Thursday Thirteen 239: Vocabulary--A Tale of Two Cities, Pt 2

In last week’s post, I shared several words encountered in a recent reading of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, which I quite enjoyed. Here are thirteen more words for your edification.






gamut [gam-uht] nounThe entire scale or range.
USAGE: …The sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death.

reversionary [ri-vur-zhuh-ner-ee, -shuh-] adjective
of, pertaining to, or involving a reversion.
USAGE: Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father had been chewing, and cogitated.

pernicious [per-nish-uhs] adjective
1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie.
2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease.
3. Obsolete: evil; wicked.
USAGE: That, the proof would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged in these pernicious missions, within a few weeks before the date of the very first action fought between the British troops and the Americans.

asseveration [uh-sev-uh-rey-shuhn] noun
1. the act of asseverating (to declare earnestly or solemnly; affirm positively; aver).
2. an emphatic assertion.
USAGE: …in the name of everything he could think of with a round turn on it, and on the faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as good as dead and gone.

compeer [kuhm-peer, kom-peer] noun
1. an equal in rank, ability, accomplishment, etc.; peer; colleague.
2. close friend; comrade.
USAGE: The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the drier parts of the legal race.

deprecatory [dep-ri-kuh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee] adjective
1. of the nature of or expressing disapproval, protest, or depreciation.
2. apologetic; making apology
USAGE: With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied.


apostrophise [uh-pos-truh-fahyz] verb (used with object) (also: apostrophize)
To address.
USAGE: But it’s not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to do, you do.

bark [bahrk] noun (also: barque)
1. Nautical. a sailing vessel having three or more masts, square-rigged on all but the aftermost mast, which is fore-and-aft-rigged.
2. Literary. a boat or sailing vessel.
USAGE: There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and there was.

imputation [im-pyoo-tey-shuhn] noun
An attribution, as of fault or crime; accusation.
USAGE: I say, when you began it, it was hard enough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under any circumstances.

perforce [per-fawrs, -fohrs] adverb
Of necessity; necessarily; by force of circumstance.
USAGE: Yes, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General.

vaunted [vawn-tid, vahn-] adjective
Praised boastfully or excessively
USAGE: As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found that shutting out the sky in a new way—to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets.

affable [af-uh-buhl] adjective
Showing warmth and friendliness; benign; pleasant
adverb: affably
USAGE: Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of Truth.

obsequious [uhb-see-kwee-uhs] adjective
1. characterized by or showing servile complaisance or deference; fawning.
2. servilely compliant or deferential.
3. obedient; dutiful.
USAGE: Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an official manner.


I hope that you recognized at least a few of these words, or found one or two you might like to add to your own vocabulary.


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