The Great Gatsby: Chapters 6–7

by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nick Carraway rents a summer house in Long Island where he befriends his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire who hides behind an extravagant and decadent lifestyle. Read the full text here.

Here are links to all our word lists for the novel: Chapter 1, Chapters 2–3, Chapters 4–5, Chapters 6–7, Chapters 8–9
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. transpire
    become known
    It transpired after a confused five minutes that the man had heard Gatsby’s name around his office in a connection which he either wouldn’t reveal or didn’t fully understand.
  2. meretricious
    tastelessly showy
    He was a son of God — a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that — and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty.
  3. ineffable
    defying expression or description
    A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor.
  4. turgid
    ostentatiously lofty in style
    The none too savoury ramifications by which Ella Kaye, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the turgid journalism of 1902.
  5. repose
    put or place something (e.g., trust) in or on
    He was employed in a vague personal capacity — while he remained with Cody he was in turn steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor, for Dan Cody sober knew what lavish doings Dan Cody drunk might soon be about, and he provided for such contingencies by reposing more and more trust in Gatsby.
  6. ingratiate
    gain favor with somebody by deliberate efforts
    For several weeks I didn't see him or hear his voice on the phone — mostly I was in New York, trotting around with Jordan and trying to ingratiate myself with her senile aunt — but finally I went over to his house one Sunday afternoon.
  7. profusion
    the property of being extremely abundant
    There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before.
  8. euphemism
    an inoffensive expression substituted for an offensive one
    She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented "place" that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village — appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a shortcut from nothing to nothing.
  9. disquieting
    causing mental discomfort
    That locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind.
  10. portentous
    of momentous or ominous significance
    As Tom took up the receiver the compressed heat exploded into sound and we were listening to the portentous chords of Mendelssohn's Wedding March from the ballroom below.
  11. prig
    a person regarded as arrogant and annoying
    Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.
  12. vicariously
    indirectly, as, by, or through a substitute
    At this point Jordan and I tried to go but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive firmness that we remain — as though neither of them had anything to conceal and it would be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions.
  13. magnanimous
    generous and understanding and tolerant
    She looked at Tom, alarmed now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn.
  14. presumptuous
    going beyond what is appropriate, permitted, or courteous
    “Go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over.”
  15. inquest
    an investigation into the cause of an unexpected death
    The young Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the ash-heaps was the principal witness at the inquest.
Created on Wed Apr 10 15:15:19 EDT 2013 (updated Thu Jul 03 10:27:16 EDT 2025)

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