The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage: Chapters 16–20

by Philip Pullman
In the first volume of The Book of Dust, a companion trilogy to Pullman's His Dark Materials series, a boy named Malcolm and a barmaid named Alice attempt to keep baby Lyra safe from the cruel Gerard Bonneville.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–10, Chapters 11–15, Chapters 16–20, Chapters 21–25

Here are links to our lists for other books by Philip Pullman: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. teeming
    abundantly filled with especially living things
    He leaned to the right, trying to see round the canopy, trying to keep the brim of his sou’wester out of his eyes, trying to make out anything in the teeming murk.
  2. scintillate
    emit or reflect light in a flickering manner
    A little patch of white on the floor of the canoe. And then, without the slightest warning, it became the shimmering, flickering spot of light, floating in the darkness ahead of him. He blinked and shook his head: this wasn’t a good time for spangled rings, but it wouldn’t go. It floated in midair, scintillating and spinning, flashing and turning.
  3. disembodied
    not having a material form
    He did feel something, the kind of thing Asta had described on that evening when it came on them during his geography homework, a sort of peaceful, disembodied floating, in a space that was immense or even infinite in all directions.
  4. baffle
    hinder or prevent, as an effort, plan, or desire
    The main force of the flood was broken up here and baffled by the trees, which was why the canoe hadn’t been torn loose and swept away.
  5. quail
    draw back, as with fear or pain
    Malcolm looked at that wild waste, and his heart quailed.
  6. tentative
    hesitant or lacking confidence; unsettled in mind or opinion
    He took the paddle and tentatively moved the canoe out into the open. Immediately the current seized it and spun it round so the stern was leading, and Malcolm knew his mistake: nothing should be tentative.
  7. seethe
    foam as if boiling
    The flood was carrying them inexorably into the city, but not smoothly or easily, because the buildings broke up the flow and made the water seethe and surge with turbulence.
  8. dinghy
    a small boat of shallow draft
    And now Malcolm and Alice could see other people struggling with the flood, some desperately trying to keep their heads above water as they were carried along, some in little boats—punts or dinghies—trying to rescue those in danger of drowning, some clinging to the trees in St. Mary Magdalen’s graveyard, some being helped through open windows into Balliol or St. John’s colleges.
  9. incessant
    uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing
    Malcolm could hear Lyra crying, not with shrill fear but with a steady note of complaint at the cold and the wet and the incessant lurching of the canoe.
  10. disheveled
    in disarray; extremely disorderly
    Her little dæmon, who had been a very disheveled rat, became a miniature bulldog and joined in the row till Alice’s greyhound dæmon picked him up and shook him, which startled the child into outraged silence.
  11. requisition
    demand and take for use or service
    “I should think every boat that exists will have been requisitioned by the authorities,” said Papadimitriou.
  12. gist
    the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
    He wrote a paper arguing that there must be a particle associated with the field, and made the extraordinary claim that Dust could be that particle. The gist of it, as far as I can understand it, was that everything is material and that matter itself is conscious.
  13. impassive
    having or revealing little emotion or sensibility
    At the mention of Coram van Texel, Hannah glanced at Lord Nugent, who returned her look with bland impassivity.
  14. surmise
    a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence
    “This is surmise,” said Papadimitriou, “but it’s likely that he’s pursuing the boy and the girl who are looking after Lyra. They have a boat—a canoe, I believe—and Hannah thinks they escaped in that. But, Hannah, where would they go? What would they be looking for?”
  15. impregnable
    incapable of being overcome, challenged, or refuted
    The law has been tested in the courts, and always found to be impregnable.
  16. ply
    wield vigorously
    Still, the man had adult muscles and was plying the oars with determination.
  17. turbid
    clouded as with sediment
    He looked down the lawn towards the turbid flood. In the heavy twilight he couldn’t see the rowing boat at all.
  18. throng
    press tightly together or cram
    There are spirits of the air and the earth, to begin with. Once you learn to see them, you’ll realize that the world is thronged with them.
  19. rucksack
    a bag carried by a strap on your back or shoulder
    He grabbed the rucksack and ran back towards Alice. She had put Lyra down on the grass and was tugging La Belle Sauvage out of the bushes, so Malcolm dropped the rucksack in the canoe and joined her.
  20. pestilence
    any epidemic disease with a high death rate
    The only sound was the wind over the flood, except for a tiny insect buzz that came and went. The floodwater must be breeding pestilence, Malcolm thought.
  21. intermittent
    stopping and starting at irregular intervals
    So he gritted his teeth and plunged the paddle into the water with his trembling muscles and tried to ignore the whine of the motor, which was not intermittent anymore, but constant and getting louder.
  22. sheer
    very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front
    After some minutes’ walking, they came to a larger clearing in front of a rock that rose sheer from the ground.
  23. unwitting
    not done with purpose or intent
    At one point, Asta whispered, “Look at Pan,” and Malcolm noticed that the little dæmon, kitten-shaped, was unwittingly kneading the flesh of Malcolm’s hand with his tiny claws.
  24. galvanize
    cover with zinc
    The bins were galvanized steel dustbins.
  25. throes
    violent pangs of suffering
    Doris Whicher didn’t notice; she was in the throes of a hangover, and the smell of liquor was so strong that Malcolm thought she ought to breathe more carefully near the fire.
  26. sprawling
    spreading out in different directions
    At one moment, Malcolm reached Mrs. Boatwright and had his hands on Lyra and began to lift her away, and the next moment came a shocking blow on his head and he fell sprawling half conscious to the ground; and Alice was biting the arms that held her, and lashing out with both feet, and screaming.
  27. tumult
    a state of commotion and noise and confusion
    Through the tumult of voices, one voice cried out to him with perfect clarity, that of Lyra, and he called back, “Lyra! Lyra! I’m coming!”
  28. smug
    marked by excessive complacency or self-satisfaction
    There was Andrew, smiling nervously, but with a righteous smugness in his expression too.
  29. hubbub
    loud confused noise from many sources
    Some of them had not been awake when the men came and needed to have it explained, and George Boatwright was still unconscious, and Audrey was anxiously crying his name as she knelt beside him, so the cave was full of hubbub.
  30. bout
    a period of illness
    There were voices behind Malcolm, excited and relieved, and he turned to see, but felt a bout of pain and nausea in his head as he did, so brutal it was like being hit again.
  31. despondent
    without or almost without hope
    The more he heard, the more difficult it seemed, and the more despondent he became.
  32. misgiving
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    He had a thousand misgivings.
  33. buttress
    a support usually of stone or brick
    It was built of a light stone that shone almost like snow in the glare of the moon, a vast spreading complex of walls and roofs and buttresses, all surrounding the slender spire.
  34. surmount
    be on top of
    Roughly halfway along the front there was a wide row of steps, surmounted by a portico where classical columns supported a pediment….Was that a figure among the columns?
  35. portico
    porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered area
    Roughly halfway along the front there was a wide row of steps, surmounted by a portico where classical columns supported a pediment….Was that a figure among the columns?
  36. crockery
    ceramic dishes used for serving food
    A moment later he had scrambled underneath and into the room, which was, as he’d guessed, a scullery, with sinks for washing and racks for drying crockery.
  37. contrite
    feeling or expressing pain or sorrow
    He dragged his feet in the direction she pointed and tried to look contrite.
  38. drab
    lacking brightness or color; dull
    At the top of the staircase, a drab corridor stretched out ahead, with rough coconut matting on the floor.
  39. testy
    easily irritated or annoyed
    They both sounded testy.
  40. clamber
    climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
    He clambered backwards down the drain, moaning with cold, bashing his head, scraping his knees, slipping, falling on his face, pushing himself up again, into the darkness, until Asta said, “There it is! We’re nearly there!”
Created on Fri Sep 21 16:42:41 EDT 2018 (updated Thu Sep 27 10:41:21 EDT 2018)

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