"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chapter 1

Stamati S. (United States of America)
Nick Carraway rents a summer house in Long Island where he befriends his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire who hides behind an extravagant and decadent lifestyle.

Here are links to all our word lists for the novel: Chapter 1, Chapters 2–3, Chapters 4–5, Chapters 6–7, Chapters 8–9
10 words 1 learner

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. feign
    give a false appearance of
    Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
  2. levity
    a manner lacking seriousness
    Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.
  3. elation
    a feeling of joy and pride
    No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
  4. supercilious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.
  5. fractious
    stubbornly resistant to authority or control
    His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed.
  6. unobtrusive
    not undesirably noticeable
    Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire.
  7. complacency
    the feeling you have when you are satisfied with yourself
    There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.
  8. extemporize
    perform or speak without preparation
    She was only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words.
  9. contemptuous
    expressing extreme scorn
    I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach.
  10. peremptory
    offensively self-assured or exercising unwarranted power
    Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Created on Mon Jun 02 11:10:32 EDT 2025

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