1984
By George Orwell
Vocabulary Words:
By George Orwell
Vocabulary Words:
- alterable
capable of being changed in some characteristic
And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. - garble
make false by mutilation or addition
And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions--definitive texts, they were called--of poems - abbreviate
shorten
Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon--not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words--which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. - indoctrinate
teach uncritically
A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made toindoctrinate them with the ideology o - collate
to assemble in proper sequence
As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of 'The Times' had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its st - vaporize
turn into gas
I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize you, I'll send you to the salt mines!' - co-ordinated
being dexterous in the use of more than one set of muscle movements
And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the oth - palimpsest
a manuscript on which more than one text has been written
All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. - proliferate
grow rapidly
It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. - gesticulate
show, express, or direct through movement
In the long, windowless hall, with its double row of cubicles and its endless rustle of papers and hum of voices murmuring into speakwrites, there were quite a dozen people whom Winston did not even know by name, though he daily saw them hurrying to and f - delete
cut or eliminate
He knew that in the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. - fulminate
cause to explode violently and with loud noise
He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front--it ma - incriminate
suggest that someone is guilty
As often happened, they had vanished for a year or more, so that one did not know whether they were alive or dead, and then had suddenly been brought forth to incriminate themselves in the usual way. - mutability
the quality of being capable of mutation
Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. - convoluted
highly complex or intricate
At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink,convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone. - crumple
gather something into small wrinkles or folds
He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out on to the floor. - ideologically
with respect to ideology
And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions--definitive texts, they were called--of poems which - wispy
thin and weak
A colourless, crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair and a lined face, was standing outside. - identifiable
capable of being recognized
With the tip of his finger he picked up an identifiable grain of whitish dust and deposited it on the corner of the cover, where it was bound to be shaken off if the book was moved. - actuate
put in motion
Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. - saboteur
someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks
A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. - anodyne
capable of relieving pain
It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. - saccharine
overly sweet
On to each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch--a metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet. - documentation
confirmation that some fact or statement is true
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs--to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold - submerge
put under water
Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless and only involved the women of a submerged and despised class. - nib
the writing point of a pen
Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. - reverberate
ring or echo with sound
Somewhere far away a rocket bomb exploded with a dull, reverberating roar. - aureole
the outermost region of the sun's atmosphere
It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard--a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles wa - implicate
bring into intimate and incriminating connection
Very occasionally some person whom you had believed dead long since would make a ghostly reappearance at some public trial where he would implicatehundreds of others by his testimony before vanishing, this time for ever. - garbled
lacking orderly continuity
And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions--definitive texts, they were called--of poems - debase
make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance
His voice was soft, as though faded, and his accent less debased than that of the majority of proles. - dabble
bob under so as to feed off the bottom of a body of water
As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up his spoon and was dabblingin the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across the table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pattern. - inconceivably
to an inconceivable degree
It would have been inconceivably dangerous even if he had known how to set about doing it. - waddle
walk unsteadily
In and out of the dark doorways, and down narrow alley-ways that branched off on either side, people swarmed in astonishing numbers--girls in full bloom, with crudely lipsticked mouths, and youths who chased the girls, and swollenwaddling women wh - inscribe
carve, cut, or etch into a material or surface
There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. - compiling
the act of compiling (as into a single book or file or list)
Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged incompiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. - jostle
make one's way by pushing or shoving
The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. - compile
get or gather together
Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged incompiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. - kaleidoscope
an optical toy in a tube
Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kal - cringe
draw back, as with fear, pain, or embarrassment
When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as 'Sir'. - cubicle
small area set off by walls for special use
It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records Department, where Winston worked, they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them in the centre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for the Two Minutes Hate. - camaraderie
the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability
The sky was a warmer blue than he had seen it that year, and suddenly the long, noisy evening at the Centre, the boring, exhausting games, the lectures, the creaking camaraderie oiled by gin, had seemed intolerable. - improvise
manage in a makeshift way; do with whatever is at hand
He had even started humming to an improvised tune
Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the----
Suddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bowels to water. - venerate
regard with feelings of respect and reverence
He believed in the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big Brother, he rejoiced over victories, he hated heretics, not merely with sincerity but with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of information, which the ordinary Party member did not - embezzlement
the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property
They had confessed to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the enemy was Eurasia), embezzlement of public funds, the murder of various trusted Party members, intrigues against the leadership of Big Brother which had started long before t - vapid
lacking significance or liveliness or spirit or zest
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. - ordinate
the value of a coordinate on the vertical axis
And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co- ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the oth - multifarious
having many aspects
And the Ministry had not only to supply the multifarious needs of the party, but also to repeat the whole operation at a lower level for the benefit of the proletariat. - scrutinize
examine carefully for accuracy
You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. - sinecure
a job that involves minimal duties
After confessing to these things they had been pardoned, reinstated in the Party, and given posts which were in fact sinecures but which sounded important. - celibate
abstaining from sexual intercourse
But even then he could have borne living with her if it had been agreed that they should remain celibate. - ingrained
deeply rooted; firmly fixed or held
Chastity was as deep ingrained in them as Party loyalty. - truism
an obvious statement of fact
Truisms are true, hold on to that! - edify
make understand
Parsons, his attention caught by the trumpet call, sat listening with a sort of gaping solemnity, a sort of edified boredom. - statutory
relating to or created by regulations
At thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. - inherently
in an essential manner
It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard--a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles wa - nebulous
lacking definite form or limits
It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous could be said to happen. - compendium
a publication containing a variety of works
There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. - deride
treat or speak of with contempt
Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole gu - corrugated
shaped into alternating parallel grooves and ridges
Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? - evict
expel or eject without recourse to legal process
At thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. - gory
covered with blood
And sure enough, following on a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week, the chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to tw - dissemble
behave unnaturally or affectedly
To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. - catapult
an engine providing medieval artillery used during sieges
He spun round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult. - complicate
make less simple
He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious, while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, mightcomplicate the - lassitude
a feeling of lack of interest or energy
A deadly lassitude had taken hold of him. - aquiline
curved down like an eagle's beak
She had a bold, aquiline face, a face that one might have called noble until one discovered that there was as nearly as possible nothing behind it. - displace
cause to move, usually with force or pressure
The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O'Brien. - ramification
a development that complicates a situation
From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three - pillory
a wooden instrument of punishment on a post
There would be mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's Banquet, and the practice of kissing the Pope's toe. - fascinate
attract; cause to be enamored
It's fascinating.' - cumbersome
difficult to handle or use because of size or weight
But I dare say you'd find it a little bit cumbersome.' - amulet
a trinket thought to be a magical protection against evil
There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. - wince
draw back, as with fear or pain
As soon as he touched her she seemed to wince and stiffen. - orifice
an opening, especially one that opens into a bodily cavity
In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. - urbane
showing a high degree of refinement
He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because he was intrigued by the contrast between O'Brien's urbane manner and his prize-fighter's physique. - pedantic
marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning
Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar style: a style at once military andpedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them ('What les - overpower
overcome by superior force
An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of unconscious testimony to the strenuousness of his life, followed him about wherever he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone. - strident
unpleasantly loud and harsh
The telescreen had changed over to strident military music. - proletarian
belonging to or characteristic of the working class
There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarianliterature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. - knell
the sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death
Like a leaden knell the words came back at him:
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH - conspire
act in agreement and in secret towards a deceitful purpose
But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength. would have no need to conspire. - ooze
pass gradually or leak or as if through small openings
Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of - unalterable
not capable of being changed
His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and una - pedant
a person who pays too much attention to formal rules
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. - gambol
play boisterously
It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. - anthology
a collection of selected literary passages
And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions--definitive texts, they were called--of poems which - formulate
prepare according to instructions
It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had begun to be able toformulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. - repository
a facility where things can be deposited for safekeeping
There were the vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored, and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. - allure
the power to entice or attract
