Tag Archives: adjective

Banal

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Banal – Adjective

  • Devoid of freshness or originality. Hackneyed, trite.

Found in: Quicksand by Nella Larsen

“…the hundreds of students and teachers had been herded into the sun-baked chapel to listen to the banal, the patronizing, and even the insulting remarks of one of the renowned white preachers of the state.”

This passage shows that Helga starts to feel more disdain toward the school. The preacher started to talk about how the school is great for “Negroes” and that others should know their place like they do in that town. Helga hated the things the preacher said to the school.

Indomitable

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Indomitable – Adjective

  • Incapable of being subdued or overcome; in-conquerable.

Found in: “Feminist Manifesto” by Mina Loy.

“Woman for her happiness must retain her deceptive fragility of appearance, combined with indomitable will, irreducible courage, & abundant health the outcome of sound nerves…”

This means that for a woman to be happy, she must keep her most important qualities, qualities for her strength, intact.

Eccentric

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Eccentric (adjective)

Definition: tending to act in strange or unusual ways

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eccentric

Found in: “The Cottagette” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Quote: “The working basis of the establishment was an eccentric woman named Caswell, a sort of musical enthusiast…”

Although the context in which the word is used doesn’t give too much information into the definition, now that i know the meaning of eccentric, i know that the woman named Caswell was an unconventional woman.

Atrocious

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From “The Yellow Wallpaper” By Chaelotte Perkins

Atrocious – Adjective

Definition: extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel :  barbaric

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atrocious)

From page 3, first paragraph: ” I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery,and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength”.

The word nursery gave away the meaning of the word. It helped me understand what the word atrocious meant. I now understand that the narrator was decribing the nursery as horrifying. The nursery was of very poor quality that it effected her ability to write.

 

 

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Puritanical

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Puritanical – Adjective

Very strict especially concerning morals and religion.

Found in: “There Was Once,” by Margaret Atwood.

  • “Another thing. Good and wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?”

This passage means that “good and wicked” are just people’s labels on what they think is moral and immoral. However, it does not mean that these labels are absolutely true, or that people are born belonging to either label.

Exalted

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Exalted (adjective)

Definition: raised or elevated, as in rank or character; of high station: an exalted personage.

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exalted

Encountered in: “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (12th paragraph)

Quote: “She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial”

Now that Mrs. Mallard has expressed that she is “free, free, free!”, with a clear understanding of the word exalted, the sentence explains how she feels a higher level of self to omit if the joy kept her or not.