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The Queen's Gambit: Chapters 13–14

A young girl experiences triumph and despair as she becomes immersed in the world of competitive chess.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–6, Chapters 7–10, Chapters 11–12, Chapters 13–14
40 words 18 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. quaver
    a tremulous sound
    Beth felt like crying, but she kept the quaver out of her voice.
  2. spontaneity
    the quality of coming from feelings without constraint
    When they met at Toby’s the spontaneity was gone.
  3. revulsion
    intense aversion
    She shook her head in revulsion and started prying the boxes loose. The thought of frozen fried chicken and roast beef and turkey made her ill; she dumped them all in a plastic shopping bag.
  4. emboss
    raise in a relief
    The stationery had about twenty names down the side, under an embossed cross.
  5. preternatural
    surpassing the ordinary or normal
    The winter light in San Francisco was remarkable; she had never seen anything quite like it before. It gave the buildings a preternatural clarity of line, and when she climbed to the top of Telegraph Hill and looked back, she caught her breath at the sharp focus of the houses and hotels that lined the long steep street and below them the perfect blue of the bay.
  6. tort
    a wrongdoing for which an action for damages may be brought
    “But you haven’t studied law.”
    Jolene laughed. “I expect they like it that way. Fine, Slocum and Livingston don’t want any black female reviewing torts..."
  7. reprehensible
    bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure
    When I did the interview I dropped a lot of words like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘dichotomy,’ and they picked right up.
  8. dichotomy
    a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses
    When I did the interview I dropped a lot of words like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘dichotomy,’ and they picked right up.
  9. imposing
    impressive in appearance
    Once the steps had looked broad and imposing to her, and the tarnished brass plaque had seemed a stern warning.
  10. prerogative
    a right reserved exclusively by a person or group
    She had come to accept the Sunday-morning chess games as her prerogative.
  11. precis
    a sketchy summary of the main points of an argument
    It took another hour after putting the chairs away to write the précis Mrs. Deardorff had assigned.
  12. exhortation
    a communication intended to urge or persuade to take action
    She did it every Sunday for a year, and Mrs. Deardorff returned it every Monday with red marks and some grim exhortation like “Rewrite. Faulty organization.”
  13. voracious
    excessively greedy and grasping
    She had been bright and eager, and her mind was voracious in its appetite for chess.
  14. autocratic
    characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule
    For a moment the whole autocratic institution of Russian chess merged in her mind with the autocracy of the place where she was now standing.
  15. reprove
    reprimand, scold, or express dissatisfaction with
    She could see Deardorff’s face in her mind—the thin, rouged cheeks, the tight, reproving smile, the little sadistic glint in her eyes.
  16. girth
    the distance around something, especially a person's body
    It was an ordinary-sized coffin, and Beth wondered briefly how they could fit a man of Shaibel’s girth into it.
  17. devoid
    completely wanting or lacking
    She wore a beige suit and pumps and smiled a good deal in a way totally devoid of feeling.
  18. falter
    be or become weak, unsteady, or uncertain
    The conversation faltered for a moment, and Miss Dodge spoke.
  19. anathema
    something that is detested or that inspires dislike
    The Holy Word is anathema to the Kremlin, and it is one of the major purposes of Christian Crusade to contest the Kremlin and the atheists who sit there.
  20. nexus
    a connected series or group
    Some phrases in it were underlined, like “the atheist-communist nexus” and “a militant Christian Endeavor."
  21. incidental
    following or accompanying as a consequence
    It would pay her hotel bill and incidental expenses on the trip.
  22. perfunctory
    as a formality only
    Then he held the glass toward Beth in a perfunctory way, and she shook her head.
  23. tenacity
    persistent determination
    She missed Benny’s quick and sober mind, his judgment and tenacity, his knowledge of chess and his knowledge of her.
  24. fitful
    intermittently stopping and starting
    By the time they came down through the heavy clouds and she had her first sight of Russia, which looked from above as much like Kentucky as anything else, she had taken three of the pills, slept fitfully for a few hours and was feeling the glassy-eyed numbness that she used to feel after a long trip on a Greyhound bus.
  25. dapper
    marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners
    Mr. Booth had said Russian men dressed as though their clothes came from a nineteen-thirties Montgomery Ward catalogue, but these men were soberly dapper in expensive gray gaberdine and worsted.
  26. burnish
    polish and make shiny
    The pieces were large and solid; they stood out with a comforting clarity on the board, each of them exactly centered in its home square, each sharply outlined, cleanly turned, finely burnished.
  27. sanguine
    confidently optimistic and cheerful
    She felt sanguine about the reading she had done over the past six months; it was nice to know what to expect.
  28. fervently
    with strong emotion or zeal
    He studied it for a long time while his clock ticked loudly and then did what she had fervently hoped he might do; he pushed the king bishop pawn up to attack the rook.
  29. ebullient
    joyously unrestrained
    Even Laev, who had been so withdrawn at the tournament that morning, was ebullient.
  30. heedless
    marked by or paying little attention
    Then he reached out and continued the advance of his knight’s pawn as if heedless of where she now had her knight.
  31. entrenched
    established firmly and securely
    They were both entrenched with every piece supported at least once and many of them twice.
  32. materialize
    come into being; become reality
    Every now and then she would see a glimmer of a possibility way down the line, eight or ten moves away, but she was never able to make it materialize.
  33. ornate
    marked by complexity and richness of detail
    It was a hot night and she had the window open in her room while she sat at the ornate writing desk with her chessboard on it, studying the adjourned position, looking for ways to embarrass Luchenko’s rook, or to use the rook’s vulnerability as a cover for attacking him somewhere else.
  34. decanter
    a bottle with a stopper; for serving drinks
    On the table was a crystal decanter...
  35. conciliatory
    making or willing to make concessions
    “Excellent!” he said, in English. “A beautiful recovery!”
    His words were so conciliatory that she was astonished.
  36. rancor
    a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will
    His naturalness and lack of rancor made her suddenly ashamed.
  37. artillery
    large but transportable armament
    The Blacks were huddled around their king in a vain attempt to protect, and the White artillery was coming at its corner from all over the board.
  38. deviation
    a variation from the standard or norm
    She gave it twenty minutes, penetrated it as well as she could, and responded with a complete deviation from the Albin.
  39. embodiment
    a concrete representation of an otherwise cloudy concept
    In the whole of her mind, in the whole of her attention she saw only those embodiments of danger—knight, bishop, rook, pawn, king and queen.
  40. minutely
    in painstaking detail
    She kept her eyes closed and examined the position minutely. It was as complicated as anything she had ever played out from a book, and there was no printed analysis to show what the next move was or who would win.
Created on Tue Dec 08 09:17:05 EST 2020 (updated Thu Dec 10 12:51:18 EST 2020)

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