He seemed to breathe again the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an odour compounded of bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be imagined as do - rigidity
the physical property of being stiff and resisting bending
The rigidity of her muscles managed to convey that impression. - insecurity
the anxiety experienced when feeling vulnerable
It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. - supersede
take the place or move into the position of
The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded a - babble
utter meaningless sounds
Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. - etymology
a history of a word
For an account of its structure and etymology see Appendix.]--was startlingly different from any other object in sight. - queue
a line of people or vehicles waiting for something
Chapter 5
In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the lunch queue jerked slowly forward. - predominate
be larger in number, quantity, power, status or importance
How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal--tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree--existed and even predominated - zealot
a fervent and even militant proponent of something
Some nosing zealot in the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little sandy-haired woman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department) might start wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval, why he had used an old-f - equivocal
open to two or more interpretations
For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of the story. - conceivably
within the realm of possibility
But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him. - imbecility
mental retardation
She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was noimbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her. - scuttle
an entrance equipped with a hatch
It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttlingmovements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. - scuffle
fight or struggle in a confused way at close quarters
Why could he not have a woman of his own instead of these filthy scuffles at intervals of years? - sabotage
a deliberate act of destruction or disruption
All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. - nostalgia
longing for something past
It was a wild, impossible notion, to be abandoned as soon as thought of; but the room had awakened in him a sort of nostalgia, a sort of ancestral memory. - persecute
cause to suffer
The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering--a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons--a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts a - altercation
a noisy quarrel
He was a few paces away from them when suddenly the group broke up and two of the men were in violent altercation. - grovel
show submission or fear
But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everybody knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be gone through: thegrovelling on the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth and bloody - alcove
a small recess opening off a larger room
To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to hold bookshelves. - individualism
the quality of being a single thing or person
There was a word for it in Newspeak: OWNLIFE, it was called, meaningindividualism and eccentricity. - imposture
pretending to be another person
What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. - rectify
make right or correct
They ran:
times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify
times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue
times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusung - bloat
swelling of the intestinal tract of animals caused by gas
Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands. - illuminate
make lighter or brighter
He was holding the lamp high up, so as to illuminate the whole room, and in the warm dim light the place looked curiously inviting. - repudiate
refuse to acknowledge, ratify, or recognize as valid
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic - definitive
clearly formulated
And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions-- definitive texts, they were called--of poems - rubble
the remains of something that has been destroyed
And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicke - refute
overthrow by argument, evidence, or proof
But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to - liberate
grant freedom to; free from confinement
The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. - specious
plausible but false
And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army--row after row of solid-looking men with expr - brooch
a decorative pin
Only on a small table in the corner was there a litter of odds and ends--lacquered snuffboxes, agate brooches, and the like--which looked as though they might include something interesting. - annihilate
kill in large numbers
You were abolished, annihilated: VAPORIZED was the usual word. - archaic
so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period
The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being - gloat
dwell on with satisfaction
He would talk with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of helicopter raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the Ministry of Love. - communal
for or by a group rather than individuals
It was assumed that when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreation: to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. - bounce
spring back; spring away from an impact
It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. - embed
fix or set securely or deeply
They used to kind of embed it in the glass. - commemorate
call to remembrance
There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day tocommemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed. - clarify
make clear by removing impurities or solids, as by heating
But the curious thing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had clarified itself in his mind, to the point where he almost felt equal to writing it down. - despicable
morally reprehensible
It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard--a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles wa - flimsy
a thin strong lightweight translucent paper
They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get. - relevant
having a bearing on or connection with the subject at issue
But the really relevant date was seven or eight years earlier. - cube
a three-dimensional figure with six equal squares as faces
On to each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch--a metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet. - dedicate
give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause
He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. - whiff
a short light gust of air
He would inform you with quiet pride, between whiffs of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at the Community Centre every evening for the past four years. - irrepressible
impossible to control
