The Thirty-Nine Steps (36 page)

humours
NOUN
it was believed that there were four fluids in the body called humours which decided
the temperament of a person depending on how much of each fluid was present
other peccant humours
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)

husbandry
NOUN
husbandry is farming animals
bad husbandry were plentifully anointing their wheels
(
Silas Marner
by George Eliot)

huswife
NOUN
a huswife was a small sewing kit
but I had put my huswife on it
(
Emma
by Jane Austen)

ideal
ADJ
ideal in this context means imaginary
I discovered the yell was not ideal
(
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë)

If our two
PHRASE
if both our
If our two loves be one
(
The Good-Morrow
by John Donne)

ignis-fatuus
NOUN
ignis-fatuus is the light given out by burning marsh gases, which lead careless travellers
into danger
it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned
and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded
to, must lead ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication
. (
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë)

imaginations
NOUN
here imaginations means schemes or plans
soon drove out those imaginations
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)

impressible
ADJ
impressible means open or impressionable
for Marner had one of those impressible, self-doubting natures
(
Silas Marner
by George Eliot)

in good intelligence
PHRASE
friendly with each other
that these two persons were in good intelligence with each other
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)

inanity
NOUN
inanity is sillyness or dull stupidity
Do we not wile away moments of inanity
(
Silas Marner
by George Eliot)

incivility
NOUN
incivility means rudeness or impoliteness
if it’s only for a piece of incivility like to-night’s
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

indigenae
NOUN
indigenae means natives or people from that area
an exotic that the surly indigenae will not recognise for kin
(
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë)