Ugly: Chapters 14–16

by Robert Hoge
Born with a large tumor on his face, Hoge survived multiple surgeries — but faced bullying and cruelty because of his atypical appearance. In this memoir, Hoge recounts how he learned to embrace his differences.

Here are links to our lists for the memoir: Introduction–Chapter 4, Chapters 5–9, Chapters 10–13, Chapters 14–16, Chapters 17–21
30 words 62 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. dire
    fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless
    Things in class were almost as dire as they were on the sporting field.
  2. misshapen
    so badly formed or distorted as to be ugly
    We were expected to master “running writing,” or cursive. My attempts were so shaky, so misshapen, so ugly, it looked like I’d interpreted running writing to mean writing done while running in a race.
  3. legible
    capable of being read or deciphered
    I’d sacrifice legibility on the altar of speed.
  4. lair
    the place where a wild animal lives
    And he read us passages from The Lord of the Rings, in which the two tiny hobbits, Frodo and Sam, are taken by the evil Gollum into the lair of the giant spider, Shelob.
  5. ruse
    a deceptive maneuver, especially to avoid capture
    Gollum leads them there as a ruse, so Shelob can sting them and he can regain the ring.
  6. clamor
    make loud demands
    I’d be one of the kids clamoring for “more, more please, sir” when Mr. Bolton would eventually sigh and say it was enough for that day.
  7. exquisite
    delicately beautiful
    In my head, what I wrote read like the most exquisite poem ever committed to paper by a ten-year-old.
  8. skirmish
    a minor short-term fight
    There was the occasional border skirmish, but crossings from one side to the other were rare.
  9. subside
    wear off or die down
    The teasing subsided a few days later.
  10. crude
    conspicuously and tastelessly indecent
    I knew Dad would be most displeased if I ever did something so crude.
  11. quadrangle
    a rectangular area surrounded on all sides by buildings
    In the middle was the quadrangle—an ocean of angry asphalt roiling in the summer heat.
  12. roil
    be agitated
    In the middle was the quadrangle—an ocean of angry asphalt roiling in the summer heat.
  13. hodgepodge
    a motley assortment of things
    Around it was a hodgepodge of classrooms, a hall, a library, a tiny chapel, a science block, a manual arts workshop, and more classrooms.
  14. deputy
    an assistant with power to act when his superior is absent
    In grades five to seven we had our own classrooms, our own lunch area, our own teachers, and our own deputy principal—our own little world inside the bigger school.
  15. coverage
    the news as presented by reporters for the media
    He must have seen the media coverage of my big operation when I was four and known that the doctors had made me a nose out of a toe.
  16. spastic
    person suffering from a loss or deficiency of motor control
    Four weeks in I was being called half a dozen names that weren’t Robert—cripple, spastic, legless, and the dreaded Toe Nose.
  17. vogue
    the popular taste at a given time
    I’d pick up a new nickname every six months or so. Some would go out of fashion, to be forgotten for a year or two, and then come back in vogue.
  18. proverb
    a condensed but memorable saying embodying an important fact
    One day I realized that for the first few years of my life I didn’t have much of a nose at all. Hence the ancient proverb: “Better a flat nose than none at all.”
  19. squat
    short and thick
    Hurt factor: Medium to low, especially once I remembered that my nose was squat and squashy, not long and pointy.
  20. bumble
    make a mess of, destroy or ruin
    Inspector Gadget was an animated series about a bumbling detective that started in the early 1980s.
  21. falter
    be or become weak, unsteady, or uncertain
    He tilted his head and curled the corner of his lip into a strange shape. I faltered for a second, but he waved to me to keep going.
  22. grimace
    contort the face to indicate a certain mental state
    I settled on a tone I thought matched my speaking voice but couldn’t hold it for long. The poor priest grimaced.
  23. nestle
    lie in a sheltered position
    The campground was nestled between the beach, a creek, and the highway.
  24. hobble
    walk unevenly due to pain, injury, or weakness
    Every day when I arrived home from school, I’d bolt up the stairs as fast as I could, hobble through our front door, sit on the couch, and rip off my artificial legs because they’d gotten sore.
  25. shabby
    showing signs of wear and tear
    When we arrived at Tallebudgera we scampered off the bus, grabbed our sleeping bags and clothes, and walked across the patchy grass to the shabby huts that were home for the duration.
  26. contraband
    goods whose trade or possession is prohibited by law
    There were bigger issues to deal with, like how to hide our contraband candy and stop other kids from stealing it.
  27. rickety
    inclined to shake as from weakness or defect
    We’d sit in a small hall with a rickety projector showing some family-oriented fare on a white pull-down screen.
  28. hoist
    raise
    I took my prosthetics off and, with the other boys watching, I hoisted myself up on my hands.
  29. strew
    spread by scattering
    At step twelve I planted my right hand down on one of the playing cards strewn across the stage by the previous act.
  30. grudging
    unwilling or reluctant
    I enjoyed a kind of grudging respect for a few weeks after that, but the name-callings of cripple and Toe Nose eventually found their way back to the playground.
Created on Tue Jan 08 20:45:20 EST 2019 (updated Fri Jan 25 11:27:40 EST 2019)

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