All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which hi - unpack
remove from protective material
They threaded their way across the crowded room and unpacked their trays on to the metal-topped table, on one corner of which someone had left a pool of stew, a filthy liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit. - sniff
perceive by inhaling through the nose
There was the usual boiled-cabbage smell, common to the whole building, but it was shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which--one knew this at the firstsniff, though it was hard to say how--was the sweat of some person not present at the mome - wallow
roll around
Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and - deviation
a variation from the standard or norm
All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. - blare
make a loud noise
He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin. - shirk
avoid one's assigned duties
It was perhaps not more dangerous than shirking an evening at the Centre. - elimination
the act of removing or getting rid of something
Just once Winston caught a phrase--'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'--jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid. - bristle
a stiff hair
It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. - stagnant
not growing or changing; without force or vitality
A trumpet call, clear and beautiful, floated into the stagnant air. - caption
brief description accompanying an illustration
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. - ideology
an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group
This, Winston was aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but somehow it fitted in with the general ideology of the Party. - substitution
putting one thing or person in the place of another
It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. - axiom
a proposition that is not susceptible of proof or disproof
With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. - confuse
mistake one thing for another
For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. - exaggerate
enlarge beyond bounds or the truth
Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party--an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that o - defection
withdrawing support or help despite allegiance
All three had written long, abject articles in 'The Times', analysing the reasons for their defection and promising to make amends. - jargon
technical terminology characteristic of a particular subject
Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon--not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words--which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. - equation
a mathematical statement that two expressions are the same
It was like a single equation with two unknowns. - furtive
secret and sly or sordid
But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. - lucid
transparently clear; easily understandable
In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. - hallucination
illusory perception
Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. - ideological
of an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs--to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any po - renegade
someone who rebels and becomes an outlaw
Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activi - inscrutable
of an obscure nature
And then the flash of intelligence was gone, and O'Brien's face was asinscrutable as everybody else's. - supple
moving and bending with ease
He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweetsupple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet - grimace
contort the face to indicate a certain mental state
A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, scr - flinch
draw back, as with fear or pain
Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually fl - astronomical
relating to the branch of physics studying celestial bodies
All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. - impregnable
incapable of being attacked or tampered with
They were all impregnable, as the Party intended that they should be. - quack
the harsh sound of a duck
From the table at Winston's left, a little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and continuously, a harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of the room. - jagged
having a sharply uneven surface or outline
Her voice seemed to stick into his brain like jagged splinters of glass. - eccentricity
strange and unconventional behavior
There was a word for it in Newspeak: OWNLIFE, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity. - compounded
combined into or constituting a chemical compound
He seemed to breathe again the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an odour compounded of bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be imagined as do - incredulous
not disposed or willing to believe; unbelieving
In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulouswhen a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. - parasite
an animal or plant that lives in or on a host
Parasites--that was another of them. - tolerant
showing or characterized by broad-mindedness
When he spoke it was with a tolerant philosophical air, as though the beer had mellowed him. - filing
the entering of a legal document into the public record
Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing. - reconstruct
build again
And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays - synthetic
a compound made artificially by chemical reactions
In any time that he could accurately remember, there had never been quite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses fa - predicament
an unpleasant or difficult situation
Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless. - amends
something done or paid in expiation of a wrong
All three had written long, abject articles in 'The Times', analysing the reasons for their defection and promising to make amends. - consecutive
one after the other
Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull ache in his belly made consecutivethought impossible. - credible
capable of being believed
She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived. - illiterate
not able to read or write
Winston found and handed over two creased and filthy notes, which Parsons entered in a small notebook, in the neat handwriting of the illiterate. - eddy
a miniature whirlpool or whirlwind
Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. - rigidly
in a rigid manner
Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. - flick
throw or toss with a quick motion
Last night to the flicks. - validity
the quality of being legitimate and rigorous
Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. - animate
make lively
His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy. - labyrinth
complex system of paths in which it is easy to get lost
What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. - reek
give off smoke, fumes, warm vapour, steam, etc.
