Dreadnought: Chapters 22–29

by April Daniels
Fifteen-year-old Danny is gifted with superpowers and is determined to prove that as a transgender girl, she can be the world's greatest superhero.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–13, Chapters 14–21, Chapters 22–29, Chapters 30–37
35 words 9 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. lackey
    a servile or submissive follower
    If Utopia is pulling off other robberies, she’ll need lackeys. Supervillains ain’t known for doing their own menials. Someone’s got to drive the getaway van.
  2. menial
    relating to unskilled work, especially domestic work
    If Utopia is pulling off other robberies, she’ll need lackeys. Supervillains ain’t known for doing their own menials. Someone’s got to drive the getaway van.
  3. gilt
    having the deep slightly brownish color of gold
    The books are all leather with fading gilt letters.
  4. sacrilegious
    grossly irreverent toward what is considered holy
    There’s an almost sacrilegious feeling in the air. We’re doing cape work in street clothes. It’s just wrong.
  5. subtext
    a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred
    “No, I believe in magic.” I’m not sure I believe someone at our school can work any magic, though. Charlie must have heard some of that subtext in my voice.
  6. amiably
    in a friendly manner
    “Shove it, Sarah,” he says amiably.
  7. esoteric
    understandable only by an enlightened inner circle
    “Well, technically Charlie is baseline, but he has an esoteric skill. The vocabulary isn't too precise. To answer your question, uh, there’s maybe ten I know of. That’s probably not everybody.”
  8. meander
    move or cause to move in a winding or curving course
    For what feels like ten minutes but is probably more like thirty seconds she gets close and stays in his blind spot as he meanders around the yard, until I can get a clear path to drop down and hoist her into the air.
  9. plaintive
    expressing sorrow
    A plaintive whining noise starts to leak out of Gerald, and he begins to rock back and forth on the couch.
  10. gird
    prepare oneself for action or a confrontation
    I open my math book and gird myself to do battle with binomial equations.
  11. musing
    deeply or seriously thoughtful
    Halfway through the crackers and not nearly far enough along through my homework, Mom speaks, her voice quiet, almost musing. “I used to wonder what you’d be like if you were a girl.”
  12. dragoon
    compel by coercion, threats, or crude means
    She dragoons me into the effort as well, sending me a list of phone numbers to call over lunch.
  13. manifest
    a document listing the contents put on a ship or plane
    There’s a file here that catches my eye: a shipping manifest for some Cerita power couplings, with a handwritten note in red ink reminding someone to include them among the losses from the recent theft.
  14. lark
    any carefree episode
    She swipes her debit card like it’s no big deal to drop that much money on a lark, and then all that stuff goes in a bag, which she hands to me.
  15. corrugated
    shaped into alternating parallel grooves and ridges
    It’s a dozen or more square miles of gravel with corrugated metal hulks sleeping between pools of sodium-orange light.
  16. dynamo
    a coil that rotates between the poles of an electromagnet
    Huge dynamos and racks upon racks of computer servers dominate the walls to either side.
  17. splay
    widen or spread apart
    A half-refurbished matter fabber sits in a corner, its guts splayed out on the ground.
  18. denomination
    a class of one kind of unit in a system of measures
    She reaches into her jacket and pulls out a fat brick of twenty-dollar bills. She holds it up and he snaps it out of her hand, rubs his thumb down the edge to make sure they’re all the same denomination.
  19. recompense
    payment or reward, as for service rendered
    “That’s a difficult, dangerous, expensive question to ponder. I will require significant recompense for my efforts,” says the Artificer.
  20. staple
    a necessary commodity for which demand is constant
    “Non-Newtonian fluid,” says Calamity. “It’s a staple of a lot of hypertech. He uses it in my bullets, in fact. We're gonna pick some up at the university.”
  21. cartel
    a consortium formed to limit commercial competition
    He found proof the CIA was smuggling drugs for the Colombian cartels and pocketing the cash to fund their black operations.
  22. seethe
    be in an agitated emotional state
    “Or they didn’t bother to check out the evidence,” says Sarah, seething with contempt.
  23. gouge
    an impression in a surface, as made by a blow
    Calamity gets to her knees and pulls her helmet off. It’s carpeted with gouges. The eye shield was up, so she’s got some cuts over her eyes and across the bridge of her nose.
  24. discretion
    the trait of judging wisely and objectively
    “For what it’s worth,” says Utopia, “I applaud your discretion in refraining from announcing yourself as the Dreadnought. It demonstrates forethought and clarity of mind.”
  25. lathe
    a machine tool for shaping a piece of rotating wood or metal
    I push a fallen industrial lathe off of me and clamber to my feet.
  26. prudent
    marked by sound judgment
    It would be prudent to kill you now, but I am serious when I say I have renounced unnecessary violence.
  27. renounce
    turn away from; give up
    It would be prudent to kill you now, but I am serious when I say I have renounced unnecessary violence.
  28. gurney
    a metal stretcher with wheels
    Two of her robots are waiting on the other side of the door with a gurney at the ready. I lay Calamity down as gently as I can.
  29. tepid
    moderately warm
    The cocoa is sweet, but it’s gone tepid. Nuking it in the microwave helps, and I curl back up on the couch, sipping hot chocolate and feeling nothing at all.
  30. amiss
    not functioning properly
    I circle the house twice from as low as thirty feet and try to see if anything is amiss.
  31. farce
    an event or situation that is absurd, empty, or insincere
    “Putting an end to this tragic farce, young man.”
  32. gall
    the trait of being rude and impertinent
    “You told them?” The sheer gall of it rips my breath away. All this talk about how the Legion protects secret identities, and then poof, she takes mine away from me.
  33. distillation
    the purest and most concentrated essence of something
    You are the purest distillation of an evil that has haunted half the human race since the priests killed the Goddess.
  34. expunge
    remove by erasing or crossing out or as if by drawing a line
    But that doesn’t mean you aren’t dangerous. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be expunged.
  35. reify
    consider an abstract concept to be real
    You reify the holocaust of gender, you invade my sex, and you poison my sisters by your simple presence.
Created on Wed Jan 26 11:43:37 EST 2022 (updated Mon Jan 31 09:51:58 EST 2022)

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