I just finished the The Illuminatus! Trilogy. I toted this tome in my bag for two months, going across the country, coming back, and breaking to read other books. Even though I’ve been very committed to the novel, I’m not sad to see it’s end. I would recommend it, but only if you have a high tolerance for wacky sci-fi nonsense and knowing winks from the authors.
But, the reason we’re here (or clicking the back button) right now is to read a list of definitions of words that I picked out of the book. There were many more I didn’t know so well, but we’ll just stick to this short list for now.
umbrage
Definition:
a feeling of anger caused by being offended
Context (p20):
and at the same time he observed an increased blandness in Muldoon’s features indicating that he, too, had noted it and was prepared to take umbrage
erudite
Definition:
having or showing profound knowledge
I lost the context, but noted that it was “regarding knowledge”
stochastic
Definition:
being or having a random variable
Also lost context on this one, but it was regarding a “generated pattern”
asperity
Definition:
something hard to endure
Context (p26):
Regarding the president chastising the VP for saying “WOP”:
He spoke with some asperity, since he lived daily with the dread that someday the secret tapes he kept of all Oval Room transactions would be released to the public.
mendacious
Definition:
given to lying
I think of “mentir”, Spanish for “to lie”
Context (p?):
In this moment, now, as I tighten the trigger, the tyrant dies, and with him all the lies of a cruel, mendacious epoch.
pons asinorum
Definition:
latin for “bridge of asses”
See Pons Asinorum on Wikipedia for a way better explanation.
Context (p100):
(Didn’t record it)
satrap
Definition (from Princeton Wordnet):
a governor of a province in ancient Persia
A perhaps more apt definition for context below (from classics technology center):
a Persian title that literally means “protector of power”; satraps were essentially administrative governors, ruling a satrapy
Context (p345):
He was an old man, and he was tired of being their servant, or satrap, or satellite
rictus
Definition:
a gaping grimace
Context:
and he begins to grin a rictus not of omnipotence such as he had expected but of something different and unexpected and therefore better - omniscience
aphorism
Definition:
a short pithy instructive saying
Context (p386):
“You might say, ” Moon’s voice betraid pride in the aphorism he was about to unleash, “mankind is a stautory ape.”