There was the usual boiled-cabbage smell, common to the whole building, but it was shot through by a sharper reek of sweat, which--one knew this at the first sniff, though it was hard to say how--was the sweat of some person not present at the mome - individually
apart from others
It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. - perverse
deviating from what is considered moral or right or proper
Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party--an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that o - incompatible
not in harmonious or agreeable combination
He was a total abstainer and a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty. - purge
rid of impurities
The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the fifties. - palpable
capable of being perceived
The words kept coming back to him, statement of a mystical truth and apalpable absurdity. - nip
sever or remove by pinching
From the grille at the counter the steam of stew came pouring forth, with a sour metallic smell which did not quite overcome the fumes of Victory Gin. On the far side of the room there was a small bar, a mere hole in the wall, where gin could be bought at - interminable
tiresomely long; seemingly without end
All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years. - smelt
extract by heating, as a metal
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. - abject
of the most contemptible kind
The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of ye - denounce
speak out against
He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was - atrocity
an act of shocking cruelty
He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against theatrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front--it ma - conceivable
capable of being imagined
It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. - dingy
thickly covered with ingrained dirt or soot
The Parsons' flat was bigger than Winston's, and dingy in a different way. - contradictory
not able to be true at the same time
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic agains - sordid
foul and run-down and repulsive
And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicke - entail
have as a logical consequence
He wrote:
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death. - pierce
penetrate or cut through with a sharp instrument
Once when they passed in the corridor she gave him a quick sidelong glance which seemed to pierce right into him and for a moment had filled him with black terror. - automatically
in a mechanical manner; by a mechanism
The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. - revert
go back to a previous state
Parsons did, indeed, invariably revert to shorts when a community hike or any other physical activity gave him an excuse for doing so. - filthy
disgustingly dirty
The kitchen sink was full nearly to the brim with filthy greenish water which smelt worse than ever of cabbage. - forecast
a prediction about how something will develop
They ran:
times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify
times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue
times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusung - periodical
happening or recurring at regular intervals
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs--to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold - intricate
having many complexly arranged elements; elaborate
It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last. - recreation
an activity that diverts or amuses or stimulates
He was a total abstainer and a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty. - revealing
showing or making known
It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. - spontaneous
said or done without having been planned in advance
At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spontaneous - anonymous
having no known name or identity or known source
How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even ananonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive? - assemble
create by putting components or members together
As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of 'The Times' had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its st - distort
twist and press out of shape
The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then todistort it and dirty it. - wrench
a sharp strain on muscles or ligaments
Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. - starve
die of food deprivation
Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work in the coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been sold int - coincidence
the property of two things happening at the same time
Perhaps after all she was not really following him about, perhaps it wascoincidence that she had sat so close to him two days running. - din
a loud harsh or strident noise
It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. - heresy
a belief that rejects the orthodox tenets of a religion
All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage,heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. - output
production of a certain amount
Or again, 'The Times' of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. - recur
happen or occur again
The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world. - physically
in accord with physical laws
How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive? - flit
move along rapidly and lightly; skim or dart
Mrs Parsons' eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back again. - automatic
operating with minimal human intervention
He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. - dictate
a guiding principle
Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speak-write which was of course impossible for his present purpose. - frail
physically weak
He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. - tedious
so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
The other three were routine matters, though the second one would probably mean some tedious wading through lists of figures. - climax
the highest point of anything
He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. - beget
generate children
The only recognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party. - imitate
reproduce someone's behavior or looks
Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting 'Traitor!' and 'Thought-criminal!' the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. - emerge
come out into view, as from concealment
Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which he had realized to be a Tube station. - flap
move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion
Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. - rash
imprudently incurring risk
This was the second time in three weeks that he had missed an evening at the Community Centre: a rash act, since you could be certain that the number of your attendances at the Centre was carefully checked. - execute
put in effect
The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple of ye - clue
evidence that helps to solve a problem
One never had the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. - survivor
one who lives through affliction
Among the last survivors were three men named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford. - statistics
a branch of mathematics concerned with quantitative data
Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. - penetrate
pass into or through, often by overcoming resistance
It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only bypenetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. - ration
a fixed portion that is allotted
And sure enough, following on a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week, the chocolate ration would be reduced from thirty grammes to tw - overall
including everything
He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. - statistic
a datum that can be represented numerically
Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. - impose
charge and collect payment
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed--if all records told the same tale--then the lie passed into history and became truth. - amend
make revisions to - detected
perceived or discerned
This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. - concept
an abstract or general idea inferred from specific instances
Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. - alteration
the act of revising
This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs--to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold - lump
a compact mass
It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. - despise
look down on with disdain
But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to - illegal
prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules
This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. - devote
dedicate
He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms--one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended. - stall
a small area set off for special use
When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. - voluntary
of your own free will or design
It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or that by avoluntary act. - monstrous
distorted and unnatural in shape or size
The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. - logic
the branch of philosophy that analyzes inference
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic agains - paragraph
one of several distinct subdivisions of a text
And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which 'The Times' did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak--'child hero' was the phrase generally used--had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its paren - subordinate
an assistant subject to the authority or control of another
At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spontaneous - dreary
lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise
'Oh, comrade,' she began in a dreary, whining sort of voice, 'I thought I heard you come in. - hover
hang in the air; fly or be suspended above
In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. - corresponding
similar especially in position or purpose
From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three - intrigue
a crafty and involved plot to achieve your ends
He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because he was intrigued by the contrast between O'Brien's urbane manner and his prize-fighter's physique. - definitely
without question and beyond doubt
Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air raid which appeared to t - continuous
moving in time or space without interruption
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. - achieve
gain with effort
Even to have awakened Katharine, if he could have achieved it, would have been like a seduction, although she was his wife. - announce
make known
And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. - betray
deliver to an enemy by treachery
He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying - parade
a ceremonial procession including people marching
All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices andparaded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which hi - refrain
resist doing something
It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. - consumption
the act of using something up
Or again, 'The Times' of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. - wither
lose freshness, vigor, or vitality
A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class. - abolish
do away with
You were abolished, annihilated: VAPORIZED was the usual word. - preliminary
preceding or in preparation for something more important
He picked up his pen again and wrote:
She threw herself down on the bed, and at once, without any kind ofpreliminary in the most coarse, horrible way you can imagine, pulled up her skirt. - arrange
put into a proper or systematic order
In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange. - substitute
a person or thing that can take the place of another
All that was needed was to substitute for the original promise a warning that it would probably be necessary to reduce the ration at some time in April. - petty
small and of little importance
Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. - invariably
without change, in every case
It was always at night--the arrests invariably happened at night. - tragic
very sad, especially involving grief or death or destruction
The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. - whistle
the sound made by something moving rapidly
The telescreen was giving forth an ear-splitting whistle which continued on the same note for thirty seconds. - proprietor
someone who owns a business
The proprietor had just lighted a hanging oil lamp which gave off an unclean but friendly smell. - switch
device for making or breaking the connections in a circuit
Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. - conspicuous
obvious to the eye or mind
A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order ofConspicuous Merit, Second Class. - survive
continue in existence after
How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive? - conspiracy
a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act
Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even--so it was occasionally rumoured--in some hiding-place in Oceania itself. - involve
contain as a part
Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink. - engage
consume all of one's attention or time
Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activi - overthrow
rule against
He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. - swarm
a group of many things in the air or on the ground
Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. - scratch
cut, scrape, or wear away the surface of
The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scra - resemble
be similar or bear a likeness to
Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless. - altered
changed in form or character without becoming something else
And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. - banner
long strip of cloth or paper for decoration or advertising
On the walls were scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a full-sized poster of Big Brother. - appropriate
suitable for a particular person, place, or situation
Some nosing zealot in the Ministry (a woman, probably: someone like the little sandy-haired woman or the dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department) might start wondering why he had been writing during the lunch interval, why he had used an old-fashione - fortress
a fortified defensive structure
Instead, a clipped military voice was reading out, with a sort of brutal relish, a description of the armaments of the new Floating Fortress which had just been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. - offensive
unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses
For example, it appeared from 'The Times' of the seventeenth of March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day, had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North - significance
the quality of being important
It was only later and by degrees that they had seemed to take on significance. - demonstration
a show or display
At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spontaneous demo - compromise
an accommodation in which both sides make concessions
Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession. - compound
a whole formed by a union of two or more elements or parts - heroic
having qualities appropriate for brave figures
Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in battle, in heroiccircumstances. - detect
discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of - pursue
follow in an effort to capture
Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. - tube
a hollow cylindrical shape
Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which he had realized to be a Tube station. - reduce
make smaller
And sure enough, following on a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army, with stupendous figures of killed and prisoners, came the announcement that, as from next week, the chocolate ration would bereduced from thirty grammes to tw - complex
complicated in structure
Today there were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep orcomplex sorrows. - coin
a flat metal piece (usually a disc) used as money
There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. - external
happening or arising outside some limits or surface
When there were no external records that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life lost its sharpness. - endure
undergo or be subjected to
And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endureFOR EVER? - hostile
characterized by enmity or ill will
But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, thehostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. - invent
come up with after a mental effort
There was no knowing how much of this legend was true and how muchinvented. - correspond
take the place of or be parallel or equivalent to - jest
activity characterized by good humor
'Ah,' said the other, 'that's jest it. - patch
a small contrasting part of something
Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? - definite
precise; explicit and clearly defined
Sometimes, indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie. - ministry
the work of a person authorized to conduct religious worship
A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape.