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American Gods: Chapters 1–4

After his release from prison, Shadow joins up with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and finds himself embroiled in a war between old and new gods.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–8, Chapters 9–13, Chapters 14–18, Chapter 19–Postscript

Here are links to our lists for other works by Neil Gaiman: Coraline, The Graveyard Book
40 words 685 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. sidle
    move sideways
    In the food hall Sam Fetisher sidled over to Shadow and smiled, showing his old teeth.
  2. oubliette
    a dungeon with a trap door in the ceiling
    "...We’d drop you in the hole and forget you.”
    Oubliettes, thought Shadow, and he said nothing.
  3. recidivism
    habitual relapse into crime
    It was a survival thing: he didn’t answer back, didn’t say anything about job security for prison guards, debate the nature of repentance, rehabilitation, or rates of recidivism.
  4. garret
    floor consisting of open space at the top of a house
    He had been imprisoned in a lightless garret room for far too long: his beard was wild and his hair was a tangle.
  5. upshot
    a phenomenon that is caused by some previous phenomenon
    The upshot of it all was that Johnnie Larch never actually made it to Seattle, and he spent the next couple of days in town in bars, and when his $100 was gone he held up a gas station with a toy gun for money to keep drinking...
  6. mirth
    great merriment
    Wednesday grinned. His smiles were strange things, Shadow decided. They contained no shred of humor, no happiness, no mirth. Wednesday looked like he had learned to smile from a manual.
  7. panache
    distinctive and stylish elegance
    “I did it,” said Sweeney, with the air of one confiding a huge secret, “with panache and style. That’s how I did it.”
  8. pacific
    disposed to peace or of a peaceful nature
    Wednesday put out his hands, palms up, pacific.
  9. implacable
    incapable of being appeased or pacified
    Wednesday was obviously on the verge of tears, an old man made helpless by the implacable plastic march of the modern world.
  10. interment
    the ritual placing of a corpse in a grave
    “Then after lunch they will take her from there to the graveyard for the interment.”
  11. dais
    a platform raised above the surrounding level
    At the end of the room was a small dais, and, on it, a cream-colored casket with several displays of flowers arranged about it: scarlets and yellows and whites and deep, bloody purples.
  12. repose
    freedom from activity
    It was his Laura and it was not: her repose, he realized, was what was unnatural.
  13. commiseration
    feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others
    Those who came over and talked to him did so as little as they could, mumbled awkward commiserations and fled.
  14. erratic
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    It continued to snow, erratically, in ghost-like tumbling flakes.
  15. acquisitive
    eager to attain and possess material possessions
    He threw the gold coin into the grave with Laura, then he pushed more earth into the hole, to hide the coin from acquisitive gravediggers.
  16. transmute
    change or alter in form, appearance, or nature
    The lights inside the limo transmuted from orange, to red, and back to purple.
  17. consign
    commit forever
    He has been consigned to the Dumpster of history while people like me ride our limos down the superhighway of tomorrow.
  18. rend
    tear or be torn violently
    ...there was a flightless bird which Shadow did not recognize, twice his height, with a beak made for rending, like a vulture’s, but with human arms: and on, and on.
  19. galoot
    a foolish or clumsy person
    “You could have. You big galoot.”
  20. maudlin
    very sentimental or emotional
    We got maudlin. It was sweet.
  21. dispassionate
    unaffected by strong emotion or prejudice
    “Tell me about it. I knocked the gearshift with my shoulder, and then Robbie was trying to push me out of the way to put the car back in gear, and we were swerving, and there was a loud crunch and I remember the world started to roll and to spin, and I thought, I’m going to die. It was very dispassionate. I remember that. I wasn’t scared. And then I don’t remember anything more.”
  22. arrhythmic
    lacking a steady beat or accent
    His heart was pounding arrhythmically in his chest.
  23. buffet
    strike, beat repeatedly
    As he knocked he got the weirdest notion: that he was being buffeted by black wings, as if an enormous crow was flying through him, out into the hall and the world beyond.
  24. stockade
    fortification consisting of a fence set firmly for defense
    They set to, with a will, to build a hall out of split trees and mud, inside a small stockade of sharpened logs, although as far as they knew they were the only men in the new land.
  25. riotous
    characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination
    They laughed riotously at the man as he stumbled and sang, at the way his head rolled and lolled, and this on less than a drinking-horn of mead.
  26. loll
    hang loosely or laxly
    They laughed riotously at the man as he stumbled and sang, at the way his head rolled and lolled, and this on less than a drinking-horn of mead.
  27. shingle
    coarse beach gravel of small waterworn stones and pebbles
    The longboat, upside-down and pulled high on the shingle, they also burned, hoping that the pale strangers had but one boat, and that by burning it they were ensuring that no other Northmen would come to their shores.
  28. nominally
    in name only
    His flat, round pieces were the color of old, dirty wood, nominally white.
  29. borscht
    a soup containing beet juice as a foundation
    Zorya Vechernyaya took five wooden bowls and placed an unpeeled boiled potato in each, then ladled in a healthy serving of a ferociously crimson borscht.
  30. mealy
    having a rough, grainy texture or consistency
    The boiled potato was mealy.
  31. incumbent
    necessary as a duty or responsibility; morally binding
    “I thank you, ladies. And now, I am afraid that it is incumbent upon us to ask you to recommend to us a fine hotel in the neighborhood.”
  32. mote
    a tiny piece of anything
    A narrow shaft of sunlight streamed in through the window, making the dust motes dance.
  33. clemency
    leniency and compassion shown toward offenders
    In the days where you could be hanged in London from Tyburn’s triple-crowned tree for the theft of twelve pennies, the Americas became a symbol of clemency, of a second chance.
  34. indenture
    a contract binding one party into the service of another
    You were sold to a captain, and would ride in his ship, crowded tight as a slaver’s, to the colonies or to the West Indies; off the boat the captain would sell you on as an indentured servant to one who would take the cost of your skin out in your labor until the years of your indenture were done.
  35. scullery
    a small room next to the kitchen for household jobs
    Essie’s mother was in service as a cook at the squire’s house, and, at the age of twelve, Essie began to work there, in the scullery.
  36. vicissitude
    a variation in circumstances or fortune
    Essie gave thanks for her escapes from her vicissitudes to all the creatures that she had been told of as a child, to the piskies (whose influence, she was certain, extended as far as London), and she would put a wooden bowl of milk on a window-ledge each night, although her friends laughed at her...
  37. spurious
    intended to deceive
    Found guilty, Essie shocked no one by pleading her belly, although the town matrons, who assessed such claims (which were usually spurious), were surprised when they were forced to agree that Essie was indeed with child; although who the father was, Essie declined to say.
  38. flux
    excessive discharge of liquid from a cavity or organ
    Fluxes and fevers ran rampant; there was scarcely room to sit, let alone to lie down; a woman died in childbirth in the back of the hold, and, the people being pushed in too tightly to pass her body forward, she and the infant were forced out of a small porthole in the back, directly into the choppy gray sea.
  39. mellifluous
    pleasing to the ear
    She told them, in her mellifluous Cornish drawl, which trees they should be wary of, in the old rhyme:
    Elm, he do brood
    And Oak, he do hate,
    But the willow-man goes walking,
    If you stays out late.
  40. moor
    open land with peaty soil covered with heather and moss
    Phyllida’s children would come to Essie for tales, and she would tell them of the Black Dog of the Moors, and of Raw-Head and Bloody-Bones, or the Apple Tree Man, but they were not interested; they only wanted tales of Jack—Jack up the Beanstalk, or Jack Giant-killer, or Jack and his Cat and the King.
Created on Fri Aug 10 12:34:40 EDT 2018 (updated Mon Aug 20 17:04:17 EDT 2018)

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