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Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary

1. Stolid: having or revealing little emotion or sensibility; not easily
aroused or excited
Example sentence: With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on
his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what
came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging
fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black.
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2. Suspended: supported or kept from sinking or falling by buoyancy
and without apparent attachment
Example sentence: He saw himself in her eyes, suspended in two
shining drops of bright water, himself dark and tiny, in fine detail, the
lines about his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes were two
miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact.
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3. Anticipate: be excited or anxious about
Example sentence: What incredible power of identification the girl
had; she was like the eager watcher of a marionette
show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture of his hand,
each flick of a finger, the moment before it began.
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4. Fringe: the outside boundary or surface of something
Example sentence: The breath coming out of the nostrils was so faint
it stirred only the furthest fringes of life, a small leaf, a black feather,
a single fibre of hair.

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5. Melancholy: a feeling of sadness

Example sentence: And the men with the cigarettes in their straightlined mouths, the men with the eyes of puff-adders, took up their load
of machine and tube, their case of liquid melancholy and the slow
dark sludge of nameless stuff, and strolled out the door.
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6. Earnestly: in a serious manner
Example sentence: Laughter blew across the moon-coloured lawn
from the house of Clarisse and her father and mother and the uncle
who smiled so quietly and so earnestly.
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7. Proclivity: a natural inclination
Example sentence: Were all firemen picked then for their looks as
well as their proclivities?
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8. Alight: to come to rest, settle
Example sentence: Books bombarded his shoulders, his arms, his
upturned face. A book alighted, almost obediently, like a white
pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering.
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9. Stagnant: not circulating or flowing; not moving

Example sentence: He tried to count how many times she swallowed
and he thought of the visit from the two zinc-oxide-faced men with the
cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths and the electronic-eyed snake
winding down into the layer upon layer of night and stone
and stagnant spring water, and he wanted to call out to her, how
many have you taken TONIGHT! the capsules! how many will you take
later and not know? and so on, every hour! or maybe not tonight,
tomorrow night!
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10. Torrent: an overwhelming number or amount
Example sentence: Dont let the torrent of melancholy and drear
philosophy drown our world.
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11. Peer: to look searchingly
Example sentence: The parlour was dead and Mildred
kept peering in at it with a blank expression as Montag paced the
floor and came back and squatted down and read a page as many as
ten times, aloud.
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12. Subside: to wear off or die down
Example sentence: Montag did not look back at his wife as he went
trembling along the hall to the kitchen, where he stood a long time
watching the rain hit the windows before he came back down the hall
in the grey light, waiting for the tremble to subside.
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13. Sieve: a strainer for separating lumps in a powdery material

Example sentence: Once as a child he had sat upon a yellow dune by

the sea in the middle of the blue and hot summer day, trying to fill
a sieve with sand, because some cruel cousin had said, Fill
this sieve and you'll get a dime!
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14. Plea: a humble request for help
Example sentence: It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found
himself on his feet, the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring,
moving back from this man with the insane, gorged face, the
gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist.
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15. Retaliation: action taken in return for injury or offense

Example sentence: The train radio vomited upon Montag,
in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver,
chromium, and brass.
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16. Treason: a crime against your government
Example sentence: To see the firehouses burn across the land,
destroyed as hotbeds of treason.
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