpersonating a wild man but actually sound as anbutton, though no longer vulnerable, no longernmortal, a splendiferous hulk of a poem dedicatednto the archipelago of insomnia.
  306. Dante
    an Italian poet famous for writing the Divine Comedy that describes a journey through Hell and purgatory and paradise guided by Virgil and his idealized Beatrice (1265-1321)
    From the idea of diseasednovaries there germinated in one lightning-like flashna sort of tropical growth made up of the mostnheterogeneous assortment of odds and ends in thenmidst of which, securely lodged, tenaciouslynlodged, I might say, were Dante and Shakespeare.
  307. jackass
    a man who is a stupid incompetent fool
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  308. gastric
    relating to or involving the stomach
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  309. forceps
    an extractor consisting of a pair of pincers used in medical treatment (especially for the delivery of babies)
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could...
  310. attach
    be in contact with
    I reached out fornsomething to attach myself to - and I foundnnothing.
  311. Maltese
    of or relating to the island or republic of Malta or its inhabitants
    I had two brothers who were still sunworshippers,ntwo Nestorians from the old Assyriannworld; I had two Maltese twins from Malta and andescendant of the Mayas from Yucatan; I had anfew of our little brown brothers from thenPhilippines and some Ethiopians from Abyssinia; Inhad men from the pampas of Argentina andnstranded cowboys from Montana; I had Greeks,nLetts, Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Ruthenians,nCzechs, Spaniards, Welshmen, Finns, Swedes,nRussians, Danes, Mexicans, Porton30nRicans...
  312. congregate
    come together, usually for a purpose
    There they were,nfriends and relatives all congregated about thenbier and alln15nof them bawling like sick monkeys.
  313. warbler
    a singer
    Perhaps they wouldnbreed a race of warblers who would warble whilenthe others worked.
  314. constipation
    irregular and infrequent or difficult evacuation of the bowels; can be a symptom of intestinal obstruction or diverticulitis
    Anyway, the day alwaysnbroke with confusion, complaints, constipationnand vacancies.
  315. tedium
    the feeling of being bored by something
    What I had begun, in brief,nwas a book of the hours, of the tedium andnmonotony of my life in the midst of a ferociousnactivity.
  316. asylum
    a shelter from danger or hardship
    Over this cesspool the spirit of work weaves anmagic wand; palaces and factories spring up sidenby side, and munition plants and chemical worksnand steel mills and sanatoriums and prisons andninsane asylums.
  317. glutton
    a person who is devoted to eating and drinking to excess
    He wanted more work than wencould give him - he was a glutton for work.
  318. urge
    urge or force in an indicated direction
    I wasnconstantly urged not to be too lenient, not to bentoo sentimental, not to be too charitable.
  319. generate
    bring into existence
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could...
  320. experience
    the content of observation or participation in an event
    It was a bad experience because itntaught me how to live a lie.
  321. unaccompanied
    being without an escort
    Here Dante walked unaccompanied,nweighed down by his vision, and through endlessncircles gradually moving heavenward to benenthroned in his work.
  322. destroy
    do away with; cause the ruin or undoing of
    Because in the bottom of my heart therenwas murder: I wanted to see America destroyed,nrazed from top to bottom.
  323. dentist
    a person qualified to practice dentistry
    I heard men beg fornwork who had been Egyptologists, botanists,nsurgeons, gold-miners, professors of Orientalnlanguages, musicians, engineers, physicians,nastronomers, anthropologists, chemists,nmathematicians, mayors of cities and governors ofnstates, prison warders, cow-punchers,nlumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores,nriveters, dentists, surgeons, painters, sculptors,nplumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists,nwhite slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers,ncloa...
  324. dyspepsia
    a digestive disorder characterized by heartburn or nausea
    Henry,nis to go and get yourself a frosted chocolate andnwhen you sit at the soda fountain keep your eyesnpeeled and forget about the destiny of mannbecause you might still find yourself a nice lay andna good dean lay will dean your ballbearing out andnleave a good taste in your mouth whereas this onlynbrings on dyspepsia, dandruff, halitosis,nencephalitis.
  325. Henry V
    son of Henry IV and King of England from 1413 to 1422
    Henry V.nMiller, a competent, superior individual who hadnasked for the lowest job in the world.
  326. lurch
    move suddenly or as if unable to control one's movements
    If a woman should come alongnwho pleased his fancy - and for that she didn'tnhave to be either beautiful or sound of wind andnlimb - I knew he'd leave me in the lurch and beatnit.
  327. prostate
    a firm muscular gland in males at the neck of the urethra
    And while fucking the company we fuckedneverything in sight that we could get hold of,nO'Rourke excepted, as he had a certain dignity tonmaintain, and besides he had trouble with hisnprostate and had lost all interest in fucking.
  328. apotheosis
    model of excellence or perfection of a kind
    All thentrumpery and quackery of our scientificnpractitioners came to apotheosis in the person ofnthe suave sadist who operated this clinic with thenfull concurrence and connivance of the law.
  329. aggregation
    the act of gathering something together
    Innever saw such an aggregation of misery in mynlife, and I hope I'll never see it again.
  330. quibble
    evade the truth of a point by raising irrelevant objections
    We don'tnquibble about going to sleep.
  331. feline
    of or relating to cats
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenamint,nand...
  332. magnum
    a large wine bottle for liquor or wine
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  333. quixotic
    not sensible about practical matters
    It's in thenair, in the climate, in the ultra-grandiosenlandscape, in the stone forests that are lyingnhorizontal, in the torrential rivers that bite throughnthe rocky canyons, in the supra-normal distances,nthe supernal arid wastes, the over-lush crops, thenmonstrous fruits, the mixture of quixotic bloods,nthe fatras of cults, sects, beliefs, the opposition ofnlaws and languages, the contra-dictoriness ofntemperaments, principles, needs, requirements.
  334. collapse
    break down, literally or metaphorically
    Thenwhole edifice tumbled, collapsed on my hands.
  335. expound
    add details to clarify an idea
    Every wrongnidea which has ever been expounded was theirs.
  336. gnome
    a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the men...
  337. reformatory
    tending to reform
    Wouldn't I make an exception for a boy who hasnjust walked into his office - a boy who was in thenreformatory for a year or so.
  338. machine
    a mechanical or electrical device that transmits energy
    The new messengers were going over thentop and getting machine-gunned; the old onesnwere digging in deeper and deeper, like rats in ancheese.
  339. backdrop
    scenery hung at the rear of a stage
    A waste of men, material andneffort A hideous farce against a backdrop of sweatnand misery.
  340. evening
    the latter part of the day
    He even insinuated that Inmight come home and fuck his wife, if I liked,nthough he warned me that she was having a littlentrouble at present with her ovaries.n28nIn addition to Hymie and McGovem I had asnassistants a pair of beautiful blondes who oftennaccompanied us to dinner in the evening.
  341. arson
    malicious burning to destroy property
    Walking with O'Rourkenand hearing nothing but theft, arson, rape,nhomicide was like listening to a little motif out of angrand symphony.
  342. frenzy
    state of violent mental agitation
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the men...
  343. boomerang
    a curved piece of wood
    Whatever is created beyond thennormal limits of human suffering, acts as anboomerang and brings about destruction.
  344. gangrene
    the localized death of living cells
    The drooling notes are the foam andndribble of the epileptic, the night sweat of thenfornicating nigger frigged by the Jew. All Americanis in the trombone's smear, that frazzlednbrokendown whinny of the gangrened sea cowsnstationed off Point Loma, Pawtucket, CapenHatteras, Labrador, Camarsie and intermediatenpoints.
  345. prepare
    make ready or suitable or equip in advance
    I walked into thenemployment bureau of the telegraph company - thenCosmodemonic Telegraph Company of NorthnAmerica - towards the dose of the day, prepared tongo through with it.
  346. contradiction
    opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas
    In everything I quickly sawnthe opposite, the contradiction, and between thenreal and the unreal the irony, the paradox.
  347. damper
    a depressing restraint
    In the beginning I was enthusiastic, despite thendamper above and the clamps below.
  348. barter
    exchange goods without involving money
    Every onenis so utterly, confoundedly not himself that younbecome automatically the personification of thenwhole human race, shaking hands with a thousandnhuman hands, cackling with a thousand differentnhuman tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling,ncrooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating,nurinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,nwhimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, andnso on and so forth.
  349. writer
    a person who is able to write and has written something
    I thought that a man,nto be a writer, must do at least five thousandnwords a day.
  350. configuration
    an arrangement of parts or elements
    But due to thenfact that my mother had a clutching womb, thatnshe held me in her grip like an octopus, I came outnunder another configuration - with a bad set-up, innother words.
  351. desire
    the feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state
    I found that what I had desired all my lifenwas not to live - if what others are doing is callednliving - but to express myself.
  352. phlegmatic
    showing little emotion
    I was violent and phlegmaticnat the same time.
  353. course
    a connected series of events or actions or developments
    And of course I generallyndidn't get it.
  354. conjugation
    the state of being joined together
    And with the beautiful legs and thenbewitching eyes a marvellous line about Homer,nwith the pork and sauerkraut a verse of Sapho's,nthe Latin conjugations, the Odes of Pindar, withnthe dessert perhaps the Rubaiyat or Cynara.
  355. pathological
    relating to the study of diseases
    Finally I added another man to thenstaff - Kronski, a young medical student, who wasndiabolically interested in the pathological cases ofnwhich we had plenty.
  356. zebra
    a black-and-white striped animal related to a horse
    Between the dangling tentaclesnthe music shimmers and flashes, now breaks in ancascade of sperm and rose water, forms again intonan oily spout, a column standing erect withoutnfeet, collapses again like chalk, leaving the uppernpart of the leg phosphorescent, a zebra standing inna pool of golden marshmallow, one leg striped, thenother molten.
  357. furious
    marked by extreme anger
    Inwas furious, the more so because for once in mynlife I was in earnest.
  358. describe
    give a statement representing something
    Hendescribed to me one night his last thirty days innjail, the agony of waiting to be released.
  359. dancing
    taking a series of rhythmical steps in time to music
    But we went to dinner again that nightnand we had more to drink and we danced andnwhile we were dancing she pressed herselfnagainst me lasciviously.
  360. innuendo
    an indirect and usually malicious implication
    Here Shakespeare withnsmooth brow fell into the bottomless reverie ofnrage to emerge in elegant quartos and innuendoes.
  361. seam
    joint consisting of a line formed by joining two pieces
    I remember himnvividly in thosen14nmoments when, pressing the hot iron against thenseam of a coat, he would stand with one hand overnthe other and look out of the window dreamily.
  362. despise
    look down on with disdain or disgust
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  363. scour
    rub hard or scrub
    I am of the very essencenof that proud, boastful Nordic people who havennever had the least sense of adventure but whonnevertheless have scoured the earth, turned itnupside down, scattering relics and ruinsneverywhere.
  364. nullify
    declare invalid
    To be accepted and appreciated younmust nullify yourself, make yourselfnindistinguishable from the herd.
  365. indifferent
    marked by a lack of interest
    Perhaps I did possessnthese virtues but if so it was because I wasnindifferent: I could afford to be good, kind,ngenerous, loyal, and so forth, since I was free ofnenvy.
  366. interactive
    capable of influencing each other
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactive
  367. subtract
    deduct; calculate the difference between two numbers
    I felt that nothing would be proved,nsubstantiated, added or subtracted by continuingnan existence which I had not asked for.
  368. doze
    a light fitful sleep
    As I dozed off Pauline came tonmy mind.
  369. Pindar
    Greek lyric poet remembered for his odes (518?-438? BC)
    And with the beautiful legs and thenbewitching eyes a marvellous line about Homer,nwith the pork and sauerkraut a verse of Sapho's,nthe Latin conjugations, the Odes of Pindar, withnthe dessert perhaps the Rubaiyat or Cynara.
  370. writhe
    move in a twisting or contorted motion
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the men...
  371. connivance
    agreement on a secret plot
    All thentrumpery and quackery of our scientificnpractitioners came to apotheosis in the person ofnthe suave sadist who operated this clinic with thenfull concurrence and connivance of the law.
  372. capable
    having ability
    I can think of no street in America, or ofnpeople inhabiting such a street, capable of leadingnone on towards the discovery of the self.
  373. quirk
    a strange attitude or habit
    And the next minute they were laughing,nlaughing over some curious quirk in the deadnperson's character.
  374. minute
    a unit of time equal to 60 seconds or 1/60th of an hour
    Not having another minute to lose, Indecided that I would take the last job on earth,nthat of messenger boy.
  375. parenthesis
    a punctuation mark used to enclose textual material
    This was just a little parenthesis whilenhe calmly glanced about the room and decidednwhich bimbo was the least sottish-looking.
  376. assuage
    provide physical relief, as from pain
    This outburst seemed to really assuage him.
  377. plunge
    dash violently or with great speed or impetuosity
    I wasnjumping from the bridge head first, down into thenprimeval ooze, the legs dear and waiting for a bite;nlike that Satan had plunged through the heavens,nthrough the solidn48ncore of the earth, head down and ramming throughnto the very hub of the earth, the darkest, densest,nhottest pit of hell.
  378. leviathan
    the largest or most massive thing of its kind
    I wantedna metamorphosis, a change to fish, to leviathan, tondestroyer.
  379. inexplicable
    incapable of being explained or accounted for
    In my enthusiasmncertain things were then inexplicable to me whichnnow are dear.
  380. putty
    a dough-like mixture of whiting and boiled linseed oil
    The moment he sat down he went softnas putty.
  381. frugality
    prudence in avoiding waste
    "I am sorry that I had to quit so soon,nbut the job was not fitted for my characternidleness and I am a true lover of labour andnfrugality but many a time we be unable to controlnor subdue our personal pride."
  382. sparkle
    emit or produce sparks
    Especially if the bereaved were annattractive young blonde with sparkling blue eyes.
  383. trite
    repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse
    I listened tonmy wife uttering her trite words of sympathy and Infelt more than ever disgusted with her.
  384. uniform
    clothing of distinctive design worn by members of a group
    Some of themngot lost in the subway or in the labyrinths undernthe skyscrapers; some rode around on thenelevated line all day because with a uniform it wasna free ride and perhaps they had never enjoyednriding around all day on the elevated lines.
  385. gainsay
    take exception to
    He said a lot more, with somenfancy cuss words that he'd picked up over there,nand nobody opened his trap to gainsay him.
  386. pliant
    capable of being shaped or bent or drawn out
    I said tonmyself, I'll be generous, pliant, forgiving, tolerant,ntender.
  387. motif
    a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work
    Walking with O'Rourkenand hearing nothing but theft, arson, rape,nhomicide was like listening to a little motif out of angrand symphony.
  388. violate
    fail to agree with; go against
    I don't knownwhy I felt that way but it seemed to me that younhad opened up a tomb, that you were violating thendead body of the girl I loved.
  389. fiasco
    a complete failure or collapse
    It's all one and the same, a bloodynfucking mess, a farce, a fiasco from start to finish.
  390. coma
    a state of deep and often prolonged unconsciousness
    Somenof them started for Staten Island and ended up innCanarsie, or else were brought back in a coma byna cop.
  391. Holy Ghost
    the third person in the Trinity
    She said shenhad sinned against the Holy Ghost and for that shenwould have to lead a life of continence.
  392. limit
    as far as something can go
    There is no limit to it.
  393. sacramental
    of or relating to or involving a sacrament
    He had been fired from that jobnbecause he had broken into the sacramental winenand rung the bells all night long.
  394. struggle
    strenuous effort
    Even as anchild, when I lacked for nothing, I wanted to die: Inwanted to surrender because I saw no sense innstruggling.
  395. penis
    the male organ of copulation (`member' is a euphemism)
    He had to worry about something and the penisnwas certainly good food for worry.
  396. rehearse
    engage in a rehearsal (of)
    He was rehearsing all this as we sat in the gloomnof the back room.
  397. human beings
    all of the living human inhabitants of the earth
    I thoughtnof my grandfather sitting on the bench, the way henhad warned my mother one day that I was toonyoung to be reading so much, the pensive look innhis eyes as he pressed the hot iron against thenwet seam of a coat; I thought of the attack on SannJuan Hill which the Rough Riders had made, thenpicture of: Teddy .charging at the head of hisnvolunteers in the big book which I used to readnbeside the workbench; I thought of the battleshipnMaine that floated over my bed in the little roomnw...
  398. stratum
    one of several parallel layers of material
    When I wished to, when I had the itch, I couldnsingle out any man, in any stratum of society, andnmake him listen to me.
  399. ripple
    a small wave on the surface of a liquid
    Perhaps in every cage therenwould be a poet or a musician so that life belownmight flow on unimpeded, one with the stone, onenwith the forest, a rippling creaking chaos of nullnand void.
  400. officious
    intrusive in a meddling or offensive manner
    Everything was going along smoothly until the daynan officious little Jew from the vice-president'snoffice happened to espy her.
  401. wrangle
    quarrel noisily, angrily, or disruptively
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods...
  402. surfeit
    indulge (one's appetite) to satiety
    I wanted something of the earth which was not ofnman's doing, something absolutely divorced fromnthe human of which I was surfeited.
  403. exterminate
    kill on a large scale
    Hymie the bull-frog was ann49novarian spud generated in the high passagenbetween two shores: for him the skyscrapers hadnbeen built, the wilderness cleared, the Indiansnmassacred, the buffaloes exterminated; for himnthe twin dries had been joined by the BrooklynnBridge, the caissons sunk, the cables strung fromntower to tower; for him men sat upside down in thensky writing words in fire and smoke; for him thenanaesthetic was invented and the high forcepsnand the big Bertha which could...
  404. belie
    be in contradiction with
    "Hope to see you again some time", theynwould say, but the wet, limp hand which wasnextended would belie the words.
  405. tiny
    very small
    A tiny spark and theynblow up.
  406. sully
    make dirty or spotty
    Wait, you cosmococcicntelegraphic shits, you demons on high waiting fornthe plumbing to be repaired, wait, you dirty whitenconquerors who have sullied the earth with yourncloven hooves, your instruments, your weapons,nyour disease germs, wait, all you who are sitting innclover and counting your coppers, it is not the end.
  407. alibi
    proof that someone accused of a crime could not have done it
    This, he also informed me, often turned outnto be a useful alibi.
  408. totter
    move without being stable, as if threatening to fall
    You are seizednwith a sort of spiritual vertigo, you totter on thenbrink, your hair stands on end, you can't believenthat beneath your feet lies an immeasurablenabyss.
  409. torpor
    a state of motor and mental inactivity
    They had a terrificnanimal sense of adjustment, marvellous to beholdnif it had been truly animal, horrible to witnessnwhen you realized that it was nothing more thanndull German torpor, insensirivity.
  410. maul
    injure badly
    From the time Inhad started to maul her I don't think she hadnopened her eyes once.
  411. jail
    a correctional institution used to detain persons who are in the lawful custody of the government (either accused persons awaiting trial or convicted persons serving a sentence)
    It would have been better for mynpeace of mind, for my soul if I had expressed mynrebellion openly, if I had gone to jail for it, if I hadnrotted there and died.
  412. taint
    place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
    No talk of the blood taint.
  413. steady
    securely in position; not shaky
    In the substrata,nwhere the moon shone steady and opaque,nit was smooth and fecundating; above it was anjangle and a discord.
  414. crackle
    make a crackling sound
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactiv...
  415. definitely
    without question and beyond doubt
    I was asndefinitely outside their world as a cannibal isnoutside the bounds of civilized society.
  416. Apocalypse
    the last book of the New Testament
    I will give you Horatio Alger as henlooks the day after the Apocalypse, when all thenstink has cleared away.
  417. larynx
    the structure containing the vocal cords
    The whole continentnwas on the slide - is still on the slide - and not onlynthe glands need regulating but the ball-bearing,nthe armature, the skeletal structure, the cerebrum,nthe cerebellum, the coccyx, the larynx, thenpancreas, the liver, the upper intestine and thenlower intestine, the heart, the kidneys, thentesticles, the womb, the Fallopian tubes, thenwhole god-damned works.
  418. twinkling
    shining intermittently with a sparkling light
    Everybody is caught with his pantsndown, including the strip teasers who wear nonpants, no beards, no moustaches, just a littlenpatch to cover their twinkling little cunts.
  419. quantum
    the smallest discrete quantity of some physical property
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactive, inte...
  420. music
    an artistic form of auditory communication
    When the snow is on the groundnand there is the utmost silence there comes out ofnthe hideous buildings of New York a music of suchnsullen despair and bankruptcy as to make thenflesh shrivel.
  421. machine gun
    a rapidly firing automatic gun (often mounted)
    The new messengers were going over thentop and getting machine-gunned; the old onesnwere digging in deeper and deeper, like rats in ancheese.
  422. insanity
    relatively permanent disorder of the mind
    Incan think of no more evocative image to conveynthe atmosphere of this place than the painting bynHieronymus Bosch in which the magician, afternthe manner of a dentist extracting a live nerve, isnrepresented as the deliverer of insanity.
  423. overdue
    not paid at the scheduled time
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods...
  424. malevolent
    wishing or appearing to wish evil to others
    History may deny it, since I have played no part innthe history of my people, but even if everything Insay is wrong, isn13nprejudiced, spiteful, malevolent, even if I am a liarnand a poisoner, it is nevertheless the truth and itnwill have to be swallowed.
  425. conspire
    act in agreement and in secret towards a deceitful purpose
    The turn of anphrase, the choice of an unfortunate adjective, thenfacility with which the words came to my Ups, thenallusions to subjects which were taboo -neverything conspired to set me off as an outlaw,nas an enemy to society.
  426. renounce
    turn away from; give up
    And perhaps thatnwas only because I had renounced America,nrenounced my past.
  427. poodle
    an intelligent dog with a curly, solid-colored coat
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  428. upshot
    a phenomenon that is caused by some previous phenomenon
    I had beennhearingn88nthis line for years now and I knew what the upshotnwould be.
  429. crime
    an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act
    I wanted to see thisnhappen purely out of vengeance, as atonement fornthe crimes that were committed against me andnagainst others like me who have never been ablento lift their voices and express their hatred, theirnrebellion, their legitimate blood lust.
  430. wages
    a recompense for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods...
  431. examine
    observe, check out, and look over carefully or inspect
    But when you lookednat it up close, when you examined the pagesnseparately, or the parts separately, when younexamined one lone individual and what constitutednhim, examined the air he breathed, the life he led,nthe chances he risked, you saw something so foulnand degrading, so low, so miserable, so utterlynhopeless and senseless, that it was worse thannlooking into a volcano.
  432. fritter
    fried batter containing meat, vegetables, or fruit
    You and I oughtn't to be frittering our timenaway like this.
  433. savant
    a learned person
    Insaw and got to know men who were saints, ifnthere are saints in this world; I saw and spoke tonsavants, crapulous and uncrapulous ones; Inlistened to men who had the divine fire in theirnbowels who could have convinced God Almightynthat they were worthy of another chance, but notnthe vice-president of the Cosmococcus TelegraphnCompany.
  434. indelible
    not able to be forgotten, removed, or erased
    His reminiscences were reminiscent of a story henhad told me once and which made an indeliblenimpression upon me.
  435. grandiose
    impressive because of unnecessary largeness or magnificence
    It's in thenair, in the climate, in the ultra-grandiosenlandscape, in the stone forests that are lyingnhorizontal, in the torrential rivers that bite throughnthe rocky canyons, in the supra-normal distances,nthe supernal arid wastes, the over-lush crops, thenmonstrous fruits, the mixture of quixotic bloods,nthe fatras of cults, sects, beliefs, the opposition ofnlaws and languages, the contra-dictoriness ofntemperaments, principles, needs, requirements.
  436. volcano
    a fissure in the earth's crust through which gases erupt
    But when you lookednat it up close, when you examined the pagesnseparately, or the parts separately, when younexamined one lone individual and what constitutednhim, examined the air he breathed, the life he led,nthe chances he risked, you saw something so foulnand degrading, so low, so miserable, so utterlynhopeless and senseless, that it was worse thannlooking into a volcano.
  437. unalterable
    not capable of being changed
    There is no fundamental, unalterablendifference between things: all is flux, all isnperishable.
  438. sob
    weep convulsively
    And while he's sobbing like that suddenlynthe telephone rings and it's the vice-president'snoffice - never the vice-president himself, butnalways his office -and they want this man Griswoldnfired immediately and I say Yes Sir! and I hang up.
  439. architecture
    the discipline dealing with the design of fine buildings
    Always it seemed a little crazy to me,nthe earnestness with which he recounted hisnbanal murder stories in the midst of the greatestnmuddle of architecture that man had ever created.
  440. ferocious
    marked by extreme and violent energy
    What I had begun, in brief,nwas a book of the hours, of the tedium andnmonotony of my life in the midst of a ferociousnactivity.
  441. isolate
    place or set apart
    From that momentnI knew what it was to be isolated: every object,nevery living thing and every dead thing led itsnindependent existence.
  442. glum
    moody and sorrowful
    He arrived looking glum asnusual and complaining about the advent of old age,nthough he was hardly past thirty.
  443. recreation
    an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates
    He said he repented that he hadnresigned his post "but it was on account of hisnfather being too strict over him, not giving him anynrecreation or outside pleasure".
  444. convince
    make realize the truth or validity of something
    To want to change thencondition of affairs seemed futile to me; nothingnwould be altered, I was convinced, except by anchange of heart, and who could change the heartsnof men?
  445. intangible
    incapable of being perceived by the senses, especially touch
    There were a hundred andnone offices to look after and each one had a staffnof messengers which was mythical, if notnhypothetical, and whether the messengers werenreal or unreal, tangible or intangible, Hymie had tonshuffle them about from morning to night while Inplugged up the holes, which was also imaginarynbecause who could say when a recruit had beenndispatched to an office whether he would arriventhere today or tomorrow or never.
  446. comprehension
    an ability to understand the meaning of something
    A glaucous frost of non-comprehension swept dearnby gales of laughter.
  447. dynamo
    a coil that rotates between the poles of an electromagnet
    In the golden marshmallow dream ofnhappiness, in the dance of sodden piss andngasolene, the great soul of the American continentngallops like an octopus, all the sails unfurled, thenhatches down, the engine whirring like a dynamo.
  448. formulate
    prepare according to instructions
    He wantednme to tell him all about it, down to the last detail,nhis big hairy ears cocked to catch the least crumbnof information which would justify something ornother which was formulating itself inside his dome.
  449. prison
    a correctional institution where persons are confined while on trial or for punishment
    Over this cesspool the spirit of work weaves anmagic wand; palaces and factories spring up sidenby side, and munition plants and chemical worksnand steel mills and sanatoriums and prisons andninsane asylums.
  450. entrails
    internal organs collectively
    Nobody wants you to put your hand in hisnsacred entrails - that's only for the priest in thenhour of sacrifice.
  451. consecrate
    give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause
    Fever will not make life heat, whichnis what was to have been proved and thusnconsecrates the meat balls and spaghetti.
  452. redoubtable
    inspiring fear
    One after thenother, all the same, all goaded to desperation, outnof the goad and whip of hunger building the loftiestnskyscrapers, the most redoubtable dreadnoughts,nmaking the finest steel, the flimsiest lace, thenmost delicate glassware.
  453. walrus
    either of two large northern marine mammals having ivory tusks and tough hide over thick blubber
    You can lie in wait in a show-window,nlike a fourteen carat gold ring, or you can climbnthe side of a building like a human fly, but nothingnwill stop the procession, not even umbrellas flyingnat lightning speed, nor double-decked walrusesnmarching calmly to the oyster banks.
  454. cult
    a system of religious beliefs and rituals
    It's in thenair, in the climate, in the ultra-grandiosenlandscape, in the stone forests that are lyingnhorizontal, in the torrential rivers that bite throughnthe rocky canyons, in the supra-normal distances,nthe supernal arid wastes, the over-lush crops, thenmonstrous fruits, the mixture of quixotic bloods,nthe fatras of cults, sects, beliefs, the opposition ofnlaws and languages, the contra-dictoriness ofntemperaments, principles, needs, requirements.
  455. inertia
    the tendency of something to stay in rest or motion
    Wherever there is coldnthere are people who work themselves to the bonenand when they produce young they preach to thenyoung the gospel of work -which is nothing, atnbottom, but the doctrine of inertia.
  456. lobe
    a rounded projection that is part of a larger structure
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  457. astronomer
    a physicist who studies celestial bodies and the universe
    I heard men beg fornwork who had been Egyptologists, botanists,nsurgeons, gold-miners, professors of Orientalnlanguages, musicians, engineers, physicians,nastronomers, anthropologists, chemists,nmathematicians, mayors of cities and governors ofnstates, prison warders, cow-punchers,nlumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores,nriveters, dentists, surgeons, painters, sculptors,nplumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists,nwhite slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers,ncloa...
  458. tragic
    very sad, especially involving grief or death or destruction
    Innthe midst of my explanation it suddenly seemed sonprofoundly tragic and ridiculous that Hymienshouldn't know what ovaries were that I becamendrunk, as drunk I mean as if I had a quart ofnwhisky under my belt.
  459. abyss
    a bottomless gulf or pit
    You are seizednwith a sort of spiritual vertigo, you totter on thenbrink, your hair stands on end, you can't believenthat beneath your feet lies an immeasurablenabyss.
  460. rend
    tear or be torn violently
    The food and the rent - that wasnall there was to fight about - but there was no way,nno dear, visible way, to fight for it.
  461. bankruptcy
    a legal process for a corporation declared to be insolvent
    I was my own boss and I hadnmy own hours, but unlike other bosses I entrainednonly my own ruin, my own bankruptcy.
  462. flux
    a state of constant change
    There is no fundamental, unalterablendifference between things: all is flux, all isnperishable.
  463. float
    be on or below a liquid surface and not sink to the bottom
    In short I was to float from office to office andnobserve the way affairs were conducted by all andnsundry.
  464. raze
    tear down so as to make flat with the ground
    Because in the bottom of my heart therenwas murder: I wanted to see America destroyed,nrazed from top to bottom.
  465. outlandish
    noticeably or extremely unconventional or unusual
    Why do people live in outlandish climates in thentemperate zones, as they are miscalled?
  466. heterogeneous
    consisting of elements not of the same kind or nature
    From the idea of diseasednovaries there germinated in one lightning-like flashna sort of tropical growth made up of the mostnheterogeneous assortment of odds and ends in thenmidst of which, securely lodged, tenaciouslynlodged, I might say, were Dante and Shakespeare.
  467. receptive
    able to absorb liquid (not repellent)
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactiv...
  468. calibre
    diameter of a tube or gun barrel
    The finer thencalibre the worse off the man.
  469. emolument
    compensation received by virtue of holding an office
    Beyondndespair and disillusionment there is always thenabsence of worse things and the emoluments ofnennui.
  470. telegraphic
    of or relating to or transmitted by telegraph
    Wait, you cosmococcicntelegraphic shits, you demons on high waiting fornthe plumbing to be repaired, wait, you dirty whitenconquerors who have sullied the earth with yourncloven hooves, your instruments, your weapons,nyour disease germs, wait, all you who are sitting innclover and counting your coppers, it is not the end.
  471. adamant
    very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem
    I pleadednwith her for two days, but she was adamant.
  472. survive
    continue in existence after
    I havennever heard anything like it; I didn't think a humannbeing could survive such anguish.
  473. delinquency
    nonpayment of a debt when due
    The ledgersnwere very much like a police record; they were fullnof red ink marks, signifying this or thatndelinquency.
  474. defunct
    no longer in force or use; inactive
    An hournafter he was shovelled under they were saying ofnthe defunct - "he was always so good-natured" - asnthough the person in mind were dead a thousandnyears, a character of history, or a personage out ofnNibelungen Lied.
  475. regulate
    bring into conformity with rules, principles, or usage
    The feelings of his subjectnwere of no importance to him; whatever reactionnhe succeeded in obtaining was merely andemonstration or manifestation of the lawsnregulating the operation of the internal glands ofnsecretion.
  476. discord
    lack of agreement or harmony
    In the substrata,nwhere the moon shone steady and opaque,nit was smooth and fecundating; above it was anjangle and a discord.
  477. fetter
    a shackle for the ankles or feet
    I sat riveted to my desk and I travellednaround the world at lightning speed, and I learnednthat everywhere it is the same -hunger,nhumiliation, ignorance, vice, greed, extortion,nchicanery, torture, despotism: the inhumanity ofnman to man: the fetters, the harness, the halter,nthe bridle, the whip, the spurs.
  478. flute
    a high-pitched woodwind instrument
    He had a passion for the flute whichnhe played all by himself in his miserable littlenroom.
  479. jaunty
    having a cheerful, lively, and self-confident air
    She has thenloose, jaunty swing and perch of the doublebarrellednsex, all her movements radiating fromnthe groin, always in equilibrium, always ready tonflow, to wind and twist, and clutch, the eyes goingntic-toc, the toes twitching and twinkling, the fleshnrippling like a lake furrowed by a breeze.
  480. stroll
    a leisurely walk, usually in some public place
    He used to call for me in thenevening after dinner and we would stroll throughnthe park which was nearby.
  481. futile
    producing no result or effect
    To want to change thencondition of affairs seemed futile to me; nothingnwould be altered, I was convinced, except by anchange of heart, and who could change the heartsnof men?
  482. heron
    a gray or white wading bird with long neck and long legs
    Itnwas meant originally to be used only by snakesnand lizards, by the homed toad and the red heron,nbut when the great Spanish Armada was sunk thenhuman kind wriggled out of the ketch and sloppednover, creating by a sort of foul, ignominious squirmnand wiggle the cunt-like cleft that runs from thenBattery south to the golf links north through thendead and wormy centre of Manhattan Island.
  483. croon
    sing softly
    Every onenis so utterly, confoundedly not himself that younbecome automatically the personification of thenwhole human race, shaking hands with a thousandnhuman hands, cackling with a thousand differentnhuman tongues, cursing, applauding, whistling,ncrooning, soliloquizing, orating, gesticulating,nurinating, fecundating, wheedling, cajoling,nwhimpering, bartering, pimping, caterwauling, andnso on and so forth.
  484. relieve
    free from a burden, evil, or distress
    I felt relieved! it meant that I could breaknaway without wasting any words.
  485. McKinley
    25th President of the United States
    It would have been better if,nlike the mad Czolgosz, I had shot some goodnPresident McKinley, some gentle, insignificantnsoul like that who had never done anyone the leastnharm.
  486. deny
    declare untrue; contradict
    And if you can tell me why this should have beennso I will deny it, because I was born with a cussednstreak in me and nothing can eliminate it.
  487. Pompeii
    ancient city to the southeast of Naples that was buried by a volcanic eruption from Vesuvius
    I remembernit because it seemedn44nutterly incongruous to be listening to a manntalking about Mt. Aetna and Vesuvius and Caprinand Pompeii and Morocco and Paris on the comernof Sixth Avenue and 49th St., Manhattan.
  488. corrupt
    dishonest or immoral or evasive
    I was corrupt, in other words,ncorrupt from the start.
  489. convent
    a religious residence especially for nuns
    They were friends from thenconvent school in Canada where they had bothnstudied music and the art of masturbation.
  490. nostalgia
    a longing for something past
    Thenmusic is sprinkled with rat poison, with thenrattlesnake's venom, with the fetid breath of thengardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, thenbolloxed sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugarcoatednnostalgia.
  491. commit
    engage in or perform
    I wanted to see thisnhappen purely out of vengeance, as atonement fornthe crimes that were committed against me andnagainst others like me who have never been ablento lift their voices and express their hatred, theirnrebellion, their legitimate blood lust.
  492. polity
    the form of government of a social organization
    I was not ancorporation or a trust or a state or a federation orna polity of nations - I was more like God, ifnanything.
  493. hypothetical
    a conjectural possibility or circumstance
    There were a hundred andnone offices to look after and each one had a staffnof messengers which was mythical, if notnhypothetical, and whether the messengers werenreal or unreal, tangible or intangible, Hymie had tonshuffle them about from morning to night while Inplugged up the holes, which was also imaginarynbecause who could say when a recruit had beenndispatched to an office whether he would arriventhere today or tomorrow or never.
  494. despite
    contemptuous disregard
    In the beginning I was enthusiastic, despite thendamper above and the clamps below.
  495. inflame
    arouse or excite feelings and passions
    From taking it out and looking at it and washing itnand scrubbing it a dozen times a day naturally hisncock was always swollen and inflamed.
  496. louse
    a wingless, parasitic insect
    From the top of thenEmpire State Building I looked down one nightnupon the city which I knew from below: there theynwere, in true perspective, the human ants withnwhom I had crawled, the human lice with whom Inhad struggled.
  497. foment
    try to stir up
    Whereever Inwent I fomented discord - not because I wasnidealistic but because I was like a searchlightnexposing the stupidity and futility of everything.
  498. cease
    put an end to a state or an activity
    According to the logic of thenhigher-ups the turnover had ceased because thenwages were too high.
  499. sodden
    wet through and through; thoroughly wet
    In the golden marshmallow dream ofnhappiness, in the dance of sodden piss andngasolene, the great soul of the American continentngallops like an octopus, all the sails unfurled, thenhatches down, the engine whirring like a dynamo.
  500. edge
    a line determining the limits of an area
    Yountake the dominoes and you make tall battleshipsnout of them; then you gently pull the tablecloth onnwhich the battleships are floating until they comento the edgen55nof the table when suddenly you give a brisk tugnand they fall on to the floor.
  501. energy
    forceful exertion
    What they need is an outlet for theirnenergy, for their blood lust.
  502. elapse
    pass by
    Well, atnfirst I was probably sorry for him and perhaps nownand then I called at his house to inquire about him;nbut after a month or two had elapsed I grew quitencallous about his suffering.
  503. gruesome
    shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    In thenmidst of the most gruesome murder I could thinknof the pork tenderloin which we would be sure tonget at a certain place farther up the line andnwonder too what sort of vegetables they wouldnhave on the side to go with it, and whether I wouldnorder pie afterwards or a custard pudding.
  504. message
    a communication that is written or spoken or signaled
    It took ten minutes to reach San Francisconover the wire, but it might take a year to get thenmessage to the man whom it was intended for - ornit might never reach him.
  505. sexton
    an officer of the church who is in charge of sacred objects
    He had deaned up twice in Wall Street and yet,nbefore coming to me for a job, he had gotten nonfurther than to be a sexton of a church in somenlittle town.
  506. fledged
    having developed feathers or plumage
    Perhaps henmight leave the prison a full-fledged evangelistninstead of a salesman.
  507. palsy
    loss of the ability to move a body part
    The man in front of my desk, standing atnthe rail with palsied hands and bleary eyes, is annex-mayor of New York City.
  508. sleet
    precipitation consisting of a mixture of rain and snow
    If the snow were a foot thicknor the ground covered with sleet, even the devilnhimself might be excused for not shuffling thenwaybills around more speedily, and thenemployment manager might also be excused fornnot filling up the holes on such days,n23nno?
  509. microscopic
    so small as to be invisible without a magnifying device
    I had anmicroscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain ofnugliness which to me constituted the sole beautynof the object.
  510. inhabit
    live in; be a resident of
    If I try to think of angood excuse I can think only of the environment,nof the streets I knew and the people who inhabitednthem.
  511. incipient
    only partly in existence; imperfectly formed
    It's true, most ofnhis subjects were exactly what he described themnto be - incipient criminals.
  512. strangle
    kill by squeezing the throat of so as to cut off the air
    If I could have gotten hold of younyesterday I would have strangled you.
  513. metamorphosis
    striking change in appearance or character or circumstances
    I wantedna metamorphosis, a change to fish, to leviathan, tondestroyer.
  514. suspended
    supported or kept from sinking or falling by buoyancy
    Maybe, being upnhigh between the two shores, suspended aboventhe traffic, above life and death, on each side thenhigh tombs, tombs blazing with dying sunlight, thenriver flowing heedlessly, flowing on like time itself,nmaybe each time I passed up there, somethingnwas tugging away at me, urging me to take it in, tonannounce myself, anyway each time I passed onnhigh I was truly alone, and whenever thatnhappened the book commenced to write itself,nscreaming the things which I never breat...
  515. eyelash
    any of the short curved hairs that grow from the edges of the eyelids
    There must have been millions of them likenhim, big children with machine guns who couldnwipe out whole regiments without batting anneyelash; but back in the work trenches, without anweapon, without a clear, visible enemy, they werenhelpless as ants.
  516. warder
    a person who works in a prison and is in charge of prisoners
    I heard men beg fornwork who had been Egyptologists, botanists,nsurgeons, gold-miners, professors of Orientalnlanguages, musicians, engineers, physicians,nastronomers, anthropologists, chemists,nmathematicians, mayors of cities and governors ofnstates, prison warders, cow-punchers,nlumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores,nriveters, dentists, surgeons, painters, sculptors,nplumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists,nwhite slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers,ncloa...
  517. slaughter
    the killing of animals, as for food
    We hadnhardly finished when the bell rang and it was mynwife coming home from the slaughter house.
  518. brain
    the organ that is the center of the nervous system
    His head was so battered thatnhis brains looked like an omelette.
  519. discard
    anything that is cast aside
    It also began with loud smellynfarts, with bad breaths, with ragged nerves, withnepilepsy, with meningitis, with low wages, withnback pay that was overdue, with worn-out shoes,nwith corns and bunions, with flat feet and brokennarches, with pocket books missing and fountainnpens lost or stolen, with telegrams floating in thensewer, with threats from the vice-president andnadvice from the managers, with wrangles andndisputes, with cloudbursts and broken telegraphnwires, with new methods of eff...
  520. whirl
    the shape of something rotating rapidly
    Inwas in the centre of a revolving disk which wasnwhirling so fast that nothing could stay put.
  521. illuminate
    make lighter or brighter
    Inwanted to be that night which the remorseless eyenilluminated, a night diapered with stars andntrailing comets.
  522. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    Suddenly innthe midst of a harrowing confession, he stoppednshort, gave a quick look about, like a man who hasnsuddenly come to, and then, with the rapidity andnthe force which only a madman can summon henmade a tremendous leap across the room andncrashed his skull against the stone wall...
  523. opaque
    not transmitting or reflecting light or radiant energy
    In the substrata,nwhere the moon shone steady and opaque,nit was smooth and fecundating; above it was anjangle and a discord.
  524. electrical
    relating to or concerned with electricity
    The atmosphere is at times so electrical that thensoul is summoned out of its body andn39nruns amok.
  525. Easter
    a Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Christ
    And the moment you become something differentnyou find yourself in Alaska or Easter Island ornIceland.
  526. plenty
    a full supply
    I had plenty ofnintelligence but I inspired distrust.
  527. anthropologist
    a social scientist specializing in the study of humanity
    I heard men beg fornwork who had been Egyptologists, botanists,nsurgeons, gold-miners, professors of Orientalnlanguages, musicians, engineers, physicians,nastronomers, anthropologists, chemists,nmathematicians, mayors of cities and governors ofnstates, prison warders, cow-punchers,nlumberjacks, sailors, oyster pirates, stevedores,nriveters, dentists, surgeons, painters, sculptors,nplumbers, architects, dope peddlers, abortionists,nwhite slavers, sea divers, steeplejacks, farmers,ncloa...
  528. warm up
    rise in temperature
    Andnas the talk progressed I noticed that be wasnwarming up to me more and more.
  529. enduring
    unceasing
    Annidea that has caused me infinite sorrow, for not tonbelong to something enduring is the last agony.
  530. predatory
    living by preying on other animals
    The plate and what's on it, through thenpredatory power of the intestinal apparatus,ncommands attention and unifies the spirit, firstnhypnotizing it, then slowly swallowing it, thennmasticating it, then absorbing it.
  531. rooster
    adult male chicken
    So I begannto talk at random, about Anatole France at first,nand then about other writers, and finally, when Infelt that I was losing him, I suddenly switched tonGeneral Ivolgin, and with that he began to laugh,nnot a laugh either, but a cackle, a hideous cackle,nlike a rooster with its head on the block.
  532. negligent
    characterized by undue lack of attention or concern
    People took me to be serious and high-minded, ornto be gay and reckless, or to be sincere andnearnest, or to be negligent and carefree.
  533. stench
    a distinctive odor that is offensively unpleasant
    The wonder was that the stench of itndidn't carry'em off...
  534. scurry
    move about or proceed hurriedly
    Thus men scurrying through a cunty deft of anstreet called Broadway every day at regular hours,nin search of this or that, tend to establish this andnthat, which is exactly the method ofnmathematicians, logicians, physicists,nastronomers and such like.
  535. outstrip
    go far ahead of
    Whatever thisnwas, the Word, disease or creation, it was stillnrunning rampant; it would run on and on, outstripntime and space, outlast the angels, unseat God,nunhook the universe.
  536. nourish
    provide with sustenance
    And yet I was able to amuse, to instruct,nto nourish.
  537. drift
    be in motion due to some air or water current
    All my friends were like myself, drifting fromnday to day, and never a thought for the future.
  538. solution
    a homogeneous mixture of two or more substances
    Until the one fornwhom this is written came along I imagined thatnsomewhere outside, in life, as they say, lay thensolutions to all things.
  539. augur
    predict from an omen
    Perhaps the wholenevening they had been amused by my stories,nperhaps I had them in stitches, as it oftennhappened, and everything seemed to augur well.
  540. evolve
    undergo development
    General Ivolgin wasnevolved out of Dostoievski's limburger cheese, hisnown private brand.
  541. exploited
    developed or used to greatest advantage
    In fact, everybodynwas being exploited - the president and his gangnby the unseen powers, the employees by thenofficials, and so on and around, in and out andnthrough the whole works.
  542. assistant
    a person who contributes to the furtherance of an effort
    Soon the assistant generalnmanager was called in and asked to listen to mynstory.
  543. persuade
    cause somebody to adopt a certain position or belief
    Thennanother letter saying that his wife had refused tonsleep with him because she didn't want any morenbabies and would I please come to see them andntry to persuade her to sleep with him -.
  544. eyeball
    the ball-shaped capsule containing the vertebrate eye
    Each collar button was an ovarynthat had come unglued, an illustration out of thendictionary without benefit of lucubration;nlacklustre in the cold yellow fat of the eyeballneach buttoned ovary produced a subterraneannchill, the skating rink of hell where men stoodnupside down in the ice, the legs free and waitingnfor a bite.
  545. insignificant
    conveying nothing
    It would have been better if,nlike the mad Czolgosz, I had shot some goodnPresident McKinley, some gentle, insignificantnsoul like that who had never done anyone the leastnharm.
  546. liberate
    grant freedom to; free from confinement
    Everything I endured was in thennature of a preparation for that moment when,nputting on my hat one evening, I walked out of thenoffice, out of my hitherto private life, and soughtnthe woman who was to liberate me from a livingndeath.
  547. record
    anything providing permanent evidence about past events
    And then there were the big ledgers behindnme, in which there was a record of every applicantnwho had ever passed through the mill.
  548. monsoon
    a seasonal wind in southern Asia
    He woke up thatnway, as if struck by a monsoon.
  549. cleave
    separate or cut with a tool, such as a sharp instrument
    Wait, you cosmococcicntelegraphic shits, you demons on high waiting fornthe plumbing to be repaired, wait, you dirty whitenconquerors who have sullied the earth with yourncloven hooves, your instruments, your weapons,nyour disease germs, wait, all you who are sitting innclover and counting your coppers, it is not the end.
  550. annihilate
    kill in large numbers
    First you have to be crushed, to have yournconflicting points of view annihilated.
  551. verge
    the limit beyond which something happens or changes
    Once every few years I was on the verge ofnmaking thisn12ndiscovery, but in characteristic fashion I alwaysnmanaged to dodge the issue.
  552. army corps
    an army unit usually consisting of two or more divisions and their support
    By the time Valeska arrived on the scene I hadnhired several army corps of messengers.
  553. exhilarating
    making lively and joyful
    Until I was about ten years old Innever realized that there were "warm" countries,nplaces where you didn't have to sweat for a living,nnor shiver and pretend that itn11nwas tonic and exhilarating.
  554. opus
    a musical work that has been created
    FromnTimes Square to Fiftieth Street all that St. Thomasn90nAquinas forgot to include in his magnum opus isnhere included, which is to say among other things,nhamburger sandwiches, collar buttons, poodlendogs, slot machines, grey bowlers, typewriternribbons, oranges sticks, free toilets, sanitarynnapkins, mint jujubes, billiard balls, choppednonions, crinkled doylies, manholes, chewing gum,nsidecars and sour-balls, cellophane, cord tyres,nmagnetos, horse liniment, cough drops, feenami...
  555. priestess
    a woman who performs religious duties and ceremonies
    I hadnmet the whole flock of them little by little,nincluding Sister Antolina who wore a truss andnwho apparently was the high priestess of the cultnof Fonanism.
  556. cope
    come to terms with
    While he was talking about finger-prints I might bentaking stock of a coping or a cornice on a little rednbrick building just back of his black hat, I wouldnget to thinking of the day the cornice had beenninstalled, who might be the man who had designednit and why had he made it so ugly, so like everynother lousy, rotten cornice which we passed fromnthe East Side up to Harlem and beyond Harlem, ifnwe wanted to push on, beyond New York, beyondnthe Mississippi, beyond the Grand Canyon, ...
  557. nevertheless
    despite anything to the contrary
    I am of the very essencenof that proud, boastful Nordic people who havennever had the least sense of adventure but whonnevertheless have scoured the earth, turned itnupside down, scattering relics and ruinsneverywhere.
  558. lush
    produced or growing in extreme abundance
    It's in thenair, in the climate, in the ultra-grandiosenlandscape, in the stone forests that are lyingnhorizontal, in the torrential rivers that bite throughnthe rocky canyons, in the supra-normal distances,nthe supernal arid wastes, the over-lush crops, thenmonstrous fruits, the mixture of quixotic bloods,nthe fatras of cults, sects, beliefs, the opposition ofnlaws and languages, the contra-dictoriness ofntemperaments, principles, needs, requirements.
  559. abortive
    failing to accomplish an intended result
    Like a softnprick slipping out of an overheated cunt I, the stillnunhatched, making a few abortive wriggles, butneither not dead and soft enough or else sperm-freenand skating ad astra, for it is still not dinner and anperistaltic frenzy takes possession of the upperncolon, the hypo-gastric region, the umbilical andnthe post-pineal lobe.
  560. scurvy
    a condition caused by deficiency of ascorbic acid
    Boiled alive, the lobstersnswim in ice, giving no quarter and asking nonquarter, simply motionless and unmotivated in thenice-watered ennui of death, life drifting by thenshow-window muffled in desolation, a sorrowfulnscurvy eaten away by ptomaine, the frozen glassnof the window cutting like a jack-knife, dean andnno remainder.
  561. emerge
    come out into view, as from concealment
    Certainly in my own case I can say that not until Inleft America did I emerge above the surface.
  562. limp
    walk unevenly due to pain, injury, or weakness
    "Hope to see you again some time", theynwould say, but the wet, limp hand which wasnextended would belie the words.
  563. ignominious
    deserving or bringing disgrace or shame
    Itnwas meant originally to be used only by snakesnand lizards, by the homed toad and the red heron,nbut when the great Spanish Armada was sunk thenhuman kind wriggled out of the ketch and sloppednover, creating by a sort of foul, ignominious squirmnand wiggle the cunt-like cleft that runs from thenBattery south to the golf links north through thendead and wormy centre of Manhattan Island.
  564. digit
    a finger or toe, or a corresponding body part
    You shits, I said to myself, I will givenyou the picture of twelve little men, zeros withoutndecimals, ciphers, digits, the twelve uncrushablenworms who are hollowing out the base of yournrotten edifice.
  565. homicide
    the killing of a human being by another human being
    Walking with O'Rourkenand hearing nothing but theft, arson, rape,nhomicide was like listening to a little motif out of angrand symphony.
  566. ordination
    the act of conferring holy orders
    There are no "facts" - there isnonly the fact that man, every man everywhere innthe world, is on his way to ordination.
  567. spiritual
    lacking material body or form or substance
    She wasnsuch a rare, spiritual creature, a ChristiannScientist, I believe, and though she didn't believenin disease and didn't believe in death either, shenraised such a stink that Christ himself would havenrisen from the grave.
  568. bounce
    spring back; spring away from an impact
    I didn't bounce out of bed.
  569. suave
    having a sophisticated charm
    All thentrumpery and quackery of our scientificnpractitioners came to apotheosis in the person ofnthe suave sadist who operated this clinic with thenfull concurrence and connivance of the law.
  570. aria
    an elaborate song for solo voice
    Now and then I sit on anstoop and listen to an aria.
  571. frigid
    extremely cold
    She was polite and courteousnin her frigid way but I could see immediately thatnit was no use asking her to put the girl up.
  572. volition
    the act of making a choice
    As I looknback on my life it seems to me that I never didnanything of my own volition but always throughnthe pressure of others.
  573. squabble
    a quarrel about petty points
    The thing was that he was dead,ndefinitely dead for all time, and they, the living,nwere cut off from him now and forever, and to-daynas well as to-morrow must be lived through, thenclothes washed, the dinner prepared, and whennthe next one was struck down there would be ancoffin to select and a squabble about the will, butnit would be all in the daily routine and to take timenoff to grieve and sorrow was sinful because God, ifnthere was a God, had ordained it that way and wenon earth...
  574. antenna
    one of a pair of mobile appendages on the head of insects
    It's only a stretch of a fewnblocks from Times Square to Fiftieth Street, andnwhen one says Broadway that's all that's reallynmeant and it's really nothing, just a chicken runnand a lousy one at that, but at seven in thenevening when everybody's rushing for a tablenthere's a sort of electric crackle in the air and yournhair stands on end like an antennae and if you'renreceptive you not only get every bash and flickernbut you get the statistical itch, the quid pro quo ofnthe interactiv...
  575. participating
    taking part in an activity
    So that even when I hadnreason to be miserable, to complain, to weep, Inhad the illusion of participating in a common, anuniversal misery.
  576. Resurrection
    the rising of Christ on the third day after the Crucifixion
    SisternAntolina lying in the convent bed, her guts trussednup, her arms akimbo and waiting for thenResurrection, waiting, waiting for life withoutnhernia, without intercourse, without sin, withoutnevil, meanwhile nibbling a few animal crackers, anpimento, some fancy olives, a little head cheese.
  577. hallway
    an interior passage or corridor onto which rooms open
    He came back from the toilet lookingnextraordinarily complacent, whether because henhad relieved his bladder or because he had runninto a girl in the hallway, I don't know.
  578. mirage
    optical illusion in which hot air distorts distant objects
    In the light of this I look back now upon mynnocturnal rambles through the streets of NewnYork, the white nights when I walked in my sleepnand saw the city in which I was born as one seesnthings in a mirage.
  579. flimsy
    a thin strong lightweight translucent paper
    One after thenother, all the same, all goaded to desperation, outnof the goad and whip of hunger building the loftiestnskyscrapers, the most redoubtable dreadnoughts,nmaking the finest steel, the flimsiest lace, thenmost delicate glassware.
  580. sullen
    showing a brooding ill humor
    And hotnand sullen I go right up to the vice-president'snoffice in the morning and I ask to see the vicepresidentnhimself and did you give the order I ask -nand why?
  581. relapse
    deteriorate in health
    I mention it because for a moment,njust while I was studying a juicy ass, I had anrelapse.
  582. musk
    an odorous glandular secretion from the male musk deer
    Thenmusic is sprinkled with rat poison, with thenrattlesnake's venom, with the fetid breath of thengardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, thenbolloxed sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugarcoatednnostalgia.
  583. penguin
    a flightless seabird often found in cold regions
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  584. sacrilege
    blasphemous behavior
    It was exactly as though I had committednsacrilege.
  585. rattlesnake
    a pit viper that makes a sound when it shakes its tail
    Thenmusic is sprinkled with rat poison, with thenrattlesnake's venom, with the fetid breath of thengardenia, the spittle of the sacred yak, thenbolloxed sweat of the musk-rat, the leper's sugarcoatednnostalgia.
  586. reaction
    an idea evoked by some experience
    Anything justified a "reaction".
  587. encounter
    come together
    As a result of that chance encounter on the streetnwe met frequently thereafter, for a period ofnseveral months.
  588. sink
    fall or descend to a lower place or level
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the men...
  589. ointment
    skin cream that has a soothing, moisturizing effect
    That was the fly in the ointment - thengreasy hands.
  590. receive
    get something; come into possession of
    Inwould receive the salary of employment manager,nbut it would be paid me out of a separate account.
  591. dedicate
    give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause
    In the same cunty deft, trapped andnundazzled, millions have walked before me, amongnthem one, Blaise Cendrars, who afterwards flew tonthe moon, thence back to earth and up the Orinoconimpersonating a wild man but actually sound as anbutton, though no longer vulnerable, no longernmortal, a splendiferous hulk of a poem dedicatednto the archipelago of insomnia.
  592. track
    a line or route along which something travels or moves
    Fromnchildhood on I can see myself on the track of thisnspectre, enjoying nothing, desiring nothing but thisnpower, this ability.
  593. secretion
    the organic process of releasing some substance
    The feelings of his subjectnwere of no importance to him; whatever reactionnhe succeeded in obtaining was merely andemonstration or manifestation of the lawsnregulating the operation of the internal glands ofnsecretion.
  594. appreciated
    fully understood or grasped
    Peoplenwould have appreciated me precisely becausenthey would not have understood; but they wouldnhave understood that I was not to be understood.
  595. persona
    an image of oneself that one presents to the world
    Persona mm grata!
  596. deduct
    make a subtraction
    Another thousand years, or fiventhousand, or ten thousand, exactly where I amnstanding now to survey the scene, a little boy maynopen a book in a tongue as yet unheard of andnabout this life now passing, a life which the mannwho wrote the book never experienced, a life withndeducted form and rhythm, with beginning andnend, and the boy on dosing the book will think tonhimself what a great race the Americans were,nwhat a marvellous life there had once been on thisncontinent which he is ...
  597. regeneration
    the act of forming again; renewing and reconstituting
    I was fillednwith a perverse love of the thing-in-itself-not anphilosophic attachment, but a passionate,ndesperately passionate hunger, as if in thendiscarded, worthless thing which everyone ignorednthere was contained the secret of my ownnregeneration.
  598. detached
    no longer connected or joined
    Any word contained allnwords - for him who had become detached throughnlove or sorrow or whatever the cause.
  599. extravagant
    recklessly wasteful
    Long stretches ofngloom and melancholy followed by extravagantnbursts of gaiety, of trancelike inspiration.
  600. percentage
    a proportion in relation to a whole
    Perhaps it was Hymie, "the dirty little kike" whonwas responsible for the high percentage of Jewsnon the messengernl8nforce.
  601. agony
    intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain
    For a whole year he laynin bed, suffering the worst agonies.
  602. germ
    a structure from which tissue can develop into an organism
    Wait, you cosmococcicntelegraphic shits, you demons on high waiting fornthe plumbing to be repaired, wait, you dirty whitenconquerors who have sullied the earth with yourncloven hooves, your instruments, your weapons,nyour disease germs, wait, all you who are sitting innclover and counting your coppers, it is not the end.
  603. absurd
    inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense
    It wasnabsurd and pathetic.
  604. rampant
    occurring or increasing in an unrestrained way
    Whatever thisnwas, the Word, disease or creation, it was stillnrunning rampant; it would run on and on, outstripntime and space, outlast the angels, unseat God,nunhook the universe.
  605. anomaly
    deviation from the normal or common order, form, or rule
    Younbecome an anomaly of nature, a being withoutnshadow;nyou will never die again but only pass away likenthe phenomena about you.
  606. train
    educate for a future role or function
    From the very beginning I must have trainednmyself not to want anything too badly.
  607. suspend
    bar temporarily
    Maybe, being upnhigh between the two shores, suspended aboventhe traffic, above life and death, on each side thenhigh tombs, tombs blazing with dying sunlight, thenriver flowing heedlessly, flowing on like time itself,nmaybe each time I passed up there, somethingnwas tugging away at me, urging me to take it in, tonannounce myself, anyway each time I passed onnhigh I was truly alone, and whenever thatnhappened the book commenced to write itself,nscreaming the things which I never breat...
  608. stifle
    impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
    Whatnis true interests me scarcely at all, nor even whatnis real; only that interests me which I imagine tonbe, that which I had stifled every day in order tonlive.
  609. collaboration
    act of working jointly
    But everything happens according to law - andnwith the full consent and collaboration of thenwhole cosmos.
  610. disease
    an impairment of health
    She wasnsuch a rare, spiritual creature, a ChristiannScientist, I believe, and though she didn't believenin disease and didn't believe in death either, shenraised such a stink that Christ himself would havenrisen from the grave.
  611. gripe
    complain
    I know there's something griping you -nand it's not just your wife, nor your job, nor evennthat nigger wench whom you think you're in lovenwith.
  612. tense
    taut or rigid; stretched tight
    I'm using the past tense allnthe time, but of course it's the same now, maybeneven a bit worse.
  613. blurt
    utter impulsively
    "I knew you would do me good," henblurted out, as the last outbreak died away.
  614. fluid
    continuous amorphous matter that tends to flow
    From the beginning it was never anythingnbut chaos: it was a fluid which enveloped me,nwhich I breathed in through the gills.
  615. complacent
    contented to a fault with oneself or one's actions
    He came back from the toilet lookingnextraordinarily complacent, whether because henhad relieved his bladder or because he had runninto a girl in the hallway, I don't know.
  616. caustic
    capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action
    Even my mother, with her caustic tongue,nseemed to understand it somewhat.
  617. haughty
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    The haughty looking one withnthe statuesque figure, I bet she'd squirm like anneel if her palm were well greased.
  618. coughing
    a sudden noisy expulsion of air from the lungs that clears the air passages; a common symptom of upper respiratory infection or bronchitis or pneumonia or tuberculosis
    And such coughing!
  619. strategic
    relating to an elaborate and systematic plan of action
    It was likenseeing an army strong and well equipped, capablenof licking anythingn42nin sight, and yet ordered to retreat every day, tonretreat and retreat and retreat because that wasnthe strategic thing to do, even though it meantnlosing ground, losing guns, losing ammunition,nlosing food, losing sleep, losing courage, losing lifenitself finally.
  620. object
    a tangible and visible entity
    From that momentnI knew what it was to be isolated: every object,nevery living thing and every dead thing led itsnindependent existence.
  621. commence
    set in motion, cause to start
    Maybe, being upnhigh between the two shores, suspended aboventhe traffic, above life and death, on each side thenhigh tombs, tombs blazing with dying sunlight, thenriver flowing heedlessly, flowing on like time itself,nmaybe each time I passed up there, somethingnwas tugging away at me, urging me to take it in, tonannounce myself, anyway each time I passed onnhigh I was truly alone, and whenever thatnhappened the book commenced to write itself,nscreaming the things which I never breat...
  622. ordain
    invest with ministerial or priestly authority
    The thing was that he was dead,ndefinitely dead for all time, and they, the living,nwere cut off from him now and forever, and to-daynas well as to-morrow must be lived through, thenclothes washed, the dinner prepared, and whennthe next one was struck down there would be ancoffin to select and a squabble about the will, butnit would be all in the daily routine and to take timenoff to grieve and sorrow was sinful because God, ifnthere was a God, had ordained it that way and wenon earth...
  623. retarded
    relatively slow in mental, emotional or physical development
    When I try to think, therefore, of where the breaknoccurred I keep puttingn57nit back further and further, until there is no othernway of accounting for it than by the retarded hournof birth.
  624. docile
    easily handled or managed
    Men were walkingnthe streets of New York in that bloody, degradingnoutfit, the despised, the lowest of the low, walkingnaround like auks, like penguins, like oxen, likentrained seals, like patient donkeys, like bignjackasses, like crazy gorillas, like docile maniacsnnibbling at the dangling bait, like waltzing mice,nlike guinea pigs, liken31nsquirrels, like rabbits, and many and many a onenwas fit to govern the world, to write tile greatestnbook ever written.
  625. inert
    unable to move or resist motion
    The whole negative impulse ofnhumanity seemed to coil up into a monstrous inertnmass to create the human integer, the figure one,none and indivisible.
  626. engulf
    flow over or cover completely
    I wanted the earth to open up, tonswallow everything in one engulfing yawn.
  627. stagnant
    not growing or changing; without force or vitality
    The music is a diarrhoea, a lakenof gasolene, stagnant with cockroaches and stalenhorse piss.
  628. patch
    a small contrasting part of something
    I saw the tracks they left on thenhighways, then29nfreight trains lying on the floor, the parents in rags,nthe coal box empty, the sink running over, thenwalls sweating and between the cold beads ofnsweat the cockroaches running like mad; I sawnthem hobbling along like twisted gnomes or fallingnbackwards in the epileptic frenzy, the mouthntwitching, thesaliva pouring from the lips, thenlimbs writhing; I saw the walls giving way and thenpest pouring out like a winged fluid, and the mennhigher...
  629. hovel
    small crude shelter used as a dwelling
    Walking amidst the craziest architecture everninvented, wondering why and to what end, if everynday from these wretched hovels or magnificentnpalaces there had to stream forth an army of mennitching to unravel their tale of misery.
  630. individual
    being or characteristic of a single thing or person
    Henry V.nMiller, a competent, superior individual who hadnasked for the lowest job in the world.
  631. insidious
    working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way
    If itnwere only a question of enduring punishment onencould go on believing till the end; but the way ofnthe world is more insidious than that.
  632. Hindu
    of or relating to or supporting Hinduism
    There was another chap, a Hindu named Guptal.
  633. syphilis
    a common venereal disease caused by the treponema pallidum spirochete; symptoms change through progressive stages; can be congenital (transmitted through the placenta)
    You know she may have syphilis.
  634. chaotic
    completely unordered and unpredictable and confusing
    Perhaps innreading this, one has still the impression of chaosnbut this is written from a live centre and what isnchaotic is merely peripheral, the tangental shreds,nas it were, of a world which no longer concernsnme.
  635. release
    grant freedom to; free from confinement
    He was going tonbe the best salesman in America after his release.
  636. armada
    a large fleet
    Itnwas meant originally to be used only by snakesnand lizards, by the homed toad and the red heron,nbut when the great Spanish Armada was sunk thenhuman kind wriggled out of the ketch and sloppednover, creating by a sort of foul, ignominious squirmnand wiggle the cunt-like cleft that runs from thenBattery south to the golf links north through thendead and wormy centre of Manhattan Island.
  637. arcade
    a structure composed of arches supported by columns
    I walked around a bit, in and out of the pennynarcades, and then I started homeward.
  638. constituted
    brought about or set up or accepted
    But when you lookednat it up close, when you examined the pagesnseparately, or the parts separately, when younexamined one lone individual and what constitutednhim, examined the air he breathed, the life he led,nthe chances he risked, you saw something so foulnand degrading, so low, so miserable, so utterlynhopeless and senseless, that it was worse thannlooking into a volcano.
  639. attract
    exert a force on
    Whatever set the object apart, ornmade it unserviceable, or gave it a date, attractednand endeared it to me.
  640. ramp
    an inclined surface connecting two levels
    Broadway,nsuch as I see it now and have seen it for twentyfivenyears, is a ramp that was conceived by St.nThomas Aquinas while he was yet in the womb.
  641. dormant
    inactive but capable of becoming active
    This eye so widenawake seemed to have made all my other facultiesndormant; all my powers were used up in the effortnto see, to take in the drama of the world.
  642. stupor
    a state of being half-awake
    I got sondamned intoxicated with the idea of dying that innmy drunken stupor I was mumbling to the Godnabove to kill me this night, kill me.
  643. dome
    a concave shape whose concavity faces downward
    He wantednme to tell him all about it, down to the last detail,nhis big hairy ears cocked to catch the least crumbnof information which would justify something ornother which was formulating itself inside his dome.
  644. pathetic
    deserving or inciting pity
    I was swamped with gratitude, withngood wishes, with invitations, with pathetic,ntender little gifts.
  645. core
    the center of an object
    I wasnjumping from the bridge head first, down into thenprimeval ooze, the legs dear and waiting for a bite;nlike that Satan had plunged through the heavens,nthrough the solidn48ncore of the earth, head down and ramming throughnto the very hub of the earth, the darkest, densest,nhottest pit of hell.
  646. hoof
    the hard foot of some mammals
    Wait, you cosmococcicntelegraphic shits, you demons on high waiting fornthe plumbing to be repaired, wait, you dirty whitenconquerors who have sullied the earth with yourncloven hooves, your instruments, your weapons,nyour disease germs, wait, all you who are sitting innclover and counting your coppers, it is not the end.
  647. dozen
    the cardinal number that is the sum of eleven and one
    Before I could take my hat off I had to answer andozen telephone calls.
  648. vagrant
    a wanderer with no established residence or means of support
    Before dinner the slat and chink of skynlight softly percolating through the boned greyndome, the vagrant hemispheres spored with blueeggednnuclei coagulating, ramifying, in the onenbasket lobsters, in the other the germination of anworld antiseptically personal and absolute.
  649. mantelpiece
    a shelf that projects from a wall above a fireplace
    I saw the child's banknlying on the mantelpiece and I took it to the toiletnand emptied it silently.
  650. anarchist
    an advocate of the abolition of governments
    Sure I knew him out in Stelton, innthe anarchist colony.
  651. magnate
    a very wealthy or powerful businessperson
    I sawnthe Horatio Alger hero, the dream of a sicknAmerican, mounting higher and -higher, firstnmessenger, then operator, then manager, thennchief, then superintendent, then vice-president,nthen president, then trust magnate, then beernbaron, then Lord of all the Americas, the moneyngod, the god of gods, the clay of clay, nullity onnhigh, zero with ninety-seven thousand decimalsnfore and aft.
  652. pus
    a fluid product of inflammation
    "Don't tell me you've got the syph," I said,nholding it in my hand and squeezing it a bit asnthough I might see a bit of pus squirting out.
  653. extinguish
    put out, as of fires, flames, or lights
    If I longed for destruction it was merely that thisneye might be extinguished.
  654. sodium thiosulfate
    a compound used as a fixing agent in photographic developing
Created on Tue Jul 20 16:30:54 EDT 2010 (updated Fri Oct 15 20:31:20 EDT 2010)

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