The Thirty-Nine Steps (52 page)

sluggard
NOUN
a lazy person
“Stand up and repeat ‘Tis the voice of the sluggard,’” said the Gryphon
. (
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll)

smallpox
NOUN
smallpox is a serious infectious disease
by telling the men we had smallpox aboard
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

smalls
NOUN
smalls are short trousers
It is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy
countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially
so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

sneeze-box
NOUN
a box for snuff was called a sneeze-box because sniffing snuff makes the user sneeze
To think of Jack Dawkins—lummy Jack—the Dodger—the Artful Dodger—going abroad for
a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box!
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

snorted
VERB
slept
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
(
The Good-Morrow
by John Donne)

snuff
NOUN
snuff is tobacco in powder form which is taken by sniffing
as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker:
which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin
. (
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

soliloquized
VERB
to soliloquize is when an actor in a play speaks to himself or herself rather than
to another actor
“A new servitude! There is something in that,” I soliloquized
(
mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud)
(
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë)

sough
NOUN
a sough is a drain or a ditch
as you may have noticed the sough that runs from the marshes
(
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë)

spirits
NOUN
a spirit is the nonphysical part of a person which is believed to remain alive after
their death
that I might raise up spirits when I please
(
Doctor Faustus 1.5
by Christopher Marlowe)

spleen
NOUN
here spleen means a type of sadness or depression which was thought to only affect
the wealthy
yet here I could plainly discover the true seeds of spleen
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)
NOUN
irritability and low spirits
Adieu to disappointment and spleen
(
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen)