Vocabulary » Dogberry Pages

Vocabulary: fabulist – teller of fabulous tales

Title: Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand

Sentence: Ever a fabulist, he told investigators that Ofuna [prison camp] interrogators were “always kind to prisoners,” that he’d never seen a prisoner abused, and that prisoners rarely complained.
Page: 369

Word: fabulist
Definition:

A composer of fables.
A teller of tales; a liar.

Source: The Free Dictionary

You may look fabulous but don’t be a fabulist.

Vocabulary: poleaxed – stunned, to say the least

Title: For the Win
Author: Cory Doctorow

Sentence:
He got three steps before two rocks caught him, one in the arm and the second in the face, a spray of blood and a crunch of bone and a tooth that flew high in the air as the boy fell backwards as if poleaxed.

He'd never had much use for art, but he'd been poleaxed by these ones.

Page: 276 & 317

Word: poleaxed
Definition:

to attack or fell with or as with a poleax (a long-handled battle-ax)

Source: YourDictionary.com

Interesting to find this ‘new to me’ word used both literally and figuratively in the book. I have not had much experience with battle axes but am betting my kids have in their virtual worlds.

Vocabulary: imperious – domineering and overbearing

Title: Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand

Sentence: It was the fighters, gunned by the B-29s, blowing up. The bombers flew on, imperious.
Page: 275

Word: imperious
Definition:

domineering in a haughty manner; dictatorial; overbearing: an imperious manner; an imperious person.
urgent; imperative: imperious need.

Source: Dictionary.com

I guess bombers can fly arrogantly but more likely they were impervious?

Vocabulary: balletic – just add ‘ic’ to make an adjective

Title: Radio Shangri-La
Author: Lisa Napoli

Sentence: Out of the airport and onto the eight-lane freeway we went, weaving through the balletic tangle of traffic.
Page: 206

Word: balletic
Definition: