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Behaving or looking as though you think you are superior
Text: Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. |
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Being troublesome or quarrelsome
Text: His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. |
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Lacking energy
Text: Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored proch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind. |
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Having or showing great warmth, enthusiasm
Text: "We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun. |
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Often without awareness of danger
Text: There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. |
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To speak broadly
Text: She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you conceled in one of those breathless, thrilling words. |
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Barren
Text: About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter mile, so as to shrink away from the certain desolate area of land. |
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A number of young
Text: But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. |
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Loud or harsh sound
Text: I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the Park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. |
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Skillful
Text: Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. |
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Indirect comment about a person
Text: The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. |
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Inclination to believe with little evidence
Text: As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. |
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To find out definitely
Text: As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. |
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Fat
Text: I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years. |
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Narrow-minded
Text: But young men didn't-at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn't-drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on the Long Island Sound. |
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Hearty, joyous humor
Text: He smiled with jovial condescension, and added: "Some sensation!" Whereupon everybody laughed. |
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Strong disagreement
Text: Even Jordan's party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension. |
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Hatred state
Text: In spite of this wives' agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night. |
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Easy in manner or bearing
Text: She was hurrying off as she talked-her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted her party at the door. |
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Disagreement
Text: However, as they had left their cars blocking the road, a harsh, discordant din from those in the rear had been audible for some time, and added to the already violent confusion of the scene. |
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Without interruption, unending
Text: Blinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of the horns, the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the duster. |
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Boldly rude or disrespectful
Text: She wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body. |
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Strict or exact
Text: This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. |
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Upsetting
Text: And then came that disconcerting ride. |
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Skeptical, disbelief
Text: With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. |
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Current fashion, stylish
Text: As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. |
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Sleep walking
Text: Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant, whereupon Mr. Wolfsheim swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction. |
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Placement side by side
Text: The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling. |
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Closing blessing at worship service
Text: Mr. Wolfsheim raised his hand in a sort of benediction. |
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A person who regularly frequents a place
Text: He's quite a character around New York-a denizen of Broadway. |
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Fault with
Text: I took him into the pantry, where he looked a little reproachfully at the Finn. |
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No longer in use
Text: His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock. |
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Inflexible, stubborn
Text: Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry. |
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Appearing again
Text: He smiled like a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light. |
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Bent into folds
Text: But outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again, so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the Sound. |
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Vague
Text: He was now decently clothed in a sport shirt, open at the neck, sneakers, and duck trousers of a nebulous hue. |
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Deserving praise
Text: This was his day off and with laudable initiative he had hurried out to see. |
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Intended to trick
When he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. |
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Tawdrily attractive
Text:He must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. |
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Indescribable
Text: 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. |
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Swollen, tumid
Text: Common knowledge to the turgid sub-journalism of 1902. |
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Reddish, rosy
Text: A gray, florid man with a hard, empty face. |
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Close area
Text: It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek. |
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Imposing oneself or one's opinions on others
Text: Appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. |
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Tending to delay or procrastinate
Text: The dilatory came rolling up the drive. |
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Tending to delay or procrastinate
After a pause he added sir in a dilatory, grudging way. |
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Distrusting or disparaging the motives of others
Text: Holding down the receiver, said Daisy cynically. |
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Not flowing or running
Text: On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea. |
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Dependence on chance
Text: The immediate contingency over took him, pulled him back from the edge of the theoretical abyss. |
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Free from violation
Text: His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. |
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Momentous
Text: 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. |
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Stopping or ceasing for a time
Text: Followed by the intermittent cries of "Yea-ea-ea!" |
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A person who demands of others precise conformity
Text: The transition from libertine to prig was complete. |
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Bitter
Text: Her voice was cold, but the rancor was gone from it. |
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Earnest and kindly protest
Text: The circle closed up again with a running murmur of expostulation. |
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Burdened
Text: His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall. |
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Fierce, cruel
Text: The policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes. |
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Of an unnatural or sickly pallor
Text: Nothing happened, he said wanly. |
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Having a pleasant odor
Text: Fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dancing whose flowers were scarcely withered. |
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A passage, hall, or antechamber between the outer door and the interior parts of a house or building
Text: He went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a folding chair. |
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Closing blessing at worship service
Text: |
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To make more certain
Text: He looked at me anxiously, as if he hoped I'd corroborate this. |
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Excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner
Text: Some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened. |
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Desolate or dreary
Text: This was a forlorn hope. |
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Lacking definite form
Text: Like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees. |
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Drawn in folds
Text: A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated down the pool. |
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A satire or lampoon
Text: I though the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade. |
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To think without certain evidence
Text: Every surmise about him, and every practical question, was referred to me. |
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Being more sufficient than required
Text: That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it. |
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Coat
Text: Bundled up in a long cheap ulster against the warm September day. |
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Deeply respectful
Text: Remarking in a reverent voice that it was a sad time for all of us. |
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Bulb-shaped
Text: He held up two bulbous fingers. |
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A person's manner of speaking in public
Text: Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it. |
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Having the same measure
Text: Face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for woner. |
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