The Iceman Cometh
Vocabulary

9 uses

There is a foreign atmosphere about him, the stamp of an alien radical, a strong resemblance to the type Anarchist as portrayed, bomb in hand, in newspaper cartoons.

anarchist = someone who favors eliminating all government

3 uses

Rocky pushes the bottle toward him apathetically.

apathetically = with a lack of enthusiasm

9 uses

I remember her putting on her high-and-mighty free-woman stuff, saying you were still a slave to bourgeois morality and jealousy and you thought a woman you loved was a piece of private property you owned.

bourgeois = typical of the middle class values

1 use

Rocky beams complacently and takes the glasses back to the bar.

complacently = with satisfaction

4 uses

1 use

They've all a touching credulity concerning tomorrows.

credulity = gullibility (being too willing to believe)

6 uses

She wrote to denounce me and...

denounce = strongly criticize

9 uses

Pearl and Margie exchange a derisive look.

derisive = mocking and disrespectful

1 use

(...takes a greedy gulp—then sets it back on the table with a grimace of distaste—in a strange, arrogantly disdainful tone, as if he were rebuking a butler) 'Dis vine is unfit to trink.'

disdainful = full of disrespect

1 use

with a disparaging glance around

disparaging = critical

9 uses

more exasperated than angry

exasperated = greatly annoyed

4 uses

He is dressed in threadbare black clothes and his white shirt is frayed at collar and cuffs, but everything about him is fastidiously clean.

fastidiously = showing an excessive concern for cleanliness

4 uses

He slinks in furtively, as if he were escaping from someone.

furtively = while taking pains to avoid being observed

1 use

Jimmy has a face like an old well-bred, gentle bloodhound's, with folds of flesh hanging from each side of his mouth, and big brown friendly guileless eyes, more bloodshot than any bloodhound's ever were.

guileless = innocent — without cunning or deceit

1 use

He looks like an enlarged, elderly, bald edition of the village fat boy—a sly fat boy, congenitally indolent, a practical joker, a born grafter and con merchant.

indolent = lazy

9 uses

They advance, their heads together, so interested in a discussion they are oblivious to everyone.

oblivious = unaware of

13 uses

But Lewis, his hand about to push the swinging doors open, hesitates, as though struck by a sudden paralysis of the will,

paralysis = loss of the ability to move

25 uses

masking pity behind a sardonic tone

sardonic = humorous in a mocking, cynical, or ironic way

10 uses

His manner is sullen, his face set in gloom.

sullen = showing a gloomy or bad mood — often by not interacting with others in a friendly way

11 uses

LARRY—(stung—furiously) Look out how you try to taunt me back into life, I warn you!

taunt = anger