A Confederacy of Dunces Study Guide

Glossary of Terms

abstruse

hard to understand

ague

a chill or similar brief illness

B-Girl

A woman hired by a bar to persuade customers to spend money freely

bantam

small yet aggressive

bedraggled

dilapidated

brackish

distasteful; unpalatable

caparisoned

dressed in rich clothing

chanteuse

a woman singer

charlatan

a quack or fraud

chartreuse

a greenish-yellow color

coxcomb

a dandy

cretin

an idiot

culottes

a woman's full trousers cut to resemble a skirt

desultorily

haphazardly

distaff

referring to a woman (from a time when women spun clothes using a spinning tool called a distaff)

doldrums

a melancholy time

doxy

promiscuous woman

effrontery

presumptuousness

elephantine

enormous

enervated

out of energy

ennui

boredom

epicene

effeminate or unmanly

ersatz

a lesser imitation or substitute

fecund

fruitful

foppery

foolish quality of a dandy or coxcomb

gaucheries

awkward acts

gimlet

sharp or penetrating

harangue

long, overdone speech (noun); to speak a harangue (verb)

hennaed

dyed reddish-brown

hirsute

covered with hair

imprecation

curse

jade

disreputable woman

jodhpurs

riding pants

Lilliput

a land filled with tiny people, from Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels

loquacious

talkative

Luftwaffe

the German air force around World War II

lugubrious

mournful in almost a funny way

lute

a stringed instrument

mensch

admirable man having, for example, fortitude, firmness, and good manners

muffler

a heavy scarf

muscatel

a kind of wine

nosegay

a small set of flowers

novena

a nine-day series of prayers and devotions

octogenarian

aged in one's eighties

offal

the unused parts after an animal is butchered

onanist

one who masturbates

parasol

an umbrella used against the sun

patina

a change in appearance produced by frequent application

pekoe

black tea

perambulate

to walk around

pique

wounded pride

Proustian

following Marcel Proust, a French writer

pyloric valve

a muscle at the bottom of the stomach

recherche

exquisite

rheumy

moist or arthritic

roue

a man who is lecherous and dissipated

roughage

fiber

scrofulous

looking or being externally diseased

septuagenarians

people in their seventies

sibyl

a female prophet

sodality

association

stentorian

very loud (after Stentor, the storied Greek herald)

supercilious

haughty

surfeited

overfull

svengali

one who evilly schemes to persuade another to do something

tarsi

foot bones

valise

a piece of hand luggage

vibrissae

stiff hairs projecting from the snout or brow of many animals

W.C.T.U.

Woman's Christian Temperance Union

W.P.A.

Works Progress Administration or Work Projects Administration, a New Deal agency

wan

unnaturally pale, as from stress

Weltanschauung

worldview

Xanadu

an idyllic place (originally Kublai Khan's majestic summer capital)