SKIP TO CONTENT

A Man Called Ove: Chapter 30–Epilogue

Ove is known around his neighborhood as an irritable, bitter man — until a new family moves in next door and befriends him.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–6, Chapters 7–12, Chapters 13–20, Chapters 21–29, Chapter 30–Epilogue
35 words 15 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Full list of words from this list:

  1. replenish
    fill something that had previously been emptied
    Ove brushes the snow off the gravestone. Digs determinedly into the frozen ground and carefully replenishes the flowers.
  2. attribute
    a quality belonging to or characteristic of an entity
    Sonja used to laugh at Ove and call him “the most inflexible man in the world.” Ove refused to take that as an insult. He thought there should be some order in things. There should be routines and one should be able to feel secure about them. He could not see how it could be a bad attribute.
  3. exhort
    spur on or encourage especially by cheers and shouts
    When she finally had to go home she wrote a long personal letter to each of her students and exhorted them to call her if they ever needed anyone to talk to.
  4. ilk
    a kind of person
    One of the few traits of the cat that Ove was highly appreciative of was its reluctance to crap in other people’s homes. Ove was a man of the same ilk.
  5. invective
    abusive language used to express blame or censure
    He stopped, his hands trembling with anger, at least a dozen pieces of invective at his disposal.
  6. cul de sac
    a street with only one way in or out
    When the man and woman in the white shirts come out of Anita and Rune’s house almost an hour later, they find that their little white car with the council logo has been boxed into the little cul-de-sac by a large trailer.
  7. doggedly
    with obstinate determination
    He fought so doggedly for her against men in white shirts that in the end he began to hold them personally responsible for all that happened to her—and to the child.
  8. loath
    strongly opposed
    He’s assuming that there’s a good deal of splattering when one shoots oneself in the head, and he’s loath to leave more of a mess behind than he has to.
  9. robust
    sturdy and strong in form, constitution, or construction
    He catches sight of his own body in the hall mirror. He hasn’t seen himself in this way for probably thirty-five years. He’s still quite muscular and robust. Certainly in better shape than most men of his age.
  10. imperceptibly
    in a manner that is difficult to discern
    When he almost imperceptibly takes a half step backwards into the hall, as if he’s only now become aware of the cold which envelops his not-so-well-dressed body, he notices, from the corner of his eye, the photo of Sonja on the wall.
  11. forbearance
    good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence
    The tenants came and went in the following years, most with a surprising amount of forbearance and acceptance from Ove and Rune.
  12. fop
    a man who is overly concerned with his dress and appearance
    Five minutes later, to Ove’s deep dissatisfaction, he came back with that silly fop Anders from the neighboring house.
  13. expletive
    profane or obscene expression usually of surprise or anger
    Ove stood outside his house with his hands calmly tucked into his pockets, while his adversary finally lost his composure altogether and started roaring expletives at him.
  14. tactful
    showing skill and sensitivity in dealing with people
    And when the police officer tactfully asked if he had really not seen anything, Ove looked right into the eyes of the man in the white shirt and answered: "I don't know. I may have forgotten. You start losing your memory at my age.”
  15. geriatric
    of or relating to the aged
    All the people like Rune who have been taken into care and put in homes against their own and their families’ wishes. All the irregularities that have taken place at geriatric residential care where you have been in charge of the placements.
  16. painstaking
    characterized by extreme care and great effort
    He has painstakingly run through what all people who know anything are well aware of, namely that one has to drive at least twelve thousand miles per year to save any money by opting for a diesel rather than a gas engine.
  17. bray
    laugh loudly and harshly
    “As if I would,” she brays, with a sort of smile that Ove has begun to dislike in the last few weeks.
  18. palaver
    loud and confused and empty talk
    There wasn’t much wrong with the meal last night, he can stretch to admitting that. Although Ove doesn’t feel there’s a need to make such a palaver about cooking, as Parvaneh does.
  19. deductive
    relating to reasoning from the general to the particular
    Black-and-white pencil sketches, mostly. Not at all bad, considering they had been created by the absence of deductive faculties and highly undeveloped motor function of a seven-year-old, Ove was willing to admit.
  20. archetypal
    of an original pattern on which other things are modeled
    Lena had come by Ove’s house in the morning to drop off a copy 
of the newspaper. He was on the front page, looking like the archetypal grumpy old sod.
  21. repressed
    characterized by the suppression of impulses or emotions
    She managed a teenager’s repressed titter by way of an answer.
  22. multifarious
    having many aspects
    The multifarious gathering turns around to go back to the parking area, but Parvaneh stays by the gravestone.
  23. sentry
    a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event
    It’s difficult to judge how long the stocky man has been waiting outside Ove’s house. Maybe all morning. He has the determined look of a straight-backed sentry posted somewhere in the field, in the wilderness.
  24. insuperable
    incapable of being surpassed or excelled
    That’s more or less the sum of what Ove has absorbed during the car journey into town, when Jimmy natters on excitedly about the sorts of things every rational person ought to be so insuperably interested in, until Ove at last sinks into a sort of deeply meditative state of mind, in which the overweight young man’s babbling turns to a dull hissing in his ears.
  25. intransigent
    impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, or reason
    “I don’t have a car! Because I think it’s unnecessary and I want to use more environmentally friendly modes of transportation!” says the sales assistant in a tone of voice pitched somewhere between intransigent anger and the fetal position.
  26. antithesis
    exact opposite
    Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis.
  27. brood
    think moodily or anxiously about something
    He broods, and gives Parvaneh a distracted look.
  28. emphatically
    in a forceful manner; with emphasis
    “You’re listed here as the ‘next of kin,”’ he says, glancing briefly at this emphatically Iranian thirty-year-old woman on the chair, and this emphatically un-Iranian Swede in the bed.
  29. anodyne
    not causing disapproval
    “Ove has a heart problem...” he begins in an anodyne voice, following this up with a series of terms that no human being with less than ten years of medical training or an entirely unhealthy addiction to certain television series could ever be expected to understand.
  30. crass
    so unrefined as to be offensive or insensitive
    “His heart is too big,” the doctor states crassly.
  31. bout
    a period of illness
    First it’s more like a cough, then as if she’s holding back a sneeze, and before long it’s a long, sustained, raucous bout of giggling.
  32. virtually
    slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but
    Rune doesn’t get better. In certain periods, he is virtually uncontactable for days at a time.
  33. backwater
    a place or condition in which no progress is occurring
    Even more houses are built in the area. In a few years it goes from a quiet backwater to a city district.
  34. joist
    a beam used to support a floor or ceiling
    Both own houses a few streets down, they explain. They’re restoring them but they’ve run into problems with joists over partition walls.
  35. indomitable
    impossible to subdue
    The young man straightens up for the first time, smiles an almost undetectable smile, and looks her right in the eye with the sort of indomitable pride that only one word can convey.
Created on Mon Aug 10 12:25:16 EDT 2020 (updated Tue Aug 18 09:22:18 EDT 2020)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.