Darius the Great Is Not Okay: Chapters 15–19

by Adib Khorram
Darius has always struggled to fit in: he suffers from depression, he is bullied at school, and he can never seem to meet his father's high expectations. When Darius's family travels to Iran to visit his grandparents, Darius finds a place where he belongs, and a true friendship, for the first time.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–10, Chapters 11–14, Chapters 15–19, Chapters 20–26, Chapters 27–36
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. contract
    squeeze or push together
    He was still breathing hard, his abdomen expanding and contracting.
  2. breach
    make an opening or gap in
    But I felt the heat radiating off his skin, like a warp core about to breach.
  3. flush
    sudden reddening of the face
    My skin was still flush from our game, which was good.
  4. ubiquitous
    being present everywhere at once
    ...even though it was ubiquitous in Iran, Mom thought it was important for the son to look like the father.
  5. causality
    the relation between reasons and effects
    I wondered if he had been there the whole time, caught in a temporal causality loop while I was out playing soccer/non-American football...
  6. containment
    the act of keeping something from spreading
    I blinked and blinked because I didn’t want Babou to witness my stress hormones build up to a containment breach.
  7. devolve
    grow worse
    Dad interrupted us before we could devolve into an argument.
  8. lineage
    the kinship relation between an individual and progenitors
    I was fairly certain that, if you traced the lineage of all the desserts in the world, each and every one originated in Yazd.
  9. petty
    preoccupied with unimportant matters in a spiteful way
    I really hated myself for that.
    I hated how petty I was.
  10. diligently
    in a hard-working manner
    Stephen Kellner was a firm believer in adhering to the included directions, which had been diligently prepared by a professional LEGO engineer.
  11. tantamount
    being essentially equal to something
    Designing my own models was tantamount to architectural blasphemy.
  12. blasphemy
    the act of depriving something of its sacred character
    Designing my own models was tantamount to architectural blasphemy.
  13. primordial
    having existed from the beginning
    It kind of looks like mud.
    Worse than mud, even: It looks like the sort of primordial goo that could generate new amino acids, which would inevitably combine to initiate protein synthesis and create brand new life forms.
  14. inevitably
    in such a manner as could not be otherwise
    It kind of looks like mud.
    Worse than mud, even: It looks like the sort of primordial goo that could generate new amino acids, which would inevitably combine to initiate protein synthesis and create brand new life forms.
  15. initiate
    set in motion, start an event or prepare the way for
    Worse than mud, even: It looks like the sort of primordial goo that could generate new amino acids, which would inevitably combine to initiate protein synthesis and create brand new life forms.
  16. synthesis
    the process of producing a chemical compound
    Worse than mud, even: It looks like the sort of primordial goo that could generate new amino acids, which would inevitably combine to initiate protein synthesis and create brand new life forms.
  17. knack
    a special way of doing something
    But I knew without him saying it out loud that he was disappointed I didn’t have the knack for it. I would never be an architect like him.
  18. dub
    provide (movies) with translated dialogue and narration
    DVDs and cases orbited in a ring around it, mostly Farsi-language dubs of Bollywood movies.
  19. stoicism
    an indifference to pleasure or pain
    Dad had his arms wrapped around them both, looking ridiculous but somehow still radiating Teutonic stoicism in his light blue scrubs.
  20. disburse
    expend, as from a fund
    Mom and Dad took Laleh trick-or-treating, while I was assigned to monitor the house and disburse candy as necessary.
  21. gild
    decorate with, or as if with, gold leaf or liquid gold
    Mom watched me from the doorway, cradling two cups of tea. They were the glass kind, the ones with gilded rims and no handles.
  22. android
    a moving mechanical device that looks like a person
    When I was ten, I had decided I wanted to wear my hair like Lt. Commander Data, the Enterprise’s android operations officer.
  23. dregs
    sediment that has settled at the bottom of a liquid
    Babou grabbed the teapot off the stove—it was nearly empty—and dumped the dregs into the sink.
  24. shroud
    burial garment in which a corpse is wrapped
    Babou stopped in front of the house, but the cloud of smoke kept going, enveloping the minivan in a black shroud before dissipating into a thin trail of intermittent puffs.
  25. acclimate
    get used to a certain environment
    Mom and Mamou, who were no doubt acclimated to Babou’s driving, swayed with the Smokemobile’s inertia.
  26. inertia
    the tendency of something to stay in rest or motion
    Mom and Mamou, who were no doubt acclimated to Babou’s driving, swayed with the Smokemobile’s inertia.
  27. evasive
    avoiding or escaping from difficulty or danger
    The streets were still mostly empty as we merged onto the highway, but Babou drove as if he was dodging enemy fire, pulling off one evasive maneuver after another.
  28. sprawl
    go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way
    My sister wanted to look at every single stall in the bazaar that sprawled between the ticket office and the entrance to the ruins, but Babou managed to maneuver her away from them all.
  29. forlorn
    marked by or showing hopelessness
    Huge chunks of brown rubble lay forlorn across the loose rocky ground.
  30. stark
    providing no shelter or sustenance
    Tufts of grass poked out from a few shady spots, but mostly, it was dry and stark.
  31. purge
    rid of impurities
    I felt like I had stepped onto the surface of the planet Vulcan, and was finally going to master the Kolinahr discipline, embracing logic and purging myself of all emotions.
  32. sentinel
    a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event
    Its mate had been decapitated at some point, but still, the statues towered over us, mute sentinels of a fallen empire.
  33. petrify
    change into stone
    Behind the lamassu, more columns sprouted from the ground like ancient trees in a petrified forest, forty feet tall, spindly but still miraculously upright.
  34. formidable
    inspiring fear or dread
    Shirin Kellner could be formidable when she needed to be.
  35. diplomat
    an official engaged in international negotiations
    Darius the Great was a diplomat and a conqueror.
Created on Tue Feb 26 16:34:10 EST 2019 (updated Wed Feb 27 12:02:23 EST 2019)

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