spatchcock
(noun) a chicken or game bird split open and grilled.
1. (verb) [with object] split open (a poultry or game bird) to prepare it for grilling.
2. <informal> add (a phrase, sentence, clause, etc.) in a context where it is inappropriate
example: "He cracked the door of the family hut and looked out. His home sat midway down a row of hand-built, spatchcock dwellings; the lopsided shed where he stowed his trash was just next door" (Prologue).
bedlam
(noun) a scene of uproar and confusion
example: "The open lot was quiet, at least—freakishly so. A kind of beachfront for a vast pool of sewage that marked the slum’s eastern border, the place was bedlam most nights" (Prologue).
megalith
(noun) a large stone that forms a prehistoric monument or part of one
example: "Serving the airport clientele, and encircling Annawadi, were five extravagant hotels: four ornate, marbly megaliths and one sleek blue-glass Hyatt, from the top-floor windows of which Annawadi and several adjacent squatter settlements looked like villages that had been airdropped into gaps between elegant modernities" (Prologue).
maidan
(noun) (in South Asia) an open space in or near a town, used as a parade ground or for events such as public meetings and polo matches.
example: "A neighbor named Cynthia was in the maidan, shouting, 'Why haven’t the police arrested the rest of this family?'" (Prologue).
itinerant
1. (adjective) traveling from place to place
2. (noun) a person who travels from place to place
example: "Her husband was an alcoholic, an itinerant construction worker, a man thoroughgoing only in his lack of ambition" (18).
perspicacity
(noun) the quality of having a ready inisight into things; shrewdness
example: "The Corporator, Subhash Sawant, was a man of pancake makeup, hair dye, aviator sunglasses, and perspicacity" (18).
sinecure
(noun) a position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit
example: "Asha, on the other hand, had time. Her temp work, teaching kindergartners at a large municipal school for modest pay, was a sinecure the Corporator had helped her obtain, overlooking the fact that her formal schooling had stopped at seventh grade" (19).
allay
(verb) diminish or put at rest (fear, suspicion, or worry); relieve or alleviate (pain or hunger)
example: "Assaying her large breasts and her small, drunken husband, they had suggested diversions that might allay her children’s poverty" (19).
lungi
(noun) a length of cotton cloth worn as a loincloth in India or as a skirt in Burma, where it is the national dress for both sexes
example: "He often presided over his lavender-walled, lavender-furnished living room in an undershirt, legs barely covered by his lungi, while his petitioners flop-sweated in polyester suits" (21).
sluice
(noun) a sliding gate or artificial water channel for controlling or redirecting the flow of water
example: "On the other side of the wall, seventy feet down, was the Mithi River—actually, a concrete sluice where the river had been redirected as the airport enlarged" (38).
Wan
(adjective) (of a person's complexion or appearance) pale and giving the impression of illness or exhaustion
example: "Manju thought her mother looked wan, too, but this was possibly because Corporator Subhash Sawant—the man Asha hoped would make her slum boss—had been accused in court of electoral fraud" (50).
eunuch
(noun) a man who has been castrated, especially (in the past) one employed to guard the women's living areas at an oriental court
example: "As Asha bitterly laid out these probabilities to her daughter, a beautiful young eunuch wandered into Annawadi" (54).
ensorcelled
(verb) enchant; fascinate
example: "He was now spinning so fast his locks were perpendicular to the ground, his sweat splattering the faces of the slumdwellers who had come back inside the temple, ensorcelled" (55).
pique
(noun) a feeling of irritation or resentment resulting from a slight
example: "Manju wanted to be a teacher when she finished college, and her great fear was that, in a fit of pique, her mother would wed her to a village boy who didn’t think that a woman should work" (61).
histrionics
(adjective) overly theatrical or melodramatic in character or style
example: "Rahul, awake now, rolled his eyes; he considered the hut school a magnet for family histrionics" (64).
Dupatta
(noun) a length of material worn as a scarf or head covering, typically with a salwar, by women from South Asia
example: "Manju untied her dupatta, which was streaked with blood and spice" (65).
Fetid
(adjective) smelling extremely unpleasant
"Though the small burn ward stank of fetid gauze, it was a fine place compared to the general wards, where many patients lay on the floor" (100).
Salutary
(adjective) (esecially with reference to something unwelcome or unpleasant) producing good effects; beneficial
example: "The salutary effect of the oxygen Karam had received two weeks earlier at the private hospital had been negated" (107).
Fiat
(noun) a formal authorization or proposition; a decree
example: "But by fiat of the central government, the massive case backlogs were now being addressed by fourteen hundred high-speed courts across the country" (201).
Bandicoots
(noun) a mainly insectivorous marsupial native to Australia and New Guinea
example: "One midnight in January when he visited the dark garage, he couldn’t make out which animals were scurrying underfoot. Rats or bandicoots, possibly, but he’d never encountered them in the car park before" (195).
