On The Road Vocab

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modigliani

Back 1

Italian painter and sculptor. His portraits and nudes are noted for their elongated forms.

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bop

Back 2

jazz characterized by harmonic complexity, convoluted melodic lines, and constant shifting of accent and often played at very rapid tempos

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taciturn

Back 3

temperamentally disinclined to talk

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verdant

Back 4

1a : green in tint or color b : green with growing plants <verdant fields>
2: unripe in experience or judgment

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alackaday

Back 5

used to express sorrow or deprecation

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lugubriously

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exaggeratedly or affectedly mournful, dismal

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Priapus

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a Greek and Roman god of gardens and male generative power

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vociferous

Back 8

marked by or given to vehement insistent outcry

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fellahin

Back 9

egyptian peasants

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scruples

Back 10

an ethical consideration or principle that inhibits action;a minute part or quantity

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yen

Back 11

a strong desire or propensity

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voraciously

Back 12

having a huge appetite : ravenous; excessively eager :

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amenable

Back 13

liable to be brought to account : answerable; capable of submission (as to judgment or test); suited;: readily brought to yield, submit, or cooperate;willing

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affable

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being pleasant and at ease in talking to others

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bland

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smooth and soothing in manner or quality; exhibiting no personal concern or embarrassment

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imprecation

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curse

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Mann act

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a federal statute making it a crime to transport a woman across state lines for "immoral" purposes. The Mann Act was intended to prevent the movement of prostitutes from one state to another or in and out of the country in the so-called "white slave" trade

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laconic

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using or involving the use of a minimum of words : concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious

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ken

Back 19

the range of perception, understanding, or knowledge; sight, view; see

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Unctuous

Back 20

fatty, oily b : smooth and greasy in texture or appearance; plastic <fine unctuous clay>;revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, and false earnestness or spirituality

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spectral

Back 21

of, relating to, or suggesting a specter : GHOSTLY; of, relating to, or made by a spectrum

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Roman a' clef

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a novel in which real persons or actual events figure under disguise; a book with a key

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Schopenhauer's Dichotomy

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the difference between what we idealize things in the world and the way they really are

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Roman-fleuve

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a novel in the form of a long usually easygoing chronicle of a social group (as a family or a community)

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episodic novel

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a narrative composed of loosely connected incidents, each one more or less self-contained, often connected by a central character or characters. It is one way of constructing a plot.

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spontaneous prose

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relies heavily not only on the experience of writing but also the experience of living

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solipsism

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a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing;

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determinism

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a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws; a belief in predestination

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free will

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freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention