Uglies: Chapters 1 - 8 Vocabulary

Tether

A few hot-air balloons pulled at their tethers against the darkening pink sky, their passengers shooting safety fireworks at other balloons and passing parasailers.

• smother or suppress

• restraint consisting of a rope or chain

• a path or strip

• wildly disordered

Stifle

On the familiar leafy path down to the water’s edge, it was easy to imagine Peris stealing silently behind her, stifling laughter, ready for a night of spying on the new pretties.

• fraught with uncertainty or doubt

• fraudulent; having a misleading appearance

• restraint consisting of a rope or chain

• smother or suppress

Gawk

She wasn’t here to gawk. She was an infiltrator, a sneak, an ugly. And she had a mission.

• smother or suppress

• represent by a drawing of the outline of an object

• resembling a snake in form

• look with amazement

Impromptu

The machine was lobbing the masks out the back, trying to coax more followers into the impromptu parade: devil faces and horrible clowns, green monsters and gray aliens with big oval eyes, cats and dogs and cows, faces with crooked smiles or huge noses.

• with little or no preparation or forethought

• fraudulent; having a misleading appearance

• known widely and usually unfavorably

• look with amazement

Subside

She’d only seen him once since the operation, and that was coming out of the hospital, before the swelling had subsided.

• not neatly combed

• showing an inappropriate lack of seriousness

• wear off or die down

• living by or given to victimizing others for personal gain

Bogus

“Why didn’t you write me?”

“I tried. But it just felt bogus. I’m so different now.”

• fraudulent; having a misleading appearance

• with little or no preparation or forethought

• lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness

• resembling a snake in form

Dubious

Shay looked dubious. “How’d you manage that?”

• incapable of being defended or justified

• wear off or die down

• fraught with uncertainty or doubt

• wildly disordered

Silhouette

Her right shoe slid toward the board’s edge until her toes were silhouetted against the trees.

• lacking significance or liveliness or spirit or zest

• an abstracted state of absorption

• represent by a drawing of the outline of an object

• fraudulent; having a misleading appearance

Notorious

Some cities allowed exotic operations—for new pretties only—but the authorities here were notoriously conservative.

• living by or given to victimizing others for personal gain

• make a mess of, destroy, or ruin

• lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness

• known widely and usually unfavorably

Incongruous

The high hairdo towered over her thin face like a dunce cap, the white-blond hair utterly incongruous with her olive skin.

• lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness

• not neatly combed

• wildly disordered

• showing an inappropriate lack of seriousness