The Catcher in the Rye Vocabulary
The Catcher in the Rye Vocabulary
Common Core Standard: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use L.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9–10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
Define each root and stem underlined or italicized. Then, use a dictionary to define the word in the context provided.
- In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.
Hemo: blood
An escape of blood from a ruptured blood vessel
- We'd gone in to New York that morning for this fencing meet with McBurney School. Only, we didn't have the meet. I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway. It wasn't all my fault. I had to keep getting up to look at this map, so we'd know where to get off. So we got back to Pencey around two-thirty instead of around dinnertime. The whole team ostracized me the whole way back on the train.
Ostra:shellize: make
Excluded from a society or group
- He didn't say anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey.
Com: togetherpulse: drive
Required by law, a rule
- He had sinus trouble and he couldn't breathe too hot when he was asleep. That guy had just about everything. Sinus trouble, pimples, lousy teeth, halitosis, crumby fingernails.
Sis: condition
Bad breath
- If you knew Stradlater, you'd have been worried, too. I'd double-dated with that bastard a couple of times, and I know what I'm talking about. He was unscrupulous. He really was.
Un: notous:full of
Having or showing no moral principles; not honest or fair
- I'd only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them. I'm not too tough. I'm a pacifist, if you want to know the truth.
Pac: peaceist: one who
A person who believes that war and violence are unjustifiable
- "Well, the thing is, I don't want to stay at any hotels on the East Side where I might run into some acquaintances of mine. I'm traveling incognito," I said.
In: in/not cogn: know
Under a false name or disquise
- I just got very cool and nonchalant.
Non: not
Appearing calm and relaxed; unconcerned
- Columbus discovering America, having one helluva time getting old Ferdinand and Isabella to lend him the dough to buy ships with, and then the sailors mutinying on him and all.(muta)
Muta: change
Refusing to obey orders
- I said old Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it--all those fancy costumes and all. Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist.(sacro)
Sacro: holyous: full of
Disrespectful; injurious treatment of a sacred object or person
- He kept telling her she had aristocratic hands.
ic: art
Grand; stylish; distinguished in manners or bearing
- "Not necessarily in China, for God's sake. The East I said. Must we go on with this inane conversation?"
In: Not /in
lackingsense,significance,orideas;silly
- The one thing I did, though, I was careful as hell not to get boisterous or anything. I didn't want anybody to notice me or anything…
Ous: full of
roughandnoisy; clamorous; unrestrained
- She made me so nervous, I just kept on lying my head off. "I'm still recuperating," I told her. (at=ate)
Re: back/againAte: cause
Cup: desire
torecoverfromsicknessorexhaustion;regain healthorstrength.
- "I thought I'd be feeling a lot better than I do. I was a little premature in my calculations. No kidding. I'm sorry. If you'll just get up a second, I'll get my wallet. I mean it."
Pre: before
impulsiveorhasty
- What I did, I finally put my suitcases under my bed, instead of on the rack, so that old Slagle wouldn't get a goddam inferiority complex about it. But here's what he did. The day after I put mine under my bed, he took them out and put them back on the rack. The reason he did it, it took me a while to find out, was because he wanted people to think my bags were his.
In: in/not to rank or feel lessimportant,valuable,orworthy
Fer: Carry
- Oh, I don't know. That digression business got on my nerves. I don't know. The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It's more interesting and all."
"You don't care to have somebody stick to the point when he tells you something?"
Di: two
Gress: Step
todeviateorwanderawayfromthemaintopicor purposeinspeakingorwriting;departfromtheprincipallineofargument,plot,study,etc
- Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.
Re: back/again
givenorfeltbyeachtowardtheother;mutual
- "Holden. . . One short, faintly stuffy, pedagogical question…”
Ped: child
thefunctionorworkofateacher;teaching
- “Besides, I know it annoyed hell out of old Ackley. He always brought out the old sadist in me. I was pretty sadistic with him quite often.”
Ist: one who
A person who enjoys being cruel