Words David Foster Wallace Circled in His Dictionary That Appear in Ulysses
Antipode
Something directly opposite or diametrically opposed
Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, tempting the fates.
Bespoke
made to order
Smart Boylan bespoke potions.
Bibulous
very absorbent
The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor.
Catastasis
In classical drama, the third and penultimate section, in which action is heightened for the catastrophe.
It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe.
Corporation
A group of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
Must be a corporation meeting today.
Coxcomb
the cap of a court jester, adorned with a red stripe
Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer years.
Delectation
Great pleasure; delight
Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, frate porcospino.
Desiderate
To miss, to feel the absence of, to long for
Enormously I desiderate your domination.
Desuetude
disuse, obsolescence
Loyal to the highest constituted power in the land, actuated by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality.
Diadem
A crown
MRS BREEN: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly) Voglio e non. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.
Eructation
The act of belching, of expelling gas from the stomach through the mouth
The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon repletion.
Fluvial
Of, pertaining to, inhabiting, or produced by the action of a river or stream
A scheme for the development of Irish tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between Island bridge and Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure steamers for coastwise navigation (10/- per person per day, guide (trilingual) included).
Forensic
Relating to the use of science and technology in the investigation and establishment of facts or evidence in a court of law.
Why bring in a master of forensic eloquence like Whiteside?
The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her person which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation.
Fornication
sexual intercourse
Remember, Erin, thy generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum.
Fourfold
four times as great
Bloom wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.
Gravid
pregnant
The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her person which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation.
Heterodox
Of or pertaining to creeds, beliefs, or teachings, especially religious ones, that are different from the norm ('orthodox'), but not sufficiently different to be called heretical.
Both indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox religious, national, social and ethical doctrines.
Heterogeneous
Diverse in kind or nature; composed of diverse parts
All the delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which they had been called upon to witness.
A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: the dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes, incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social inequality, of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with mitigants of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost farthing with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to the crown.
Imperforate
Not perforated
The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value (precious stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7 schilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue paper, perforate, Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official, rouletted, diagonal surcharge, Luxemburg, 1878), antique dynastical ring, unique relic) in unusual repositories or by unusual means: from the air (dropped by an eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised remains of an incendiated edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict), on earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl).
Inanition
Emptiness
The collapse which Bloom ascribed to gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first no bigger than a woman's hand.
Landau
a type of lightweight, four-wheeled carriage in which the front and back passenger seats face each other
He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low’s place of business where she had remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from the city to the Phoenix Park and vice versa.
Mavourneen
darling, sweetheart
--Barney's mavourneen's be it, says I.
Mazurka
A Polish folk dance in triple time, usually moderately fast, containing a heavy accent on the third beat and occasionally the second beat.
He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding feet past the fireplace to J. J. O’Molloy who placed the tissues in his receiving hands.
Mercer
A merchant dealing in fabrics and textiles, especially silks and other fine cloths.
He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers.
Meretricious
apparently attractive but having in reality no value or integrity
Meretricious finery to deceive the eye.
Misericord
relaxation of monastic rules
And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice.
Mitzvah
Any of the 613 commandments of Jewish law
BLOOM: (UNCLOAKS IMPRESSIVELY, REVEALING OBESITY, UNROLLS A PAPER AND READS SOLEMNLY) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith.
Molly Maguire
members of a secret Irish organization, infamously known as murderers and assassins; the press and police in America applied the name to the Irish miners
As much as his bloody life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude in Shanagolden where he daren’t show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant.
Morganatic
Designating a marriage (or the wife involved) between a man of higher rank and a woman of lower rank, often having various legal repercussions (typically that such a wife has no claim on the husband's possessions or title)
The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black Maria.
Obsequy
The last office for the dead
The obsequies, at which many friends of the deceased were present, were carried out (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny) by Messrs H. J. O'Neill and Son, 164 North Strand Road.
Orrery
a clockwork model of the solar system
They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls, historically costumed dolls.
Ort
(usually in plural orts) a scrap of leftover food; any remainder
I will serve you your orts and offals.
Osiris
the Egyptian god of the dead and of the underworld
--You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra.
Parturient
giving birth; in labour
To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be received into that domicile.
Pelf
money; riches; gain; especially when dishonestly acquired
The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power.
But a day of reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes.
Penumbra
A partially shaded area around the edges of a shadow, especially an eclipse.
What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden?
At Stephen's suggestion, at Bloom's instigation both, first Stephen, then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, their gazes, first Bloom's, then Stephen's, elevated to the projected luminous and semiluminous shadow.
Periphrastic
Expressed in more words than are necessary
By a periphrastic version of the general text.
Pinchbeck
An alloy of copper and zinc once used as imitation gold
Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token.
Pleasance
A pleasure ground laid out with shady walks, trees and shrubs, statuary, and ornamental water
At the corner of Wilde's house he halted, frowned at Elijah's name announced on the Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of duke's lawn.
Poplar
Any of various deciduous trees of the genus Populus
Dark poplars, rare white forms.
A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch.
...my goodness the heat there before the lavanter came on black as night and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant compared with their 3 Rock mountain they think is so great with the red sentries here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the smell of the rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time weltering down on you...
Portcullis
A gate in the form of a grating which is lowered into place at the entrance to a castle, fort, etc.
A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway, under portcullis barbs.
Premonition
A clairvoyant or clairaudient experience, such as a dream, which resonates with some event in the future
What advantages attended shaving by night? A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if unexpectedly encountering female acquaintances in remote place at incustomary hours: quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a cleaner sensation when awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock, a paper read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might cause a faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with precision cut and humected and applied adhered: which was to be done.
Quondam
former; once; at one time
The lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for a consort neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in its native orient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost their quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant, acid and inoperative.
He began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a quondam friend of his father's, Gumley.
Rebus
A kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words
The pink edition extra sporting of the Telegraph tell a graphic lie lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly over the respective captions which came under his special province the allembracing give us this day our daily press.
Relict
The surviving member of a married couple after one or the other has died; a widow or widower
Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street.
Salient
prominent, worthy of note; pertinent or relevant OR a piece of land that juts out to form an angle
Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion with the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient point, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the obligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by a questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent but contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was ever done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it.
Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in several different directions...
Sateen
A type of cotton cloth with a shiny surface and dull back, woven using the technique that, when applied to silk or nylon, results in cloth called satin
Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans.
Saturnine
slow and gloomy
THE CAP: (With saturnine spleen) Bah! It is because it is.
Sepsis
A serious medical condition in which the whole body is inflamed, and a known or suspected infection is present
...the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in the actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix...
Sibyl
A pagan female oracle or prophetess
THE VEILED SIBYL: (Enthusiastically) I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it.
THE VEILED SIBYL: (Stabs herself) My hero god! (She dies)
Soubrette
A female servant or attendant, especially as mischievous or cheeky, often featuring in theatrical comedies
Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and capital esses.
A charming soubrette, great Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and lifted skirt smiled daubily from her poster...
BLOOM: (A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and nose, leering mouth) I tried her things on only twice, a small prank, in Holles street.
Stabat Mater
A hymn, sung in Latin, telling of the sorrow of the Virgin Mary at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; the music for this hymn
Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of Rossini.
He also yielded to none in his admiration of Rossini's Stabat Mater, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable sensation, he might say, greatly adding to her other laureis and putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers' church in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors to hear her with virtuosos, or virtuosi rather.
...managed it this time I wouldn't put it past him like he got me on to sing in the Stabat Mater by going around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up to that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano...
Sylph
A wood nymph
MRS BREEN: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly) Voglio e non. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.
Syntax
A set of rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences
Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary.
Tanist
The heir presumptive to a Celtic clan
Lover, for her love he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in the fog.
Tantalus
A Phrygian king who was condemned to remain in Tartarus, chin deep in water, with fruit-laden branches hanging above his head: whenever he tried to drink or eat, the water and fruit receded out of reach
Cold fowl, cigars, the Tantalus glasses.
Tennis
A sport played by either two or four players with strung racquets, a 2½" (6.4 cm) ball, and a net approximately 3 feet high on a clay, grass, or cement court
And says Bloom: --What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training the eye.
Trews
trousers, especially if close fitting and tartan
Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks, from hue and cry.
Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly stitched with gut.
Tyro
a learner or beginner
A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons, which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate possessor in the near future an entree into fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large way of business and titled people where with his university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in-- society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you.
Volant
Having extended wings as if flying
An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed.
DON EMILE PATRIZ1O FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (in medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the privates) Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
Votary
A person, such as a monk or nun, who lives a religious life according to vows they have made
Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be out.
Singular, communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest.
