The Great Gatsby Ch. 8-9 Vocabulary

vain. "But when I'd shouted "Hello" several times in vain an argument broke out behind a partition and presently a lovely Jewess appeared at an interior door and scrutinized me with black hostile eyes."

circumstantial. "Most of those reports were a nightmare--grotesque, circumstantial, eager and untrue."

pneumatic. "He stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress that had amused his guests during the summer, and the chauffeur helped him pump it up."

dejection. "Crossing his lawn I saw that his front door was still open and he was leaning against a table in the hall, heavy with dejection or sleep."

indecipherable. "No wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable]"

sneer. "However, that was my fault, for he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby's liquor and I should have known better than to call him."

stratum. "he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself--that he was fully able to take care of her."

vestibule. "He went out to the open vestibule and sat down on a folding-chair, and the station slid away and the backs of unfamiliar buildings moved by."

refuse. "But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away."

ashen. "A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees."

flush. "It was a cold fall day with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed."

inquisition. " swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old--even then it had always for me a quality of distortion."

amorphous. "A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees."

elocution. "Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it 5.00-6.00"

corrugated. "A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden."

reverent. "He drew me into his office, remarking in a reverent voice that it was a sad time for all of us, and offered me a cigar."

deranged. "So Wilson was reduced to a man " deranged by grief" in order that the case might remain in its simplest form."

musty. "There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere and the rooms were musty as though they hadn't been aired for many days."

extravaganza. "Dan Cody--told it to me because "Jay Gatsby" had broken up like glass against Tom's hard malice and the long secret extravaganza was played out."

superfluous. "That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it."

corroborate. "He looked at me anxiously as if he hoped I'd corroborate this."

forlorn. "This was a forlorn hope--he was almost sure that Wilson had no friend: there was not enough of him for his wife."

recede. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us."

redolent. "laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered."

pasquinade. "When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade--"

transitory. "pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent,"