Sherwood Anderson - Winesburg, Ohio

WINESBURG, OHIO
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation

Sherwood Anderson

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Winesburg, Ohio
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation

Sherwood Anderson

PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the
College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are
registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book,
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated
with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council
which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.

ICON CLASSICS
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Winesburg, Ohio: Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT®, and AP®
English Test Preparation
This edition published by ICON Classics in 2005
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this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the
Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a
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reserved.
ISBN 0-497-25315-1

iii

Contents
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR .......................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION BY IRVING HOWE .................................................................................. 3
DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. 13
THE TALES AND THE PERSONS ..................................................................................... 15
THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE ............................................................................ 17
HANDS .................................................................................................................... 21
PAPER PILLS ........................................................................................................... 29
MOTHER ................................................................................................................. 33
THE PHILOSOPHER................................................................................................. 41
NOBODY KNOWS..................................................................................................... 49
GODLINESS A TALE IN FOUR PARTS...................................................................... 53
Part One concerning Jesse Bentley ................................................................... 55
Part Two also concerning Jesse Bentley ............................................................ 65
Part Three Surrender— concerning Louise Bentley ........................................... 77
Part Four Terror— concerning David Hardy ...................................................... 87
A MAN OF IDEAS ..................................................................................................... 93
ADVENTURE ......................................................................................................... 101
RESPECTABILITY .................................................................................................. 109
THE THINKER........................................................................................................ 115
TANDY................................................................................................................... 129
THE STRENGTH OF GOD ...................................................................................... 133
THE TEACHER ...................................................................................................... 141
LONELINESS ......................................................................................................... 149
AN AWAKENING .................................................................................................... 159
"QUEER"................................................................................................................ 169
THE UNTOLD LIE .................................................................................................. 179
DRINK ................................................................................................................... 185
DEATH .................................................................................................................. 195
SOPHISTICATION .................................................................................................. 205
DEPARTURE.......................................................................................................... 215

GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................... 219

Sherwood Anderson

1

PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR
Designed for school districts, educators, and students seeking to maximize performance on
standardized tests, Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently
assigned readings in English courses. By using a running thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this
edition of Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson was edited for students who are actively
building their vocabularies in anticipation of taking PSAT®, SAT®, AP® (Advanced Placement®),
GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT® or similar examinations.1
Webster’s edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of
synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in
other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic
words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are “difficult,
and often encountered” in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided
for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of the English language,
and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word’s meaning within
context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not
already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it
has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the
book; Synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster’s Online Dictionary.
Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-onlinedictionary.org. Please send suggestions to [email protected]
The Editor
Webster’s Online Dictionary
www.websters-online-dictionary.org

PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the
College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are
registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book,
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated
with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council
which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
1

Sherwood Anderson

3

INTRODUCTION
BY IRVING HOWE

I must have been no more than fifteen or sixteen years old when I first
chanced upon Winesburg, Ohio. Gripped by these stories and sketches of
Sherwood Anderson's small-town "grotesques," I felt that he was opening for me
new depths of experience, touching upon half-buried truths which nothing in my
young life had prepared me for. A New York City boy who never saw the crops
grow or spent time in the small towns that lay sprinkled across America, I found
myself overwhelmed by the scenes of wasted life, wasted love--was this the
"real" America?--that Anderson sketched in Winesburg. In those days only one
other book seemed to offer so powerful a revelation, and that was Thomas
Hardy's Jude the Obscure.%
Several years later, as I was about to go overseas as a soldier, I spent my last
weekend pass on a somewhat quixotic journey to Clyde, Ohio, the town upon
which Winesburg was partly modeled. Clyde looked, I suppose, not very
different from most other American towns, and the few of its residents I tried to
engage in talk about Anderson seemed quite uninterested. This indifference
would not have surprised him; it certainly should not surprise anyone who reads
his book.

Thesaurus
crops: (n) crop.
indifference: (adj, n) coldness,
phlegm; (n) detachment,
impassiveness, disregard, aloofness,
nonchalance, neglect, unconcern,
impassivity, disinterest.
ANTONYMS: (n) fervor, interest,
eagerness, dedication, sympathy,
favorite, compassion, anxiety,
responsiveness, forcefulness, care.
modeled: (adj) sculpturesque,
sculptured, shapely, graven,

sculptural.
overwhelmed: (adj) beaten,
overpowered, vanquished,
dumbfounded, inundated, flooded,
overthrown, engulfed, conquered,
bewildered; (v) overborne.
ANTONYM: (adj) unimpressed.
quixotic: (adj) impractical, dreamy,
visionary, fire eating, cavalier,
fantastic, adventurous; (adj, v)
utopian, unrealistic; (v) fanatic,
extravagant.

small-town: (adj) provincial, rural,
local, insular, parochial, trivial.
sprinkled: (adj) scattered, speckled,
wet, dotted.
uninterested: (adj) apathetic, listless,
unconcerned, cool, unenthusiastic,
blas, lukewarm, unbiased, languid,
disinterested; (v) used up.
ANTONYMS: (adj) enthusiastic,
interested, caring, fanatical,
committed, keen, concerned,
energetic.

4

Winesburg, Ohio

Once freed from the army, I started to write literary criticism, and in 1951 I
published a critical biography of Anderson. It came shortly after Lionel Trilling's
influential essay attacking Anderson, an attack from which Anderson's
reputation would never quite recover.
Trilling charged Anderson with
indulging a vaporous sentimentalism, a kind of vague emotional meandering in
stories that lacked social or spiritual solidity. There was a certain cogency in
Trilling's attack, at least with regard to Anderson's inferior work, most of which
he wrote after Winesburg, Ohio. In my book I tried, somewhat awkwardly, to
bring together the kinds of judgment Trilling had made with my still keen
affection for the best of Anderson's writings. By then, I had read writers more
complex, perhaps more distinguished than Anderson, but his muted stories kept
a firm place in my memories, and the book I wrote might be seen as a gesture of
thanks for the light--a glow of darkness, you might say--that he had brought to
me.%
Decades passed. I no longer read Anderson, perhaps fearing I might have to
surrender an admiration of youth. (There are some writers one should never
return to.) But now, in the fullness of age, when asked to say a few introductory
words about Anderson and his work, I have again fallen under the spell of
Winesburg, Ohio, again responded to the half-spoken desires, the flickers of
longing that spot its pages. Naturally, I now have some changes of response: a
few of the stories no longer haunt me as once they did, but the long story
"Godliness," which years ago I considered a failure, I now see as a quaintly
effective account of the way religious fanaticism and material acquisitiveness
can become intertwined in American experience.
Sherwood Anderson was born in Ohio in 1876. His childhood and youth in
Clyde, a town with perhaps three thousand souls, were scarred by bouts of
poverty, but he also knew some of the pleasures of pre-industrial American
society. The country was then experiencing what he would later call "a sudden
and almost universal turning of men from the old handicrafts towards our
modern life of machines." There were still people in Clyde who remembered the
frontier, and like America itself, the town lived by a mixture of diluted Calvinism

Thesaurus
acquisitiveness: (n) rapacity,
intertwined: (prep) clasped together,
peculiarly, queerly, strangely,
interlocked, interfolded; (adj) related, outlandishly, charmingly, pleasingly.
bibliomania, materialism,
scarred: (adj) marred, scarn, marked,
covetiveness, covetousness, cupidity, matted, inseparable, disheveled,
greediness, retentiveness,
tangled, entangled.
hurt, defaced.
bibliomaniacal, avarice. ANTONYM: meandering: (adj) circuitous, indirect, sentimentalism: (v) demureness,
(n) generosity.
zigzag, tortuous, winding,
minauderie, mock modesty, prudery;
cogency: (n) persuasion, force,
(n) sentiment, emotionalism,
serpentine, sinuous, roundabout,
snaky, windy; (v) twirl.
strength, validness, credibility,
sentimentality, sob story, virtuosity.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight; (n)
vaporous: (adj) hazy, foggy, vaporific,
credibleness, relevancy, vigor,
relevance, power, rigor.
directness.
ethereal, cloudy, vaporish, steamy,
ANTONYMS: (n) invalidness,
quaintly: (adv) unusually, oddly,
airy, unsubstantial, evaporable,
irrelevance, feebleness.
curiously, weirdly, singularly,
cobwebby.

Sherwood Anderson

5

and a strong belief in "progress," Young Sherwood, known as "Jobby"--the boy
always ready to work--showed the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that Clyde
respected: folks expected him to become a "go-getter," And for a time he did.
Moving to Chicago in his early twenties, he worked in an advertising agency
where he proved adept at turning out copy. "I create nothing, I boost, I boost,"
he said about himself, even as, on the side, he was trying to write short stories.%
In 1904 Anderson married and three years later moved to Elyria, a town forty
miles west of Cleveland, where he established a firm that sold paint. "I was
going to be a rich man.... Next year a bigger house; and after that, presumably, a
country estate." Later he would say about his years in Elyria, "I was a good deal
of a Babbitt, but never completely one." Something drove him to write, perhaps
one of those shapeless hungers--a need for self-expression? a wish to find a more
authentic kind of experience?-that would become a recurrent motif in his fiction.
And then, in 1912, occurred the great turning point in Anderson's life.
Plainly put, he suffered a nervous breakdown, though in his memoirs he would
elevate this into a moment of liberation in which he abandoned the sterility of
commerce and turned to the rewards of literature. Nor was this, I believe,
merely a deception on Anderson's part, since the breakdown painful as it surely
was, did help precipitate a basic change in his life. At the age of 36, he left
behind his business and moved to Chicago, becoming one of the rebellious
writers and cultural bohemians in the group that has since come to be called the
"Chicago Renaissance." Anderson soon adopted the posture of a free, liberated
spirit, and like many writers of the time, he presented himself as a sardonic critic
of American provincialism and materialism. It was in the freedom of the city, in
its readiness to put up with deviant styles of life, that Anderson found the
strength to settle accounts with--but also to release his affection for--the world of
small-town America. The dream of an unconditional personal freedom, that
hazy American version of utopia, would remain central throughout Anderson's
life and work. It was an inspiration; it was a delusion.
In 1916 and 1917 Anderson published two novels mostly written in Elyria,
Windy McPherson's Son and Marching Men, both by now largely forgotten.

Thesaurus
delusion: (n) hallucination, deception,
cheat, chimera, misunderstanding,
mirage, trick, fallacy, error,
aberration, falsehood. ANTONYMS:
(n) comprehension, fact, truth.
elevate: (v) advance, lift, hoist, erect,
exalt, boost, rear, cheer, promote,
dignify, uphold. ANTONYMS: (v)
demote, drop, downgrade, depress,
decrease, reduce.
entrepreneurial: (adj) enterprising.
provincialism: (n) dialect, regionalism,

vague. ANTONYMS: (adj) distinct,
illiberality, barbarism, sectionalism,
petit bourgeois mentality, patois,
defined, tailored.
sterility: (n) barrenness, impotence,
partisanship, partiality, idiom,
broken English.
infecundity, poverty, sterileness,
sardonic: (adj) dry, wry, cynical,
antisepsis, impotency, asepsis,
ironic, ironical, cutting, biting, bitter, dysgenesis, unproductiveness,
derisive, mocking; (adj, v) satirical.
aridity.
ANTONYM: (adj) approving.
utopia: (n) fantasy, paradise, Utopistic,
shapeless: (adj) amorphous,
Happy Valley, millennium, fool's
misshapen, unformed, unstructured, paradise, chateaux en Espagne,
nebulous, inchoate, unshapely,
dreamboat, Israel, castles in the air,
indistinct, uncrystallized, embryonic, Erewhon. ANTONYM: (n) hell.

6

Winesburg, Ohio

They show patches of talent but also a crudity of thought and unsteadiness of
language. No one reading these novels was likely to suppose that its author
could soon produce anything as remarkable as Winesburg, Ohio. Occasionally
there occurs in a writer's career a sudden, almost mysterious leap of talent,
beyond explanation, perhaps beyond any need for explanation.%
In 1915-16 Anderson had begun to write and in 1919 he published the stories
that comprise Winesburg, Ohio, stories that form, in sum, a sort of loosely strung
episodic novel. The book was an immediate critical success, and soon Anderson
was being ranked as a significant literary figure. In 1921 the distinguished
literary magazine The Dial awarded him its first annual literary prize of $2,000,
the significance of which is perhaps best understood if one also knows that the
second recipient was T. S. Eliot. But Anderson's moment of glory was brief, no
more than a decade, and sadly, the remaining years until his death in 1940 were
marked by a sharp decline in his literary standing. Somehow, except for an
occasional story like the haunting "Death in the Woods," he was unable to repeat
or surpass his early success. Still, about Winesburg, Ohio and a small number of
stories like "The Egg" and "The Man Who Became a Woman" there has rarely
been any critical doubt.
No sooner did Winesburg, Ohio make its appearance than a number of
critical labels were fixed on it: the revolt against the village, the espousal of
sexual freedom, the deepening of American realism. Such tags may once have
had their point, but by now they seem dated and stale. The revolt against the
village (about which Anderson was always ambivalent) has faded into history.
The espousal of sexual freedom would soon be exceeded in boldness by other
writers. And as for the effort to place Winesburg, Ohio in a tradition of
American realism, that now seems dubious. Only rarely is the object of
Anderson's stories social verisimilitude, or the "photographing" of familiar
appearances, in the sense, say, that one might use to describe a novel by
Theodore Dreiser or Sinclair Lewis. Only occasionally, and then with a very
light touch, does Anderson try to fill out the social arrangements of his
imaginary town--although the fact that his stories are set in a mid-American

Thesaurus
begun: (adj) present.
crudity: (n) crudeness, rudeness,
coarseness, immaturity, wild,
impoliteness, rawness, grossness,
uncouthness, incivility, vulgarity.
ANTONYM: (n) decency.
deepening: (n) amplification,
aggravation.
episodic: (adj) incidental, temporary,
occasional, sporadic, impermanent,
casual, episodical, episodial, obiter
dicta, divided, ephemeral.

ANTONYMS: (adj) permanent,
recurrent, frequent, regular.
espousal: (n) adoption, engagement,
bridal, acceptance, advocacy,
backing, aid, marriage, wedding,
assistance, rite. ANTONYM: (n)
opposition.
surpass: (v) beat, outdo, exceed,
surmount, better, excel, outstrip,
overcome, overrun, best, go beyond.
ANTONYMS: (v) fail, lose, follow,
trail.

unsteadiness: (n) giddiness, fickleness,
unstableness, wavering, volatility,
irregularity, levity, insecurity,
shakiness, inconsistency, ease.
ANTONYMS: (n) stability,
steadiness.
verisimilitude: (n) probability,
likelihood, plausibility, similarity,
expression, comparison, likeness,
reality, representation, resemblance,
semblance. ANTONYM: (n)
falseness.

Sherwood Anderson

7

place like Winesburg does constitute an important formative condition. You
might even say, with only slight overstatement, that what Anderson is doing in
Winesburg, Ohio could be described as "anti-realistic," fictions notable less for
precise locale and social detail than for a highly personal, even strange vision of
American life. Narrow, intense, almost claustrophobic, the result is a book
about extreme states of being, the collapse of men and women who have lost
their psychic bearings and now hover, at best tolerated, at the edge of the little
community in which they live. It would be a gross mistake, though not one
likely to occur by now, if we were to take Winesburg, Ohio as a social
photograph of "the typical small town" (whatever that might be.) Anderson
evokes a depressed landscape in which lost souls wander about; they make their
flitting appearances mostly in the darkness of night, these stumps and shades of
humanity. This vision has its truth, and at its best it is a terrible if narrow truth-but it is itself also grotesque, with the tone of the authorial voice and the mode of
composition forming muted signals of the book's content. Figures like Dr.
Parcival, Kate Swift, and Wash Williams are not, nor are they meant to be, "fullyrounded" characters such as we can expect in realistic fiction; they are the shards
of life, glimpsed for a moment, the debris of suffering and defeat. In each story
one of them emerges, shyly or with a false assertiveness, trying to reach out to
companionship and love, driven almost mad by the search for human
connection. In the economy of Winesburg these grotesques matter less in their
own right than as agents or symptoms of that "indefinable hunger" for meaning
which is Anderson's preoccupation.%
Brushing against one another, passing one another in the streets or the fields,
they see bodies and hear voices, but it does not really matter--they are
disconnected, psychically lost. Is this due to the particular circumstances of
small-town America as Anderson saw it at the turn of the century? Or does he
feel that he is sketching an inescapable human condition which makes all of us
bear the burden of loneliness? Alice Hindman in the story "Adventure" turns her
face to the wall and tries "to force herself to face the fact that many people must
live and die alone, even in Winesburg." Or especially in Winesburg? Such

Thesaurus
assertiveness: (n) forcefulness,
prep) separate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
violence, forwardness, fierceness,
connected, joined, continuous, legato,
ferociousness, bumptiousness,
entire, coherent.
flitting: (adj) fleeting, fugitive,
brazenness, belligerence, boldness,
insolence. ANTONYM: (n)
momentary, transient, ephemeral; (v)
gentleness.
migration.
authorial: (adj) authorly.
locale: (n) position, scene, situation,
claustrophobic: (adj) afraid, confined. environment, region, district, habitat,
disconnected: (adj) abrupt, disjointed, locus, venue, location, locality.
overstatement: (n) hyperbole,
desultory, fragmentary, confused,
incoherent, unconnected,
magnification, excess, amplification,
discontinuous, discrete, scrappy; (adj, misrepresentation, deceit, too much,

overload, fish story, extravagant
exaggeration, enlargement.
ANTONYM: (n) restraint.
psychically: (adv) clairvoyantly,
supernaturally, mentally,
psychologically, immaterially.
shards: (n) ruins, rubble, debris,
remains.
sketching: (n) art, cartographic
sketching.
tolerated: (adj) permissive, permitted,
permitting, suffered, admissible.

8

Winesburg, Ohio

impressions have been put in more general terms in Anderson's only successful
novel, Poor White:
All men lead their lives behind a wall of misunderstanding they have
themselves built, and most men die in silence and unnoticed behind the
walls.%
Now and then a man, cut off from his fellows by the peculiarities of
his nature, becomes absorbed in doing something that is personal, useful
and beautiful.
Word of his activities is carried over the walls.
These "walls" of misunderstanding are only seldom due to physical
deformities (Wing Biddlebaum in "Hands") or oppressive social arrangements
(Kate Swift in "The Teacher.") Misunderstanding, loneliness, the inability to
articulate, are all seen by Anderson as virtually a root condition, something
deeply set in our natures. Nor are these people, the grotesques, simply to be
pitied and dismissed; at some point in their lives they have known desire, have
dreamt of ambition, have hoped for friendship. In all of them there was once
something sweet, "like the twisted little apples that grow in the orchards in
Winesburg." Now, broken and adrift, they clutch at some rigid notion or idea, a
"truth" which turns out to bear the stamp of monomania, leaving them helplessly
sputtering, desperate to speak out but unable to. Winesburg, Ohio registers the
losses inescapable to life, and it does so with a deep fraternal sadness, a
sympathy casting a mild glow over the entire book. "Words," as the American
writer Paula Fox has said, "are nets through which all truth escapes." Yet what do
we have but words?
They want, these Winesburg grotesques, to unpack their hearts, to release
emotions buried and festering. Wash Williams tries to explain his eccentricity
but hardly can; Louise Bentley "tried to talk but could say nothing"; Enoch
Robinson retreats to a fantasy world, inventing "his own people to whom he

Thesaurus
clutch: (n, v) clasp, grip, clench, grasp,
hold, clinch, gripe; (v) grab, grapple,
embrace; (adj, v) catch. ANTONYMS:
(n) loose; (v) release, unfasten.
eccentricity: (n) abnormality,
idiosyncrasy, oddness, peculiarity,
anomaly, crankiness, irregularity,
quirk, strangeness, weirdness,
curiousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
usualness, normalcy, conventionality,
concentricity, conformity.
festering: (adj) rotten, infected, rotting,

pussy, septic; (n) pus, festerment,
suppuration, bodily fluid, activity,
sanies. ANTONYM: (adj) healthy.
fraternal: (adj) brotherly, brotherlike,
biovular, sympathetic, kind, hearty,
amicable, unhostile, affectionate,
thick, related. ANTONYM: (adj)
identical.
inventing: (adj) lying.
monomania: (adj, n) madness,
fanaticism, frenzy, derangement,
aberration, alienation, insanity,

lunacy; (adj) infatuation; (n) passion,
craze.
registers: (n) archive, chronicles.
sputtering: (n) splutter, splatter,
spattering, spatter, splattering, dab,
splashing, splash; (adj) spluttering,
noisy; (v) sizzle.
unpack: (v) undo, unbind, discharge,
get out, take out, remove, unbox,
unchain, unload, unloose, take away.
ANTONYMS: (v) fill, load, pack,
wrap.

Sherwood Anderson

9

could really talk and to whom he explained the things he had been unable to
explain to living people."
In his own somber way, Anderson has here touched upon one of the great
themes of American literature, especially Midwestern literature, in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the struggle for speech as it entails a
search for the self. Perhaps the central Winesburg story, tracing the basic
movements of the book, is "Paper Pills," in which the old Doctor Reefy sits "in his
empty office close by a window that was covered with cobwebs," writes down
some thoughts on slips of paper ("pyramids of truth," he calls them) and then
stuffs them into his pockets where they "become round hard balls" soon to be
discarded. What Dr. Reefy's "truths" may be we never know; Anderson simply
persuades us that to this lonely old man they are utterly precious and thereby
incommunicable, forming a kind of blurred moral signature.%
After a time the attentive reader will notice in these stories a recurrent pattern
of theme and incident: the grotesques, gathering up a little courage, venture out
into the streets of Winesburg, often in the dark, there to establish some initiatory
relationship with George Willard, the young reporter who hasn't yet lived long
enough to become a grotesque. Hesitantly, fearfully, or with a sputtering
incoherent rage, they approach him, pleading that he listen to their stories in the
hope that perhaps they can find some sort of renewal in his youthful voice.
Upon this sensitive and fragile boy they pour out their desires and frustrations.
Dr. Parcival hopes that George Willard "will write the book I may never get
written," and for Enoch Robinson, the boy represents "the youthful sadness,
young man's sadness, the sadness of a growing boy in a village at the year's end
(which may open) the lips of the old man."
What the grotesques really need is each other, but their estrangement is so
extreme they cannot establish direct ties--they can only hope for connection
through George Willard. The burden this places on the boy is more than he can
bear. He listens to them attentively, he is sympathetic to their complaints, but
finally he is too absorbed in his own dreams. The grotesques turn to him because
he seems "different"--younger, more open, not yet hardened-but it is precisely

Thesaurus
attentively: (adv) carefully, mindfully, conciliation.
beggaring description, beyond
incoherent: (adj) disjointed,
watchfully, observantly, heedfully,
words.
initiatory: (adj) initiative, first,
vigilantly, cautiously, considerately,
disconnected, delirious, rambling,
diligently, alertly, obligingly.
confused, disordered, incompatible,
inaugural, maiden, preliminary,
ANTONYMS: (adv) unhelpfully,
wandering, muddled, inconsistent,
introductory, inceptive, incipient,
contradictory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
neglectfully, abruptly, carelessly,
foremost, rudimentary, elementary.
hastily, casually.
clear, articulate, eloquent, intelligible, slips: (n) pad.
estrangement: (n) disaffection,
somber: (adj) gloomy, melancholy,
lucid, sound, concise, consistent.
incommunicable: (adj) unspeakable,
separation, rift, coolness, isolation,
solemn, dull, grave, drab, sober,
break, split, rupture, withdrawal,
unutterable, ineffable, indescribable,
dark, sullen, dim, dismal.
breach; (v) estrange. ANTONYMS:
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, funny,
beyond description, inalienable,
(n) reconciliation, propitiation,
noncommittal, undefinable,
cheery, frivolous, fussy.

10

Winesburg, Ohio

this "difference" that keeps him from responding as warmly as they want. It is
hardly the boy's fault; it is simply in the nature of things. For George Willard,
the grotesques form a moment in his education; for the grotesques, their
encounters with George Willard come to seem like a stamp of hopelessness.%
The prose Anderson employs in telling these stories may seem at first glance
to be simple: short sentences, a sparse vocabulary, uncomplicated syntax. In
actuality, Anderson developed an artful style in which, following Mark Twain
and preceding Ernest Hemingway, he tried to use American speech as the base
of a tensed rhythmic prose that has an economy and a shapeliness seldom found
in ordinary speech or even oral narration. What Anderson employs here is a
stylized version of the American language, sometimes rising to quite formal
rhetorical patterns and sometimes sinking to a self-conscious mannerism. But at
its best, Anderson's prose style in Winesburg, Ohio is a supple instrument,
yielding that "low fine music" which he admired so much in the stories of
Turgenev.
One of the worst fates that can befall a writer is that of self-imitation: the
effort later in life, often desperate, to recapture the tones and themes of youthful
beginnings. Something of the sort happened with Anderson's later writings.
Most critics and readers grew impatient with the work he did after, say, 1927 or
1928; they felt he was constantly repeating his gestures of emotional "groping"what he had called in Winesburg, Ohio the "indefinable hunger" that prods and
torments people. It became the critical fashion to see Anderson's "gropings" as a
sign of delayed adolescence, a failure to develop as a writer. Once he wrote a
chilling reply to those who dismissed him in this way: "I don't think it matters
much, all this calling a man a muddler, a groper, etc.... The very man who
throws such words as these knows in his heart that he is also facing a wall." This
remark seems to me both dignified and strong, yet it must be admitted that there
was some justice in the negative responses to his later work. For what
characterized it was not so much "groping" as the imitation of "groping," the selfcaricature of a writer who feels driven back upon an earlier self that is, alas, no
longer available.

Thesaurus
actuality: (n) truth, realism, fact,
substance, verity, veracity, entity,
existence, realness, being,
genuineness. ANTONYMS: (n)
falseness, pretense, illusion, idealism.
artful: (adj) crafty, cunning, scheming,
wily, shrewd, insidious, designing,
sly, adroit, subtle, disingenuous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) artless, unskillful,
inept, ingenuous, unskilled, open,
straight.
befall: (v) bechance, become, happen,

fall, arise, come about, occur, betide,
chance, transpire, pass.
don't: (adv) not; (n) taboo, prohibition.
fates: (adj) book of fate, Parcae, sky; (n)
fortune, the fates.
mannerism: (n) airs, habit, foible,
characteristic, affectation, trick,
attitude, pose, affected manner,
manner; (adj) individuality.
muddler: (n) bungler.
narration: (n) description, recital,
narrative, explanation, history, tale,

report, relation, story, recitation,
rehearsal.
shapeliness: (n) beauty,
curvaceousness, image, external
appearance, pattern, oviform, orderly
arrangement, mold, make, grace,
frame.
stories: (n) tale.
stylized: (adj) stylised, unreal, elegant,
conventionalised, ceremonial,
artificial, exaggerated.
tensed: (adj) finite.

Sherwood Anderson

11

But Winesburg, Ohio remains a vital work, fresh and authentic. Most of its
stories are composed in a minor key, a tone of subdued pathos--pathos marking
both the nature and limit of Anderson's talent. (He spoke of himself as a "minor
writer.") In a few stories, however, he was able to reach beyond pathos and to
strike a tragic note. The single best story in Winesburg, Ohio is, I think, "The
Untold Lie," in which the urgency of choice becomes an outer sign of a tragic
element in the human condition. And in Anderson's single greatest story, "The
Egg," which appeared a few years after Winesburg, Ohio, he succeeded in
bringing together a surface of farce with an undertone of tragedy. "The Egg" is
an American masterpiece.%
Anderson's influence upon later American writers, especially those who
wrote short stories, has been enormous. Ernest Hemingway and William
Faulkner both praised him as a writer who brought a new tremor of feeling, a
new sense of introspectiveness to the American short story. As Faulkner put it,
Anderson's "was the fumbling for exactitude, the exact word and phrase within
the limited scope of a vocabulary controlled and even repressed by what was in
him almost a fetish of simplicity ... to seek always to penetrate to thought's
uttermost end." And in many younger writers who may not even be aware of the
Anderson influence, you can see touches of his approach, echoes of his voice.
Writing about the Elizabethan playwright John Ford, the poet Algernon
Swinburne once said: "If he touches you once he takes you, and what he takes he
keeps hold of; his work becomes part of your thought and parcel of your
spiritual furniture forever." So it is, for me and many others, with Sherwood
Anderson.

Thesaurus
exactitude: (n) precision, exactness,
butterfingered, awkward, bumbling, earthquake, convulsion; (adj, v)
flutter; (adj, n) trepidation; (v)
correctness, punctuality, fidelity,
bunglesome, clunky, cumbersome,
trueness, truth, veracity, rigor,
incompetent, left-handed, unskilled.
tremble.
pathos: (v) emotion, inspiration,
undertone: (n) undercurrent, murmur,
thoroughness, promptitude.
ANTONYMS: (n) vagueness,
impression, affection; (n) poignancy,
tinge, nuance, whisper, suggestion,
inaccuracy, inexactness.
pity, ruth, commiseration, grief,
implication, connotation, overtone,
fetish: (n) fetich, charm, fixation, juju,
poignance, sympathy.
association, hint.
penetrate: (v) bore, imbue, fathom,
uttermost: (adj, n) extreme; (adj, adv)
idol, amulet, God, fetishism,
talisman, voodoo, fad. ANTONYMS: infiltrate, pierce, permeate, cut, filter, farthest; (n) maximum, level best;
(n) repugnance, distaste, dislike,
(adj) furthest, utter, last, farthermost,
interpenetrate, get through, enter.
tremor: (n, v) shiver, quake, shudder,
aversion.
furthermost, ultimate, most.
fumbling: (adj) clumsy, fumble,
shake; (n) agitation, vibration,
ANTONYM: (adj) moderate.

Sherwood Anderson

13

DEDICATION

To the memory of my mother,
EMMA SMITH ANDERSON,
whose keen observations on the life about her first awoke in me the hunger to
see beneath the surface of lives, this book is dedicated.

Sherwood Anderson

THE TALES AND THE PERSONS

15

Sherwood Anderson

17

THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE

The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty in getting
into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted
to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning. A carpenter came to fix the
bed so that it would be on a level with the window.%
Quite a fuss was made about the matter. The carpenter, who had been a
soldier in the Civil War, came into the writer's room and sat down to talk of
building a platform for the purpose of raising the bed. The writer had cigars
lying about and the carpenter smoked.
For a time the two men talked of the raising of the bed and then they talked
of other things. The soldier got on the subject of the war. The writer, in fact, led
him to that subject. The carpenter had once been a prisoner in Andersonville
prison and had lost a brother. The brother had died of starvation, and whenever
the carpenter got upon that subject he cried. He, like the old writer, had a white
mustache, and when he cried he puckered up his lips and the mustache bobbed
up and down. The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous.
The plan the writer had for the raising of his bed was forgotten and later the
carpenter did it in his own way and the writer, who was past sixty, had to help
himself with a chair when he went to bed at night.

Thesaurus
awoke: (adj) awakened.
farcical, foolish, laughable, comical, puckered: (adj) corrugated, wrinkly,
carpenter: (n) woodman, woodsman,
grotesque, derisory, droll,
unsmooth, rough, inflated, furrowed,
woodworker, Joseph; (v) build.
preposterous, jocular. ANTONYMS:
cockled, bullate, creased.
cigar: (n) cheroot, cigars, smoke,
(adj) sane, impressive.
starvation: (n) inanition, famine,
cigarette, corona, panatela, panetella, mustache: (n) mustachio, mastax,
famishment, hungriness, privation,
segar, cigarillo.
moustachio, beard, whisker,
starving, malnutrition, dearth,
cigars: (n) cigar.
whiskers, toothbrush, hair, handlebar poverty, scarcity, esurience.
fuss: (n, v) flurry, bicker, fidget,
weeping: (adj) tearful, lachrymose,
mustache, body hair, facial hair.
hubbub; (adj, n) stir; (n) flap,
prisoner: (n) captive, hostage, jailbird, dolourous, dolorous; (n, v) lament,
lamentation; (v) wailing; (n) sobbing,
commotion, ado, bother, disturbance; accused, con, gaolbird, criminal,
(v) fret. ANTONYM: (n) peace.
tears, cry; (adj, n) howling.
detainee, inmate, defendant,
ludicrous: (adj) absurd, ridiculous,
ANTONYM: (n) celebration.
unfortunate.

18

Winesburg, Ohio

In his bed the writer rolled over on his side and lay quite still. For years he
had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker and
his heart fluttered. The idea had got into his mind that he would some time die
unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not
alarm him. The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained.
It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay
and his body was old and not of much use any more, but something inside him
was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside
him was not a baby but a youth. No, it wasn't a youth, it was a woman, young,
and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what
was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering
of his heart. The thing to get at is what the writer, or the young thing within the
writer, was thinking about.%
The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got, during his long
fife, a great many notions in his head. He had once been quite handsome and a
number of women had been in love with him. And then, of course, he had
known people, many people, known them in a peculiarly intimate way that was
different from the way in which you and I know people. At least that is what the
writer thought and the thought pleased him. Why quarrel with an old man
concerning his thoughts?
In the bed the writer had a dream that was not a dream. As he grew
somewhat sleepy but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes.
He imagined the young indescribable thing within himself was driving a long
procession of figures before his eyes.
You see the interest in all this lies in the figures that went before the eyes of
the writer. They were all grotesques. All of the men and women the writer had
ever known had become grotesques.
The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were amusing, some almost
beautiful, and one, a woman all drawn out of shape, hurt the old man by her
grotesqueness. When she passed he made a noise like a small dog whimpering.

Thesaurus
beset: (v) beleaguer, afflict, assault,
ineffable, unutterable, vague, beyond cortege, cavalcade, file, string,
siege, molest, worry, attack, plague,
expression, nameless, inexpressible,
pageant, series, sequence, progress,
obsess, assail; (adv, v) surround.
nondescript, terrible, intangible,
column.
fife: (n) flute, whistle, flageolet,
termless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smoker: (n) pornographic film,
piccolo, pipe.
explainable, conceivable, concrete.
smoking car, cigarette smoker, cigar
fluttering: (adj) flying, palpitating,
peculiarly: (adj, adv) particularly,
smoker, smoking compartment,
flittering, flaring, aflare, waving; (n)
curiously, unusually, uncommonly,
carriage, tobacco user, smoking
flutter, flapping, flicker, flitting; (adv) singularly; (adv) especially, oddly,
carriage, consumer, party, skin flick.
ANTONYM: (n) nonsmoker.
flutteringly.
strangely, specifically, weirdly,
grotesqueness: (n) grotesquery,
specially. ANTONYMS: (adv)
whimpering: (adj) whining, puling,
childish, querulous; (n) sniveling, cry,
grotesquerie.
typically, ordinarily, slightly.
indescribable: (adj) indefinable,
procession: (n) march, convoy,
tear.

Sherwood Anderson

19

Had you come into the room you might have supposed the old man had
unpleasant dreams or perhaps indigestion.%
For an hour the procession of grotesques passed before the eyes of the old
man, and then, although it was a painful thing to do, he crept out of bed and
began to write. Some one of the grotesques had made a deep impression on his
mind and he wanted to describe it.
At his desk the writer worked for an hour. In the end he wrote a book which
he called "The Book of the Grotesque." It was never published, but I saw it once
and it made an indelible impression on my mind. The book had one central
thought that is very strange and has always remained with me. By remembering
it I have been able to understand many people and things that I was never able to
understand before. The thought was involved but a simple statement of it would
be something like this:
That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many
thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each
truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world
were the truths and they were all beautiful.
The old man had listed hundreds of the truths in his book. I will not try to
tell you of all of them. There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion,
the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and
abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful.
And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of
the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them.
It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an
elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of
the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live
his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a
falsehood.
You can see for yourself how the old man, who had spent all of his life
writing and was filled with words, would write hundreds of pages concerning

Thesaurus
embraced: (adj) popular.
memorable, fixed, ineradicable,
hurried, quick, rapid, short, sudden,
falsehood: (n) fable, fabrication,
lasting, irrevocable, ingrained; (adj, v) swift. ANTONYM: (adj) slow.
indestructible; (n) impressive, deep; thrift: (n) economy, parsimony,
deception, untruth, lie, fib, fiction,
invention, dishonesty; (adj, n) deceit,
(v) incorruptible. ANTONYMS: (adj)
husbandry, frugalness, prosperity,
falsity. ANTONYMS: (n) fact,
erasable, fleeting.
prudence, thriftiness,
profligacy: (n) debauchery,
honesty, reality.
parsimoniousness, sea pink, welfare;
grotesque: (adj) fantastic, bizarre,
(v) gain. ANTONYMS: (n) generosity,
dissipation, licentiousness,
funny, antic, absurd, droll, strange,
prodigality, dissolution, depravity,
spending, waste.
baroque, weird, ugly, hideous.
debauch, corruption, improvidence, virginity: (n) maidenhood, pucelage,
ANTONYMS: (adj) lovely, normal,
dissoluteness, vice. ANTONYMS: (n) chastity, purity, maidenhead,
commonplace, attractive.
economy, decency, parsimony.
pudicity, virtue, freshness,
indelible: (adj) ineffaceable,
snatched: (adj) hasty, speedy, brief,
virginhood, innocence, spirit.

20

Winesburg, Ohio

this matter. The subject would become so big in his mind that he himself would
be in danger of becoming a grotesque. He didn't, I suppose, for the same reason
that he never published the book. It was the young thing inside him that saved
the old man.%
Concerning the old carpenter who fixed the bed for the writer, I only
mentioned him because he, like many of what are called very common people,
became the nearest thing to what is understandable and lovable of all the
grotesques in the writer's book.

Thesaurus
fixed: (adj, v) determined, durable;
(adj, adv, v) stable; (adj) definite,
intent, fast, determinate, certain, set;
(adj, adv, n) steady; (adj, n, v) constant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) flexible, separate,
adaptable, adjustable, changeable,
movable, variable, compliant,
temporary, removable, portable.
lovable: (adj) delightful, charming,
likable, engaging, sweet, taking,
adorable, friendly, kindly, delectable,
lovely. ANTONYMS: (adj) horrible,

unappealing, unlovable, detestable,
apprehensible, plain, graspable,
despicable.
obvious, evident, lucid, clear,
mentioned: (adj) spoken.
reasonable, perceivable, simple.
nearest: (adj) proximate, immediate,
ANTONYMS: (adj) indefensible,
close, near, next, adjoining, intimate, unintelligible, inexcusable,
direct, adjacent; (adj, adv) nighest;
unpardonable, inexplicable, illegible,
(adv) fore. ANTONYM: (adj) distant.
unclear, obscure, illogical,
published: (adj) known, promulgated, unreasonable, incomprehensible.
writer: (n) journalist, poet, penman,
public, divulgate.
saved: (adj) protected, economized,
novelist, dramatist, commentator,
rescued, blessed.
playwright, authoress, amanuensis,
understandable: (adj) intelligible,
scribe, clerk. ANTONYM: (n) reader.

Sherwood Anderson

21

HANDS

Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the
edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked
nervously up and down. Across a long field that had been seeded for clover but
that had produced only a dense crop of yellow mustard weeds, he could see the
public highway along which went a wagon filled with berry pickers returning
from the fields. The berry pickers, youths and maidens, laughed and shouted
boisterously. A boy clad in a blue shirt leaped from the wagon and attempted to
drag after him one of the maidens, who screamed and protested shrilly. The feet
of the boy in the road kicked up a cloud of dust that floated across the face of the
departing sun. Over the long field came a thin girlish voice. "Oh, you Wing
Biddlebaum, comb your hair, it's falling into your eyes," commanded the voice to
the man, who was bald and whose nervous little hands fiddled about the bare
white forehead as though arranging a mass of tangled locks.%
Wing Biddlebaum, forever frightened and beset by a ghostly band of doubts,
did not think of himself as in any way a part of the life of the town where he had
lived for twenty years. Among all the people of Winesburg but one had come
close to him. With George Willard, son of Tom Willard, the proprietor of the
New Willard House, he had formed something like a friendship. George Willard
was the reporter on the Winesburg Eagle and sometimes in the evenings he
walked out along the highway to Wing Biddlebaum's house. Now as the old

Thesaurus
boisterously: (adv) noisily,
Dutch clover, claver, riches, wealth,
clamorously, raucously,
success, prosperity, good life, fat city.
decayed: (adj) spoiled, corrupt,
uproariously, rowdily, riotously,
loudly, tumultuously, vociferously,
dilapidated, rank, rusty, rotting,
unruly, roughly. ANTONYMS: (adv) decaying, rotted, putrid; (adj, v)
wasted; (v) stale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
demurely, peacefully.
clad: (adj) dressed, attired, clothed,
matured, restored, strengthened.
coated, garbed; (n) cladding; (prep)
girlish: (adj) boyish, childish, kittenish,
gowned; (v) costume, shod, dress,
juvenile, adolescent, innocent,
attire. ANTONYMS: (adj) undressed, schoolgirlish, babyish, immature,
unclothed.
youthful, female.
clover: (n) trefoil, shamrock, herb,
ravine: (n, v) gap, cleft; (n) chasm,

canyon, dell, defile, gully, glen, pass,
abyss, valley.
seeded: (adj) seedy, planted, seedless.
ANTONYM: (adj) unseeded.
shrilly: (adv) sharply, acutely,
penetratingly, stridently, noisily,
harshly, raucously, keenly, loudly,
discordantly, shrewdly. ANTONYM:
(adv) softly.
veranda: (n) gallery, porch, portico,
verandah, terrace, patio, stope, stoop,
piazza, deck, corridor.

22

Winesburg, Ohio

man walked up and down on the veranda, his hands moving nervously about,
he was hoping that George Willard would come and spend the evening with
him. After the wagon containing the berry pickers had passed, he went across
the field through the tall mustard weeds and climbing a rail fence peered
anxiously along the road to the town. For a moment he stood thus, rubbing his
hands together and looking up and down the road, and then, fear overcoming
him, ran back to walk again upon the porch on his own house.%
In the presence of George Willard, Wing Biddlebaum, who for twenty years
had been the town mystery, lost something of his timidity, and his shadowy
personality, submerged in a sea of doubts, came forth to look at the world. With
the young reporter at his side, he ventured in the light of day into Main Street or
strode up and down on the rickety front porch of his own house, talking
excitedly. The voice that had been low and trembling became shrill and loud.
The bent figure straightened. With a kind of wriggle, like a fish returned to the
brook by the fisherman, Biddlebaum the silent began to talk, striving to put into
words the ideas that had been accumulated by his mind during long years of
silence.
Wing Biddlebaum talked much with his hands. The slender expressive
fingers, forever active, forever striving to conceal themselves in his pockets or
behind his back, came forth and became the piston rods of his machinery of
expression.
The story of Wing Biddlebaum is a story of hands. Their restless activity, like
unto the beating of the wings of an imprisoned bird, had given him his name.
Some obscure poet of the town had thought of it. The hands alarmed their
owner. He wanted to keep them hidden away and looked with amazement at
the quiet inexpressive hands of other men who worked beside him in the fields,
or passed, driving sleepy teams on country roads.
When he talked to George Willard, Wing Biddlebaum closed his fists and
beat with them upon a table or on the walls of his house. The action made him
more comfortable. If the desire to talk came to him when the two were walking

Thesaurus
inexpressive: (adj) expressionless,
flooded, semiaquatic; (pron)
ramshackle, rachitic, flimsy,
empty, deadpan, vacant,
precarious, cranky, wonky.
drowned.
ANTONYMS: (adj) stable, sturdy,
timidity: (n) shyness, fear,
unexpressive, impassive, not
expressive, characterless,
firm, secure.
bashfulness, nervousness, reserve,
shrill: (adj) piercing, penetrating,
unresponsive, unemotional,
cowardice, fearfulness, timidness,
undemonstrative. ANTONYMS: (adj) strident, keen, shrewd; (v) shriek,
modesty, humility, coyness.
screech, scream, yell; (adj, v) high,
ANTONYMS: (n) confidence,
emotional, soulful.
piston: (n) plunger, piston-knob,
sharp. ANTONYMS: (adj) low, quiet, boastfulness, swagger, brashness,
valve, ram, mechanical device,
resonant.
security.
submerged: (adj) sunken, immersed, wriggle: (n, v) squirm; (v) twist,
injection ram, diver.
rickety: (adj) unstable, wobbly,
submersed, underwater, subaquatic,
wrench, worm, struggle, writhe, turn,
decrepit, dilapidated, insecure,
submarine, covered, inundated,
wrestle, wind, creep, crawl.

Sherwood Anderson

23

in the fields, he sought out a stump or the top board of a fence and with his
hands pounding busily talked with renewed ease.%
The story of Wing Biddlebaum's hands is worth a book in itself.
Sympathetically set forth it would tap many strange, beautiful qualities in
obscure men. It is a job for a poet. In Winesburg the hands had attracted
attention merely because of their activity. With them Wing Biddlebaum had
picked as high as a hundred and forty quarts of strawberries in a day. They
became his distinguishing feature, the source of his fame. Also they made more
grotesque an already grotesque and elusive individuality. Winesburg was proud
of the hands of Wing Biddlebaum in the same spirit in which it was proud of
Banker White's new stone house and Wesley Moyer's bay stallion, Tony Tip, that
had won the two-fifteen trot at the fall races in Cleveland.
As for George Willard, he had many times wanted to ask about the hands. At
times an almost overwhelming curiosity had taken hold of him. He felt that
there must be a reason for their strange activity and their inclination to keep
hidden away and only a growing respect for Wing Biddlebaum kept him from
blurting out the questions that were often in his mind.
Once he had been on the point of asking. The two were walking in the fields
on a summer afternoon and had stopped to sit upon a grassy bank. All afternoon
Wing Biddlebaum had talked as one inspired. By a fence he had stopped and
beating like a giant woodpecker upon the top board had shouted at George
Willard, condemning his tendency to be too much influenced by the people
about him, "You are destroying yourself," he cried. "You have the inclination to
be alone and to dream and you are afraid of dreams. You want to be like others
in town here. You hear them talk and you try to imitate them."
On the grassy bank Wing Biddlebaum had tried again to drive his point
home. His voice became soft and reminiscent, and with a sigh of contentment he
launched into a long rambling talk, speaking as one lost in a dream.
Out of the dream Wing Biddlebaum made a picture for George Willard. In
the picture men lived again in a kind of pastoral golden age. Across a green
open country came clean-limbed young men, some afoot, some mounted upon

Thesaurus
afoot: (n) afloat, prevalent; (v) on foot,
on the tapis, agoing; (adv) walking,
abroach; (adj) underway, itinerant,
current.
busily: (adv) actively, occupiedly,
briskly, industriously, engagedly,
energetically, assiduously, lively,
officiously, fussily, meddlesomely.
ANTONYM: (adv) inactively.
imitate: (n, v) duplicate; (v) forge, ape,
emulate, follow, feign, counterfeit,
mimic, mock, assume, act.

quarts: (n) quart.
races: (n) racing, athletics.
rambling: (adj) disjointed, incoherent,
desultory, discursive, erratic,
excursive, meandering, diffuse, loose,
errant; (adj, n) wandering.
ANTONYMS: (adj) coherent, abrupt,
conclusive, pithy, taciturn, compact.
stallion: (n) entire horse, jennet, horse,
hart, genet, gander, dog, cock, buck,
boar, bayard.
strawberries: (n) genus Fragaria,

Fragaria.
stump: (n) stub, end, pulpit; (v)
confuse, stamp, baffle, perplex,
nonplus, puzzle, bewilder, mystify.
ANTONYM: (v) explain.
trot: (n, v) run; (n) crib, canter, pony,
gait, ride, lope; (v) gallop, general,
frequent, household.
woodpecker: (n) redhead, ivorybill,
pecker, piculet, nib, woodpeck, tool,
Speight, Specht, shaft, redheaded
woodpecker.

24

Winesburg, Ohio

horses. In crowds the young men came to gather about the feet of an old man
who sat beneath a tree in a tiny garden and who talked to them.%
Wing Biddlebaum became wholly inspired. For once he forgot the hands.
Slowly they stole forth and lay upon George Willard's shoulders. Something
new and bold came into the voice that talked. "You must try to forget all you
have learned," said the old man. "You must begin to dream. From this time on
you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices."
Pausing in his speech, Wing Biddlebaum looked long and earnestly at
George Willard. His eyes glowed. Again he raised the hands to caress the boy
and then a look of horror swept over his face.
With a convulsive movement of his body, Wing Biddlebaum sprang to his
feet and thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets. Tears came to his eyes.
"I must be getting along home. I can talk no more with you," he said nervously.
Without looking back, the old man had hurried down the hillside and across
a meadow, leaving George Willard perplexed and frightened upon the grassy
slope. With a shiver of dread the boy arose and went along the road toward
town. "I'll not ask him about his hands," he thought, touched by the memory of
the terror he had seen in the man's eyes. "There's something wrong, but I don't
want to know what it is. His hands have something to do with his fear of me and
of everyone."
And George Willard was right. Let us look briefly into the story of the hands.
Perhaps our talking of them will arouse the poet who will tell the hidden wonder
story of the influence for which the hands were but fluttering pennants of
promise.
In his youth Wing Biddlebaum had been a school teacher in a town in
Pennsylvania. He was not then known as Wing Biddlebaum, but went by the
less euphonic name of Adolph Myers. As Adolph Myers he was much loved by
the boys of his school.
Adolph Myers was meant by nature to be a teacher of youth. He was one of
those rare, little understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as a

Thesaurus
arouse: (v) wake, stir, agitate, excite,
awaken, stimulate, anger, kindle,
provoke, raise; (n, v) rouse.
ANTONYMS: (v) calm, dampen,
stifle, sedate, quiet, pacify, bore,
allay, lull, quench, suppress.
caress: (v) stroke, fondle, tickle, pat,
pet, kiss, nuzzle, cuddle, coddle; (n,
v) touch; (n) endearment.
ANTONYM: (n) hit.
convulsive: (adj) spastic, galvanic,
fitful, paroxysmal, violent, choreic,

unsteady, hysterical; (v) unquiet,
restless, saltatory.
earnestly: (adj, adv) seriously; (adv)
eagerly, intently, zealously, solemnly,
ardently, fervently, heartily, gravely,
warmly, passionately. ANTONYMS:
(adv) indifferently, insincerely,
unconcernedly, jokingly.
euphonic: (adj) euphonical,
melodious, sweet.
perplexed: (adj) confused, puzzled,
baffled, confounded, doubtful,

distracted, disconcerted; (adj, v)
intricate, complicated, lost, involved.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unperplexed,
assured, clear, knowing.
roaring: (n) bellowing, roar, bellow,
thunder; (adj) booming, prosperous,
thriving, flourishing, deafening,
noisy, boisterous.
shiver: (n, v) shake, tremble, shudder,
fragment, thrill, splinter, tingle; (v)
quake, shatter, palpitate; (adj, v)
break.

Sherwood Anderson

25

lovable weakness. In their feeling for the boys under their charge such men are
not unlike the finer sort of women in their love of men.%
And yet that is but crudely stated. It needs the poet there. With the boys of
his school, Adolph Myers had walked in the evening or had sat talking until
dusk upon the schoolhouse steps lost in a kind of dream. Here and there went
his hands, caressing the shoulders of the boys, playing about the tousled heads.
As he talked his voice became soft and musical. There was a caress in that also.
In a way the voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders and the touching
of the hair were a part of the schoolmaster's effort to carry a dream into the
young minds. By the caress that was in his fingers he expressed himself. He was
one of those men in whom the force that creates life is diffused, not centralized.
Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the
boys and they began also to dream.
And then the tragedy. A half-witted boy of the school became enamored of
the young master. In his bed at night he imagined unspeakable things and in
the morning went forth to tell his dreams as facts. Strange, hideous accusations
fell from his loose hung lips. Through the Pennsylvania town went a shiver.
Hidden, shadowy doubts that had been in men's minds concerning Adolph
Myers were galvanized into beliefs.
The tragedy did not linger. Trembling lads were jerked out of bed and
questioned. "He put his arms about me," said one. "His fingers were always
playing in my hair," said another.
One afternoon a man of the town, Henry Bradford, who kept a saloon, came
to the schoolhouse door. Calling Adolph Myers into the school yard he began to
beat him with his fists. As his hard knuckles beat down into the frightened face
of the schoolmaster, his wrath became more and more terrible. Screaming with
dismay, the children ran here and there like disturbed insects. "I'll teach you to
put your hands on my boy, you beast," roared the saloon keeper, who, tired of
beating the master, had begun to kick him about the yard.
Adolph Myers was driven from the Pennsylvania town in the night. With
lanterns in their hands a dozen men came to the door of the house where he

Thesaurus
caressing: (adj) caressive, soft; (n)
petting, foreplay, stimulation,
dalliance, smooching, snuggling,
arousal, hugging, cuddling.
crudely: (adv) roughly, coarsely,
vulgarly, grossly, rawly, harshly,
earthily, uncouthly, impolitely,
boorishly, barbarously. ANTONYMS:
(adv) finely, decently.
diffused: (adj) spread, dispersed, dim,
distributed, softened.
doubts: (adj) doubting.

enamored: (adj) loving, smitten, crazy, tousled: (adj) dishevelled, untidy,
taken with, dotty, amorous, besotted, rumpled, unkempt, frowzled,
captivated, hooked, mad,
uncombed, tangled, crumpled,
enamoured. ANTONYMS: (adj)
knotted, disordered, entangled.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tidy, neat,
sickened, repelled.
half-witted: (adj) imbecile, idiotic,
ordered, kempt.
foolish, weak-minded, simple, half- unspeakable: (adj) ineffable, dreadful,
baked, dull, retarded, dense.
awful, terrible, inexpressible, nasty,
schoolhouse: (n) conservatoire,
horrible, atrocious, indefinable,
shocking; (adj, v) unutterable.
conservatory, school building,
ANTONYMS: (adj) nice, wonderful,
chargehouse, day school, edifice,
school day, building.
pleasant, good, lovely, bearable.

26

Winesburg, Ohio

lived alone and commanded that he dress and come forth. It was raining and
one of the men had a rope in his hands. They had intended to hang the
schoolmaster, but something in his figure, so small, white, and pitiful, touched
their hearts and they let him escape. As he ran away into the darkness they
repented of their weakness and ran after him, swearing and throwing sticks and
great balls of soft mud at the figure that screamed and ran faster and faster into
the darkness.%
For twenty years Adolph Myers had lived alone in Winesburg. He was but
forty but looked sixty-five. The name of Biddlebaum he got from a box of goods
seen at a freight station as he hurried through an eastern Ohio town. He had an
aunt in Winesburg, a black-toothed old woman who raised chickens, and with
her he lived until she died. He had been ill for a year after the experience in
Pennsylvania, and after his recovery worked as a day laborer in the fields, going
timidly about and striving to conceal his hands. Although he did not
understand what had happened he felt that the hands must be to blame. Again
and again the fathers of the boys had talked of the hands. "Keep your hands to
yourself," the saloon keeper had roared, dancing, with fury in the schoolhouse
yard.
Upon the veranda of his house by the ravine, Wing Biddlebaum continued to
walk up and down until the sun had disappeared and the road beyond the field
was lost in the grey shadows. Going into his house he cut slices of bread and
spread honey upon them. When the rumble of the evening train that took away
the express cars loaded with the day's harvest of berries had passed and restored
the silence of the summer night, he went again to walk upon the veranda. In the
darkness he could not see the hands and they became quiet. Although he still
hungered for the presence of the boy, who was the medium through which he
expressed his love of man, the hunger became again a part of his loneliness and
his waiting. Lighting a lamp, Wing Biddlebaum washed the few dishes soiled
by his simple meal and, setting up a folding cot by the screen door that led to the
porch, prepared to undress for the night. A few stray white bread crumbs lay on
the cleanly washed floor by the table; putting the lamp upon a low stool he

Thesaurus
chickens: (n) Galliformes, order
timidly: (adv) fearfully, timorously,
miserable, distressing, mean,
Galliformes.
wretched, poor, sad. ANTONYMS:
cautiously, shyly, diffidently,
cleanly: (adj) clean; (adv) clearly, tidily, (adj) generous, heartwarming,
anxiously, nervously, shily, gingerly,
purely, neatly, freshly, immaculately, admirable, cheerful, fine, happy,
modestly, apprehensively.
ANTONYMS: (adv) confidently,
spotlessly, unsulliedly, fairly,
impressive.
rumble: (n, v) murmur, roll, roar,
unadulteratedly.
bravely, daringly, brashly, fearlessly,
laborer: (n) hand, labourer, operative, grumble, mutter, bang, brawl, sound; decisively, brazenly.
(v) growl; (n) peal, noise.
undress: (v) strip, unclothe, divest,
drudge, labor, employee, manual
soiled: (adj) grubby, dirty, nasty,
laborer, peon, navvy, docker, day
discase, doff, unrobe, strip down,
laborer.
grimy, unclean, filthy, muddy, black, uncase; (n) dishabille, disarray,
pitiful: (adj, n) abject; (adj) pathetic,
mucky, polluted, foul. ANTONYMS: morning dress. ANTONYMS: (v)
(adj) pure, immaculate.
lamentable, piteous, contemptible,
dress, clothe.

Sherwood Anderson

27

began to pick up the crumbs, carrying them to his mouth one by one with
unbelievable %rapidity. In the dense blotch of light beneath the table, the
kneeling figure looked like a priest engaged in some service of his church. The
nervous expressive fingers, flashing in and out of the light, might well have
been mistaken for the fingers of the devotee going swiftly through decade after
decade of his rosary.

Thesaurus
blotch: (adj, n) blot; (n, v) spot, mark,
revelatory, indicative, articulate,
smudge; (n) pimple, stain, freckle,
graphic, emphatic, suggestive, vivid.
splotch, patch, discoloration; (v)
ANTONYMS: (adj) unemotional,
mottle. ANTONYMS: (n) cleanness,
undemonstrative, nondescript, cold,
enhancement.
expressionless, empty, emotionless,
devotee: (n) admirer, buff, enthusiast, inarticulate, innocent, impassive,
fan, addict, follower, lover, adherent, reserved.
groupie; (adj) convert, Christian.
flashing: (adj) bright, sparkling,
ANTONYMS: (n) skeptic, adversary, blinking, meteoric, scintillating, light,
brilliant, dazzling, gleaming; (n) flare,
enemy, foe, opponent, detractor.
expressive: (adj) significant,
flashes.
kneeling: (n) homage, kowtow,
meaningful, descriptive, mobile,

kneelingly, prostration, genuflexion,
genuflection, curtsy, courtesy,
obeisance.
rosary: (n) beads, relics, chaplet,
thurible, bead, string of beads,
garland, censer, cross, Agnus Dei,
crucifix.
swiftly: (adv) rapidly, speedily, fleetly,
promptly, expeditiously, alertly,
hastily, suddenly, readily; (adj, adv)
quickly, fast. ANTONYMS: (adv)
eventually, sluggishly, gradually.

Sherwood Anderson

29

PAPER PILLS

He was an old man with a white beard and huge nose and hands. Long
before the time during which we will know him, he was a doctor and drove a
jaded white horse from house to house through the streets of Winesburg. Later
he married a girl who had money. She had been left a large fertile farm when
her father died. The girl was quiet, tall, and dark, and to many people she
seemed very beautiful. Everyone in Winesburg wondered why she married the
doctor. Within a year after the marriage she died.%
The knuckles of the doctor's hands were extraordinarily large. When the
hands were closed they looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large
as walnuts fastened together by steel rods. He smoked a cob pipe and after his
wife's death sat all day in his empty office close by a window that was covered
with cobwebs. He never opened the window. Once on a hot day in August he
tried but found it stuck fast and after that he forgot all about it.
Winesburg had forgotten the old man, but in Doctor Reefy there were the
seeds of something very fine. Alone in his musty office in the Heffner Block
above the Paris Dry Goods Company's store, he worked ceaselessly, building up
something that he himself destroyed. Little pyramids of truth he erected and
after erecting knocked them down again that he might have the truths to erect
other pyramids.

Thesaurus
beard: (v) defy, dare; (adj, v) brave;
(adj, n) hair; (n) whiskers, moustache,
sloven, facial hair; (n, v) camouflage,
disguise, mask. ANTONYM: (n)
shaven.
ceaselessly: (adv) incessantly,
perpetually, unceasingly, eternally,
unremittingly, continuously,
constantly, everlastingly, continually,
unendingly, uninterruptedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) temporarily,
briefly.

erecting: (n) construction, building,
erection.
fastened: (adj) tied, fast, buttoned,
closed, tight, secure, pinned, binding,
empight, steady, firm. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unfastened, unbuttoned.
jaded: (adj) tired, fatigued, worn,
weary, wearied, fed up, satiate,
worn-out, bored, satiated, sick.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fresh, innocent,
brilliant.
knuckles: (n) brass knuckles, knuckle

duster, weapon, arm, knucks, hand.
musty: (adj) fusty, rancid, stale,
mouldy, rank, bad, obsolete,
antiquated, stuffy, threadbare, trite.
ANTONYMS: (adj) airy, modern.
pyramids: (n) billiards, pingpong,
pool, bagatelle, jackstones, pushball,
hopscotch.
unpainted: (adj) undyed.
walnuts: (n) walnut family, family
Juglandaceae, hickories,
Juglandaceae, pecans.

30

Winesburg, Ohio

Doctor Reefy was a tall man who had worn one suit of clothes for ten years.
It was frayed at the sleeves and little holes had appeared at the knees and
elbows. In the office he wore also a linen duster with huge pockets into which he
continually stuffed scraps of paper. After some weeks the scraps of paper
became little hard round balls, and when the pockets were filled he dumped
them out upon the floor. For ten years he had but one friend, another old man
named John Spaniard who owned a tree nursery. Sometimes, in a playful mood,
old Doctor Reefy took from his pockets a handful of the paper balls and threw
them at the nursery man. "That is to confound you, you blathering old
sentimentalist," he cried, shaking with laughter.%
The story of Doctor Reefy and his courtship of the tall dark girl who became
his wife and left her money to him is a very curious story. It is delicious, like the
twisted little apples that grow in the orchards of Winesburg. In the fall one
walks in the orchards and the ground is hard with frost underfoot. The apples
have been taken from the trees by the pickers. They have been put in barrels and
shipped to the cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with
books, magazines, furniture, and people. On the trees are only a few gnarled
apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor
Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round
place at the side of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs
from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and
filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted
apples.
The girl and Doctor Reefy began their courtship on a summer afternoon. He
was forty-five then and already he had begun the practice of filling his pockets
with the scraps of paper that became hard balls and were thrown away. The
habit had been formed as he sat in his buggy behind the jaded white horse and
went slowly along country roads. On the papers were written thoughts, ends of
thoughts, beginnings of thoughts.
One by one the mind of Doctor Reefy had made the thoughts. Out of many
of them he formed a truth that arose gigantic in his mind. The truth clouded the

Thesaurus
arose: (v) happen, occur.
confound: (v) bewilder, baffle,
dilapidated; (v) secondhand, wilted,
blathering: (adj) loquacious,
shaken, stale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
nonplus, perplex, astonish, puzzle,
amaze, astound, mistake; (adj, v)
blithering, gabbling, jabbering,
pristine, new, smart.
confuse, stupefy. ANTONYMS: (v)
frosted: (adj) rimy, frozen, nacreous,
voluble.
buggy: (adj) nutty, kooky, loony,
explain, clarify, comfort, lose,
opaque, iced, icy, white, pearly,
loopy, balmy; (n) cart, pushchair,
distinguish; (n) understanding.
milky, frigid, crisp.
duster: (n) rag, smock, dustcloth, dust gnarled: (adj) knotty, knotted, gnarly,
trap, truck, pram, random.
clouded: (adj, n) cloudy; (adj) gloomy, storm, dusting machine, spray,
asperous, crisp, deformed, crabbed,
dishcloth, dustrag; (v) doily, doyley,
dark, overcast, obscure, blurred,
roughhewn, wrinkled, unsmooth,
foggy, misty, hazy, bleary; (v)
unpolished. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sponge.
cymophanous. ANTONYM: (adj)
frayed: (adj) threadbare, shabby,
smooth, unknotted, straight.
ragged, tattered, thin, torn; (adj, v)
underfoot: (adj) abject, downtrodden.
clear.

Sherwood Anderson

31

world. It became terrible and then faded away and the little thoughts began
again.%
The tall dark girl came to see Doctor Reefy because she was in the family way
and had become frightened. She was in that condition because of a series of
circumstances also curious.
The death of her father and mother and the rich acres of land that had come
down to her had set a train of suitors on her heels. For two years she saw suitors
almost every evening. Except two they were all alike. They talked to her of
passion and there was a strained eager quality in their voices and in their eyes
when they looked at her. The two who were different were much unlike each
other. One of them, a slender young man with white hands, the son of a jeweler
in Winesburg, talked continually of virginity. When he was with her he was
never off the subject. The other, a black-haired boy with large ears, said nothing
at all but always managed to get her into the darkness, where he began to kiss
her.
For a time the tall dark girl thought she would marry the jeweler's son. For
hours she sat in silence listening as he talked to her and then she began to be
afraid of something. Beneath his talk of virginity she began to think there was a
lust greater than in all the others. At times it seemed to her that as he talked he
was holding her body in his hands. She imagined him turning it slowly about in
the white hands and staring at it. At night she dreamed that he had bitten into
her body and that his jaws were dripping. She had the dream three times, then
she became in the family way to the one who said nothing at all but who in the
moment of his passion actually did bite her shoulder so that for days the marks
of his teeth showed.
After the tall dark girl came to know Doctor Reefy it seemed to her that she
never wanted to leave him again. She went into his office one morning and
without her saying anything he seemed to know what had happened to her.
In the office of the doctor there was a woman, the wife of the man who kept
the bookstore in Winesburg. Like all old-fashioned country practitioners, Doctor
Reefy pulled teeth, and the woman who waited held a handkerchief to her teeth

Thesaurus
bitten: (adj) stung, rabid, annoyed; (v) bandanna, cravat, hanky, wipe,
slender: (adj, v) lean, meager; (adj)
bandana, collar, shawl; (n, v) napkin; little, thin, fine, lithe, slight, delicate,
smitten.
bookstore: (n) bookshop, bookstall,
(v) sudary.
lissom, flimsy, faint. ANTONYMS:
(adj) stocky, fat, wide, considerable,
bookseller, shop, store, library, book jaws: (n) jaw, chops, fauces, chaps,
store, tobacco store, jewelry shop,
mandible, maw, lips, holding device; short, substantial, good, adequate,
(v) mazard.
tobacconists, hardware store.
stout, thick.
dripping: (adj) wet, damp, drenched, jeweler: (n) goldsmith, shaper,
strained: (adj) tense, labored, intense,
sodden, soaked, soggy; (adj, adv)
merchandiser, maker, merchant,
constrained, laboured, unnatural,
sopping, soaking; (adj, v) reeking; (n) silversmith, jewelry maker.
nervous, affected, taut, artificial,
dribble, a drop. ANTONYM: (adj)
lust: (n, v) desire, hunger, itch; (n)
tight. ANTONYMS: (adj) natural,
lacking.
craving, greed, libido, lecherousness, calm.
handkerchief: (n) hankie, kerchief,
cupidity, lewdness; (v) covet, crave. voices: (n) chorus.

32

Winesburg, Ohio

and groaned. Her husband was with her and when the tooth was taken out they
both screamed and blood ran down on the woman's white dress. The tall dark
girl did not pay any attention. When the woman and the man had gone the
doctor smiled. "I will take you driving into the country with me," he said.%
For several weeks the tall dark girl and the doctor were together almost every
day. The condition that had brought her to him passed in an illness, but she was
like one who has discovered the sweetness of the twisted apples, she could not
get her mind fixed again upon the round perfect fruit that is eaten in the city
apartments. In the fall after the beginning of her acquaintanceship with him she
married Doctor Reefy and in the following spring she died. During the winter he
read to her all of the odds and ends of thoughts he had scribbled on the bits of
paper. After he had read them he laughed and stuffed them away in his pockets
to become round hard balls.

Thesaurus
acquaintanceship: (n) familiarity,
ANTONYM: (n) unlikelihood.
relationship, association, friendship, scribbled: (adj) hard to decipher,
awareness.
illegible, indecipherable, impossible
balls: (n) guts, family jewels, intestinal to read, unreadable,
fortitude, nerve, spirit, tenacity,
incomprehensible.
stuffed: (adj) crammed, packed,
valor, audacity, prowess.
bits: (n) odds and ends, scraps, debris. congested, replete, loaded, filled,
eaten: (v) eat.
fraught, chock-full, crowded,
odds: (n) likelihood, probability,
jammed, gorged. ANTONYMS: (adj)
possibility, chance, advantage,
hungry, lacking.
sweetness: (n) sugariness, sweet,
likeliness, chances, disparity,
prospect; (v) dissension; (adj) odd.
redolence, pleasantness, fragrance,

aroma, charm, perfume, amenity,
niceness, kindness. ANTONYMS: (n)
sourness, sharpness, unpleasantness,
harshness, tastelessness, unkindness.
tooth: (n) palate, denticle, trident,
sprocket, saw, premolar, nap, incisor,
grain, eyetooth; (adj) nib.
twisted: (adj) perverted, deformed,
bent, distorted, misshapen, coiled,
twined, curved, wry, contorted; (adj,
v) winding. ANTONYMS: (adj) tidy,
normal, perfect, wholesome.

Sherwood Anderson

33

MOTHER

Elizabeth %Willard, the mother of George Willard, was tall and gaunt and her
face was marked with smallpox scars. Although she was but forty-five, some
obscure disease had taken the fire out of her figure. Listlessly she went about the
disorderly old hotel looking at the faded wall-paper and the ragged carpets and,
when she was able to be about, doing the work of a chambermaid among beds
soiled by the slumbers of fat traveling men. Her husband, Tom Willard, a
slender, graceful man with square shoulders, a quick military step, and a black
mustache trained to turn sharply up at the ends, tried to put the wife out of his
mind. The presence of the tall ghostly figure, moving slowly through the halls,
he took as a reproach to himself. When he thought of her he grew angry and
swore. The hotel was unprofitable and forever on the edge of failure and he
wished himself out of it. He thought of the old house and the woman who lived
there with him as things defeated and done for. The hotel in which he had
begun life so hopefully was now a mere ghost of what a hotel should be. As he
went spruce and business-like through the streets of Winesburg, he sometimes
stopped and turned quickly about as though fearing that the spirit of the hotel
and of the woman would follow him even into the streets. "Damn such a life,
damn it!" he sputtered aimlessly.
Tom Willard had a passion for village politics and for years had been the
leading Democrat in a strongly Republican community. Some day, he told

Thesaurus
aimlessly: (adv) indiscriminately,
irregular; (adj, v) lawless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) orderly, neat,
pointlessly, without aim, randomly,
haphazardly, driftingly, blindly,
arranged, peaceful, organized,
erratically, objectlessly, desultorily,
systematized, conforming, ordered,
vagrantly.
restrained, behaved, coherent.
carpets: (n) carpeting.
reproach: (n, v) blame, rebuke, charge,
chambermaid: (n) maid, fille de
abuse, disgrace, reprimand,
invective; (v) accuse, chide, condemn;
chambre, maidservant, housemaid,
domestic, chamberer, carpetmonger. (n) condemnation. ANTONYMS: (n,
disorderly: (adj) wild, disordered,
v) praise; (v) commend, approve; (n)
chaotic, boisterous, jumbled,
compliment, commendation,
disorganized, unruly, rowdy, untidy, approval.

scars: (n) seams.
smallpox: (n) pox, pock, small pox.
streets: (n) street.
traveling: (n) travel, journey,
travelling, commuting, commutation,
peregrination, circumnavigation; (adj)
riding, touring, nomadic, road.
unprofitable: (adj) profitless, fruitless,
futile, inutile, disadvantageous,
unfruitful, barren, idle, vain,
uneconomic, unproductive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fruitful, lucrative.

34

Winesburg, Ohio

himself, the fide of things political will turn in my favor and the years of
ineffectual service count big in the bestowal of rewards. He dreamed of going
to Congress and even of becoming governor. Once when a younger member of
the party arose at a political conference and began to boast of his faithful service,
Tom Willard grew white with fury. "Shut up, you," he roared, glaring about.
"What do you know of service? What are you but a boy? Look at what I've done
here! I was a Democrat here in Winesburg when it was a crime to be a Democrat.
In the old days they fairly hunted us with guns."
Between Elizabeth and her one son George there was a deep unexpressed
bond of sympathy, based on a girlhood dream that had long ago died. In the
son's presence she was timid and reserved, but sometimes while he hurried
about town intent upon his duties as a reporter, she went into his room and
closing the door knelt by a little desk, made of a kitchen table, that sat near a
window. In the room by the desk she went through a ceremony that was half a
prayer, half a demand, addressed to the skies. In the boyish figure she yearned
to see something half forgotten that had once been a part of herself recreated.
The prayer concerned that. "Even though I die, I will in some way keep defeat
from you," she cried, and so deep was her determination that her whole body
shook. Her eyes glowed and she clenched her fists. "If I am dead and see him
becoming a meaningless drab figure like myself, I will come back," she declared.
"I ask God now to give me that privilege. I demand it. I will pay for it. God may
beat me with his fists. I will take any blow that may befall if but this my boy be
allowed to express something for us both." Pausing uncertainly, the woman
stared about the boy's room. "And do not let him become smart and successful
either," she added vaguely.%
The communion between George Willard and his mother was outwardly a
formal thing without meaning. When she was ill and sat by the window in her
room he sometimes went in the evening to make her a visit. They sat by a
window that looked over the roof of a small frame building into Main Street. By
turning their heads they could see through another window, along an alleyway
that ran behind the Main Street stores and into the back door of Abner Groff's

Thesaurus
bestowal: (n) conferral, presentation,
gift, endowment, contribution,
bestowment, conferment, delivery,
benefaction, gratuity, donation.
boyish: (adj) young, puerile,
adolescent, youthful, babyish,
childish, girlish, kittenish, boylike,
callow, immature. ANTONYM: (adj)
mature.
clenched: (adj) tight, clinched.
drab: (adj) dreary, gloomy, dingy,
cheerless, somber, boring, dowdy,

dark, colorless, dull, depressing.
maidenhood, youth, babyhood,
ANTONYMS: (adj) colorful, vivid,
youthhood, maidhood, age.
ineffectual: (adj) ineffective, futile,
brilliant, chic, flashy, interesting,
cheerful, distinctive, smart, strong.
useless, feeble, abortive, powerless,
favor: (n, v) countenance, aid, grace,
idle, weak, unable, void, vain.
support, benefit, boon; (adj, n)
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong, effectual,
kindness; (n) advantage; (v) befriend, effective, useful, viable, competent,
encourage, patronize. ANTONYMS:
invulnerable, helpful, decisive.
(v) hinder, contradict, dislike, hurt,
unexpressed: (adj) implicit, tacit, mute,
differ, thwart, reject, demean; (n)
implied, unvoiced; (v) undisclosed,
derogation, disapproval, unkindness. unexposed, unbreathed, unsung,
girlhood: (n) adolescence, boyhood,
untalked of; (adj, v) untold.

Sherwood Anderson

35

bakery. Sometimes as they sat thus a picture of village life presented itself to
them. At the back door of his shop appeared Abner Groff with a stick or an
empty milk bottle in his hand. For a long time there was a feud between the
baker and a grey cat that belonged to Sylvester West, the druggist. The boy and
his mother saw the cat creep into the door of the bakery and presently emerge
followed by the baker, who swore and waved his arms about. The baker's eyes
were small and red and his black hair and beard were filled with flour dust.
Sometimes he was so angry that, although the cat had disappeared, he hurled
sticks, bits of broken glass, and even some of the tools of his trade about. Once
he broke a window at the back of Sinning's Hardware Store. In the alley the grey
cat crouched behind barrels filled with torn paper and broken bottles above
which flew a black swarm of flies. Once when she was alone, and after watching
a prolonged and ineffectual outburst on the part of the baker, Elizabeth Willard
put her head down on her long white hands and wept. After that she did not
look along the alleyway any more, but tried to forget the contest between the
bearded man and the cat. It seemed like a rehearsal of her own life, terrible in its
vividness.%
In the evening when the son sat in the room with his mother, the silence
made them both feel awkward. Darkness came on and the evening train came in
at the station. In the street below feet tramped up and down upon a board
sidewalk. In the station yard, after the evening train had gone, there was a
heavy silence. Perhaps Skinner Leason, the express agent, moved a truck the
length of the station platform. Over on Main Street sounded a man's voice,
laughing. The door of the express office banged. George Willard arose and
crossing the room fumbled for the doorknob. Sometimes he knocked against a
chair, making it scrape along the floor. By the window sat the sick woman,
perfectly still, listless. Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen
drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair. "I think you had better be out
among the boys. You are too much indoors," she said, striving to relieve the
embarrassment of the departure. "I thought I would take a walk," replied George
Willard, who felt awkward and confused.

Thesaurus
bloodless: (adj) white, livid, dead,
pharmacy, pharmaceutist,
uninterested, spiritless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lively, animated,
pale, pasty, wan, exsanguine,
dispensatory, drug store,
blanched, anaemic, ghastly, watery.
pharmacopolist, pill roller, drugger,
energetic, strong, spirited.
ANTONYMS: (adj) robust, sanguine, drugster, medical attendant.
sidewalk: (n) footpath, path, walk,
feud: (n) dispute, competition, blood
rosy, bloody, florid, caring, lively.
footway, flags, trottoir, pathway,
doorknob: (n) handle, doorhandle,
feud, conflict, disagreement, feoff; (n, causeway, walkway, curbside,
v) contest, quarrel, affray, fight; (v)
door handle.
doorstep.
drooping: (adj) flabby, pendulous,
battle. ANTONYMS: (v) truce; (n)
sounded: (adj) measured, oral.
swarm: (n) host, horde, multitude,
limp, flaccid, cernuous, flagging,
peace, harmony, accord.
languid, floppy, lax, tired; (n) droop. listless: (adj) indifferent, dull,
drove, throng, cloud, assembly; (n, v)
ANTONYMS: (adj) taut, firm.
mob; (v) teem, pour; (adj) shoal.
indolent, careless, languid, inert,
druggist: (n) apothecary, chemist,
ANTONYMS: (v) retreat; (n) few.
inattentive, dispirited, slow,

36

Winesburg, Ohio

One evening in July, when the transient guests who made the New Willard
House their temporary home had become scarce, and the hallways, lighted only
by kerosene lamps turned low, were plunged in gloom, Elizabeth Willard had an
adventure. She had been ill in bed for several days and her son had not come to
visit her. She was alarmed. The feeble blaze of life that remained in her body
was blown into a flame by her anxiety and she crept out of bed, dressed and
hurried along the hallway toward her son's room, shaking with exaggerated
fears. As she went along she steadied herself with her hand, slipped along the
papered walls of the hall and breathed with difficulty. The air whistled through
her teeth. As she hurried forward she thought how foolish she was. "He is
concerned with boyish affairs," she told herself. "Perhaps he has now begun to
walk about in the evening with girls."
Elizabeth Willard had a dread of being seen by guests in the hotel that had
once belonged to her father and the ownership of which still stood recorded in
her name in the county courthouse. The hotel was continually losing patronage
because of its shabbiness and she thought of herself as also shabby. Her own
room was in an obscure corner and when she felt able to work she voluntarily
worked among the beds, preferring the labor that could be done when the guests
were abroad seeking trade among the merchants of Winesburg.%
By the door of her son's room the mother knelt upon the floor and listened for
some sound from within. When she heard the boy moving about and talking in
low tones a smile came to her lips. George Willard had a habit of talking aloud
to himself and to hear him doing so had always given his mother a peculiar
pleasure. The habit in him, she felt, strengthened the secret bond that existed
between them. A thousand times she had whispered to herself of the matter.
"He is groping about, trying to find himself," she thought. "He is not a dull clod,
all words and smartness. Within him there is a secret something that is striving
to grow. It is the thing I let be killed in myself."
In the darkness in the hallway by the door the sick woman arose and started
again toward her own room. She was afraid that the door would open and the
boy come upon her. When she had reached a safe distance and was about to

Thesaurus
blaze: (n, v) flash, glare, flame, mark,
scintillation; (n) fire, light, burning,
inflammation, sheen; (adj, v) burn.
clod: (adj, n) lump; (n) oaf, glebe, ball,
clay, yokel, gawk, agglomeration,
lout, clump; (adj) block. ANTONYM:
(n) intellect.
courthouse: (n) tribunal, forum, house,
building, town hall.
groping: (adj) fumbling, gropingly,
investigative, incertain, blind,
probing, tentative, uncertain, unsure,

hesitant, exploratory.
ablaze, bright, ignited, burn, burning,
kerosene: (n) petroleum, kerosine, oil, ignite, kindled, lighten.
shabbiness: (n) seediness, raggedness,
paraffin, petrol, fuel oil, distillate,
gas, diesel fuel; (n, v) gasoline; (v)
decrepitude, fragility, weakness,
Naptha.
inelegance, ruin, decay, collapse,
labor: (n, v) toil, endeavor, drudgery,
disrepair. ANTONYMS: (n) opulence,
travail, struggle, confinement,
strength, decency, elegance.
childbirth, delivery, grind; (n) effort, smartness: (n) cleverness, style,
exertion. ANTONYMS: (n, v) rest; (v) stylishness, brightness, intelligence,
relax, ignore; (n) management,
clever, elegance, quickness, swank,
banter, jauntiness. ANTONYMS: (n)
leisure, death, relaxation.
lighted: (adj) illuminated, lit, light,
messiness, stupidity, untidiness.

Sherwood Anderson

37

turn a corner into a second hallway she stopped and bracing herself with her
hands waited, thinking to shake off a trembling fit of weakness that had come
upon her. The presence of the boy in the room had made her happy. In her bed,
during the long hours alone, the little fears that had visited her had become
giants. Now they were all gone. "When I get back to my room I shall sleep," she
murmured gratefully.%
But Elizabeth Willard was not to return to her bed and to sleep. As she stood
trembling in the darkness the door of her son's room opened and the boy's father,
Tom Willard, stepped out. In the light that steamed out at the door he stood
with the knob in his hand and talked. What he said infuriated the woman.
Tom Willard was ambitious for his son. He had always thought of himself as
a successful man, although nothing he had ever done had turned out
successfully. However, when he was out of sight of the New Willard House and
had no fear of coming upon his wife, he swaggered and began to dramatize
himself as one of the chief men of the town. He wanted his son to succeed. He it
was who had secured for the boy the position on the Winesburg Eagle. Now,
with a ring of earnestness in his voice, he was advising concerning some course
of conduct. "I tell you what, George, you've got to wake up," he said sharply.
"Will Henderson has spoken to me three times concerning the matter. He says
you go along for hours not hearing when you are spoken to and acting like a
gawky girl. What ails you?" Tom Willard laughed good-naturedly. "Well, I
guess you'll get over it," he said. "I told Will that. You're not a fool and you're
not a woman. You're Tom Willard's son and you'll wake up. I'm not afraid.
What you say clears things up. If being a newspaper man had put the notion of
becoming a writer into your mind that's all right. Only I guess you'll have to
wake up to do that too, eh?"
Tom Willard went briskly along the hallway and down a flight of stairs to the
office. The woman in the darkness could hear him laughing and talking with a
guest who was striving to wear away a dull evening by dozing in a chair by the
office door. She returned to the door of her son's room. The weakness had
passed from her body as by a miracle and she stepped boldly along. A thousand

Thesaurus
bracing: (n) brace, backing; (adj)
represent. ANTONYMS: (v) reduce,
invigorating, brisk, exhilarating,
understate.
earnestness: (n) seriousness, sincerity,
refreshing, tonic, enlivening, cool,
benign, energizing. ANTONYMS:
gravity, fervor, devotion, graveness,
(adj) soporific, tiring, debilitating,
staidness, honesty; (adj, n) ardor, zeal,
intentness. ANTONYMS: (n)
draining, exhausting, soothing,
warm, balmy, still.
slackness, lightness, carelessness,
dozing: (adj) drowsy, dozy, nodding,
frivolousness, cheerfulness,
napping, asleep, sleepy, tired.
insincerity, flippancy.
dramatize: (v) overstate, exaggerate,
gawky: (adj) awkward, clumsy,
aggrandize, blow up, embroider,
gauche, ungainly, bungling,
adopt, amplify, stage, play up, write, unwieldy, uncouth, maladroit,

inelegant, inept, lumbering.
ANTONYMS: (adj) graceful, elegant.
good-naturedly: (adv) friendly,
obligingly, graciously, nicely, kindheartedly, genially, agreeably.
knob: (n) button, swelling, hump,
knop, protuberance, grip, nub, lump,
node, bump; (adj, n) bulb.
steamed: (adj) squiffy, miffed,
irritated, irate, indignant, incensed,
harried, harassed, stung, sozzled,
soused.

38

Winesburg, Ohio

ideas raced through her head. When she heard the scraping of a chair and the
sound of a pen scratching upon paper, she again turned and went back along the
hallway to her own room.%
A definite determination had come into the mind of the defeated wife of the
Winesburg hotel keeper. The determination was the result of long years of quiet
and rather ineffectual thinking. "Now," she told herself, "I will act. There is
something threatening my boy and I will ward it off." The fact that the
conversation between Tom Willard and his son had been rather quiet and
natural, as though an understanding existed between them, maddened her.
Although for years she had hated her husband, her hatred had always before
been a quite impersonal thing. He had been merely a part of something else that
she hated. Now, and by the few words at the door, he had become the thing
personified. In the darkness of her own room she clenched her fists and glared
about. Going to a cloth bag that hung on a nail by the wall she took out a long
pair of sewing scissors and held them in her hand like a dagger. "I will stab
him," she said aloud. "He has chosen to be the voice of evil and I will kill him.
When I have killed him something will snap within myself and I will die also. It
will be a release for all of us."
In her girlhood and before her marriage with Tom Willard, Elizabeth had
borne a somewhat shaky reputation in Winesburg. For years she had been what
is called "stage-struck" and had paraded through the streets with traveling men
guests at her father's hotel, wearing loud clothes and urging them to tell her of
life in the cities out of which they had come. Once she startled the town by
putting on men's clothes and riding a bicycle down Main Street.
In her own mind the tall dark girl had been in those days much confused. A
great restlessness was in her and it expressed itself in two ways. First there was
an uneasy desire for change, for some big definite movement to her life. It was
this feeling that had turned her mind to the stage. She dreamed of joining some
company and wandering over the world, seeing always new faces and giving
something out of herself to all people. Sometimes at night she was quite beside
herself with the thought, but when she tried to talk of the matter to the members

Thesaurus
dagger: (n) bodkin, sword, blade,
obelisk, knife, stiletto, dirk, cutlass,
grapheme, saber, skean.
maddened: (adj) angry, furious,
deranged, angered, enraged,
moonstruck, fierce, upset,
aggravated, ferocious; (v) frantic.
nail: (n, v) arrest, capture; (v) catch,
collar, apprehend, hook, strike, hit,
fasten, nab; (adj, n) pin. ANTONYMS:
(v) unfasten, detach.
personified: (adj) embodied.

restlessness: (n) anxiety, disquiet,
mark, prick; (v) rubbing; (adj) grating.
scratching: (n) scrape, scraping,
impatience, fidget, uneasiness,
disquietude, unrest, fidgetiness,
abrasion, mark, scar, poor
agitation, insomnia; (adj, n)
handwriting, incision, excoriation,
nervousness. ANTONYMS: (n) calm, chicken feed; (adj) hoarse, abrasive.
sewing: (n) embroidery, sew,
contentment, restfulness, peace.
scissors: (n) clipper, shears, pair of
needlecraft, stitch, stitching,
scissors, scissors hold, compound
fancywork, mend, gather, patch,
lever, edge tool, scissor grip, scissors gathering, binding.
grip; (adj, n) cutters.
stab: (n, v) thrust, impale, jab, pierce,
scraping: (n) scrape, scratching,
prod, dig, stick, pink; (n) try, prick;
scratch, rub, sizing, rament, incision, (v) spike.

Sherwood Anderson

39

of the theatrical companies that came to Winesburg and stopped at her father's
hotel, she got nowhere. They did not seem to know what she meant, or if she did
get something of her passion expressed, they only laughed. "It's not like that,"
they said. "It's as dull and uninteresting as this here. Nothing comes of it."
With the traveling men when she walked about with them, and later with
Tom Willard, it was quite different. Always they seemed to understand and
sympathize with her. On the side streets of the village, in the darkness under the
trees, they took hold of her hand and she thought that something unexpressed in
herself came forth and became a part of an unexpressed something in them.%
And then there was the second expression of her restlessness. When that
came she felt for a time released and happy. She did not blame the men who
walked with her and later she did not blame Tom Willard. It was always the
same, beginning with kisses and ending, after strange wild emotions, with peace
and then sobbing repentance. When she sobbed she put her hand upon the face
of the man and had always the same thought. Even though he were large and
bearded she thought he had become suddenly a little boy. She wondered why he
did not sob also.
In her room, tucked away in a corner of the old Willard House, Elizabeth
Willard lighted a lamp and put it on a dressing table that stood by the door. A
thought had come into her mind and she went to a closet and brought out a
small square box and set it on the table. The box contained material for makeup
and had been left with other things by a theatrical company that had once been
stranded in Winesburg. Elizabeth Willard had decided that she would be
beautiful. Her hair was still black and there was a great mass of it braided and
coiled about her head. The scene that was to take place in the office below began
to grow in her mind. No ghostly worn-out figure should confront Tom Willard,
but something quite unexpected and startling. Tall and with dusky cheeks and
hair that fell in a mass from her shoulders, a figure should come striding down
the stairway before the startled loungers in the hotel office. The figure would be
silent--it would be swift and terrible. As a tigress whose cub had been

Thesaurus
braided: (adj) curled, decorated, artful, formation, character, texture,
tressed, breaded.
construction, cosmetics, organization,
coiled: (adj) curled, curved, twined,
framework, eyeshadow; (adj)
coiling, twisted, convoluted, rolled,
cosmetic.
wavy, bent, round; (adj, v) spiral.
repentance: (n) contrition, penance,
ANTONYM: (adj) uncoiled.
remorse, regret, compunction,
dusky: (adj) dark, cloudy, gloomy,
sorrow, guilt, contriteness, grief,
black, swarthy, dull, murky, obscure, attrition, atonement. ANTONYMS:
(n) shamelessness, brazenness.
dingy, sooty, somber. ANTONYMS:
(adj) light, bright, sunny, radiant,
sympathize: (v) pity, understand,
clear.
condole, compassionate, feel,
makeup: (n) composition, structure,
sympathise, identify with, empathize,

have compassion, feel sorry for, feel
for. ANTONYMS: (v) disapprove,
disregard.
tigress: (n) tiger, shrew.
uninteresting: (adj) insipid, dreary,
tedious, bland, commonplace, flat,
stupid, tame, tasteless, humdrum;
(adj, n) dull. ANTONYMS: (adj)
exciting, fascinating, scandalous,
eventful, impressive, charming,
brilliant, animated, colorful, lively,
special.

40

Winesburg, Ohio

threatened would she appear, coming out of the shadows, stealing noiselessly
along and holding the long wicked scissors in her hand.%
With a little broken sob in her throat, Elizabeth Willard blew out the light that
stood upon the table and stood weak and trembling in the darkness. The
strength that had been as a miracle in her body left and she half reeled across the
floor, clutching at the back of the chair in which she had spent so many long
days staring out over the tin roofs into the main street of Winesburg. In the
hallway there was the sound of footsteps and George Willard came in at the
door. Sitting in a chair beside his mother he began to talk. "I'm going to get out
of here," he said. "I don't know where I shall go or what I shall do but I am going
away."
The woman in the chair waited and trembled. An impulse came to her. "I
suppose you had better wake up," she said. "You think that? You will go to the
city and make money, eh? It will be better for you, you think, to be a business
man, to be brisk and smart and alive?" She waited and trembled.
The son shook his head. "I suppose I can't make you understand, but oh, I
wish I could," he said earnestly. "I can't even talk to father about it. I don't try.
There isn't any use. I don't know what I shall do. I just want to go away and look
at people and think."
Silence fell upon the room where the boy and woman sat together. Again, as
on the other evenings, they were embarrassed. After a time the boy tried again
to talk. "I suppose it won't be for a year or two but I've been thinking about it,"
he said, rising and going toward the door. "Something father said makes it sure
that I shall have to go away." He fumbled with the doorknob. In the room the
silence became unbearable to the woman. She wanted to cry out with joy
because of the words that had come from the lips of her son, but the expression
of joy had become impossible to her. "I think you had better go out among the
boys. You are too much indoors," she said. "I thought I would go for a little
walk," replied the son stepping awkwardly out of the room and closing the door.

Thesaurus
awkwardly: (adv) gawkily, ineptly,
sprightly; (adj, v) quick, smart.
stilly, softly, mutely, delicately,
ANTONYMS: (adj) soporific,
wordlessly, gently, speechlessly; (adj,
ungracefully, embarrassingly,
adv) stealthily; (adj) noiseless.
maladroitly, stiffly, gracelessly,
sluggish, hesitant, tedious,
ANTONYMS: (adv) heavily, audibly.
inopportunely, bunglingly,
temperate, inactive, civil, torpid,
unbearable: (adj) insufferable,
inelegantly, unwieldily.
slack, serious, lethargic.
ANTONYMS: (adv) gracefully,
clutching: (n) locking.
excruciating, insupportable,
hallway: (n) entrance hall, porch,
elegantly, usefully, urbanely,
unendurable, hateful, unacceptable,
contentedly, coherently, calmly,
foyer, corridor, lobby, passage,
repugnant, impossible, grievous,
conveniently, agilely, expertly,
antechamber, aisle, vestibule,
enormous, dreadful. ANTONYMS:
amenably.
passageway, concourse. ANTONYM: (adj) bearable, manageable,
brisk: (adj) bracing, agile, alive, bright, (n) room.
imperceptible, tolerable, wonderful,
noiselessly: (adv) silently, soundlessly, lovable, nice, pleasant.
lively, acute, alert, energetic,

Sherwood Anderson

41

THE PHILOSOPHER

Doctor Parcival was a large man with a drooping mouth covered by a yellow
mustache. He always wore a dirty white waistcoat out of the pockets of which
protruded a number of the kind of black cigars known as stogies. His teeth were
black and irregular and there was something strange about his eyes. The lid of
the left eye twitched; it fell down and snapped up; it was exactly as though the
lid of the eye were a window shade and someone stood inside the doctor's head
playing with the cord.%
Doctor Parcival had a liking for the boy, George Willard. It began when
George had been working for a year on the Winesburg Eagle and the
acquaintanceship was entirely a matter of the doctor's own making.
In the late afternoon Will Henderson, owner and editor of the Eagle, went
over to Tom Willy's saloon. Along an alleyway he went and slipping in at the
back door of the saloon began drinking a drink made of a combination of sloe
gin and soda water. Will Henderson was a sensualist and had reached the age
of forty-five. He imagined the gin renewed the youth in him. Like most
sensualists he enjoyed talking of women, and for an hour he lingered about
gossiping with Tom Willy. The saloon keeper was a short, broad-shouldered
man with peculiarly marked hands. That flaming kind of birthmark that
sometimes paints with red the faces of men and women had touched with red

Thesaurus
alleyway: (n) lane, passage, corridor,
back street, aisle, hallway, walkway,
hall, thoroughfare, street,
passageway.
birthmark: (n) mole, blotch, nevus,
blemish, defect, freckle, macula,
birthmarks, strawberry mark, patch,
beauty spot.
flaming: (adj, n) burning, ardent,
glowing, passionate; (adj) blazing,
ablaze, aflame, hot; (n) enthusiastic,
flame, fire. ANTONYMS: (adj)

extinguished, placid, gentle, quiet.
Allegheny plum, Alleghany plum;
gossiping: (adj) gabby, garrulous,
(adj) jet, coal pitch, ebony, ink,
scandalous; (n) gossipmongering.
charcoal, smut, soot.
paints: (n) colors.
soda: (n) soda pop, soda water,
protruded: (adj) extant, outstanding.
sodium carbonate, sal soda, Leblanc
sensualist: (n) epicure, hedonist,
process, sodium oxide, carbonated
voluptuary, gastronome, cocksucker, water, sodium bicarbonate, seltzer,
bisexual, sensationalist, lecher,
cold drink, restorative.
waistcoat: (n) CHUDDER, barbe,
glutton, gourmet, rake.
slipping: (n) skidding, slippage; (adj)
garment, jerkin, jubbah, oilskins,
slithering, gliding, down, labent.
pilot jacket, pajamas, cardigan,
sloe: (n) blackthorn, Prunus Spinosa,
singlet, talma jacket.

42

Winesburg, Ohio

Tom Willy's fingers and the backs of his hands. As he stood by the bar talking to
Will Henderson he rubbed the hands together. As he grew more and more
excited the red of his fingers deepened. It was as though the hands had been
dipped in blood that had dried and faded.%
As Will Henderson stood at the bar looking at the red hands and talking of
women, his assistant, George Willard, sat in the office of the Winesburg Eagle
and listened to the talk of Doctor Parcival.
Doctor Parcival appeared immediately after Will Henderson had
disappeared. One might have supposed that the doctor had been watching from
his office window and had seen the editor going along the alleyway. Coming in
at the front door and finding himself a chair, he lighted one of the stogies and
crossing his legs began to talk. He seemed intent upon convincing the boy of the
advisability of adopting a line of conduct that he was himself unable to define.
"If you have your eyes open you will see that although I call myself a doctor I
have mighty few patients," he began. "There is a reason for that. It is not an
accident and it is not because I do not know as much of medicine as anyone here.
I do not want patients. The reason, you see, does not appear on the surface. It
lies in fact in my character, which has, if you think about it, many strange turns.
Why I want to talk to you of the matter I don't know. I might keep still and get
more credit in your eyes. I have a desire to make you admire me, that's a fact. I
don't know why. That's why I talk. It's very amusing, eh?"
Sometimes the doctor launched into long tales concerning himself. To the
boy the tales were very real and full of meaning. He began to admire the fat
unclean-looking man and, in the afternoon when Will Henderson had gone,
looked forward with keen interest to the doctor's coming.
Doctor Parcival had been in Winesburg about five years. He came from
Chicago and when he arrived was drunk and got into a fight with Albert
Longworth, the baggageman. The fight concerned a trunk and ended by the
doctor's being escorted to the village lockup. When he was released he rented a
room above a shoe-repairing shop at the lower end of Main Street and put out
the sign that announced himself as a doctor. Although he had but few patients

Thesaurus
admire: (v) revere, look up to, idolize,
appreciate, adore, wonder, praise,
worship, admiring, esteem, honor.
ANTONYMS: (v) despise, loathe,
scorn, hate, condemn, abhor,
disrespect, detest, disregard,
disapprove, deprecate.
advisability: (n) suitability, fitness,
wiseness, advisableness, desirability,
wisdom, soundness, appropriateness,
propriety, advantage, adventure.
ANTONYMS: (n) foolishness,

unsuitability.
amusing: (adj) humorous, fun,
pleasant, entertaining, risible,
comical, diverting, enjoyable,
laughable, agreeable, pleasing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tragic, boring,
unpleasant, unfunny, tiring, grim,
depressing, sad, annoying, heavy,
serious.
deepened: (adj) concentrated,
gathered.
dipped: (adj) immersed, unfit,

swaybacked, lordotic, curved in,
swayback.
grew: (v) become, develop; (adj)
grown.
lockup: (n) penitentiary, prison,
locking, gaol, jailhouse, dungeon,
protection, jug, Bastille, bridewell,
tollbooth.
rented: (adj) on loan, borrowed.
trunk: (n) stem, boot, torso, bole, body,
stalk, snout, proboscis, stock, tree
trunk, box.

Sherwood Anderson

43

and these of the poorer sort who were unable to pay, he seemed to have plenty
of money for his needs. He slept in the office that was unspeakably dirty and
dined at Biff Carter's lunch room in a small frame building opposite the railroad
station. In the summer the lunch room was filled with flies and Biff Carter's
white apron was more dirty than his floor. Doctor Parcival did not mind. Into
the lunch room he stalked and deposited twenty cents upon the counter. "Feed
me what you wish for that," he said laughing. "Use up food that you wouldn't
otherwise sell. It makes no difference to me. I am a man of distinction, you see.
Why should I concern myself with what I eat."
The tales that Doctor Parcival told George Willard began nowhere and ended
nowhere. Sometimes the boy thought they must all be inventions, a pack of lies.
And then again he was convinced that they contained the very essence of truth.%
"I was a reporter like you here," Doctor Parcival began. "It was in a town in
Iowa--or was it in Illinois? I don't remember and anyway it makes no difference.
Perhaps I am trying to conceal my identity and don't want to be very definite.
Have you ever thought it strange that I have money for my needs although I do
nothing? I may have stolen a great sum of money or been involved in a murder
before I came here. There is food for thought in that, eh? If you were a really
smart newspaper reporter you would look me up. In Chicago there was a Doctor
Cronin who was murdered. Have you heard of that? Some men murdered him
and put him in a trunk. In the early morning they hauled the trunk across the
city. It sat on the back of an express wagon and they were on the seat as
unconcerned as anything. Along they went through quiet streets where
everyone was asleep. The sun was just coming up over the lake. Funny, eh--just
to think of them smoking pipes and chattering as they drove along as
unconcerned as I am now. Perhaps I was one of those men. That would be a
strange turn of things, now wouldn't it, eh?" Again Doctor Parcival began his
tale: "Well, anyway there I was, a reporter on a paper just as you are here,
running about and getting little items to print. My mother was poor. She took in
washing. Her dream was to make me a Presbyterian minister and I was studying
with that end in view.

Thesaurus
apron: (n) skirt, proscenium, pall,
pontificals, lawn sleeves, pinafore,
petticoat, gathering head, wife, jupe,
farthingale.
chattering: (n) chatter, cackle, yak,
grabbing, claver; (adj) talkative,
loquacious, noisy, gabby, garrulous;
(v) natter.
heard: (n) hearing.
poorer: (adj) lesser, substandard,
subordinate, of inferior quality, not
as good as, lower, junior, minor.

ANTONYMS: (adj) superior, higher.
annoyed, strict.
railroad: (n) railway, railway system, unspeakably: (adv) indescribably,
tram road, tramway, rails, doctrine;
horrifically, horrifyingly,
(v) dragoon, push, coerce, bully,
staggeringly, inexcusably,
dispatch.
unbearably, unkindly, unpleasantly,
unconcerned: (adj) apathetic,
unutterably, offensively,
detached, insouciant, casual, careless, horrendously. ANTONYM: (adv)
nonchalant, thoughtless, easygoing,
pleasantly.
listless, carefree; (adj, n) cold.
wagon: (n) truck, wain, paddy wagon,
ANTONYMS: (adj) caring, eager,
waggon, lorry, station wagon, dray,
troubled, sensitive, uptight, craving,
car, chariot, Jagger wagon, beach
involved, energetic, interested,
wagon.

44

Winesburg, Ohio

"My father had been insane for a number of years. He was in an asylum over
at Dayton, Ohio. There you see I have let it slip out! All of this took place in
Ohio, right here in Ohio. There is a clew if you ever get the notion of looking me
up.%
"I was going to tell you of my brother. That's the object of all this. That's
what I'm getting at. My brother was a railroad painter and had a job on the Big
Four. You know that road runs through Ohio here. With other men he lived in a
box car and away they went from town to town painting the railroad propertyswitches, crossing gates, bridges, and stations.
"The Big Four paints its stations a nasty orange color. How I hated that color!
My brother was always covered with it. On pay days he used to get drunk and
come home wearing his paint-covered clothes and bringing his money with him.
He did not give it to mother but laid it in a pile on our kitchen table.
"About the house he went in the clothes covered with the nasty orange
colored paint. I can see the picture. My mother, who was small and had red,
sad-looking eyes, would come into the house from a little shed at the back.
That's where she spent her time over the washtub scrubbing people's dirty
clothes. In she would come and stand by the table, rubbing her eyes with her
apron that was covered with soap-suds.
"'Don't touch it! Don't you dare touch that money,' my brother roared, and
then he himself took five or ten dollars and went tramping off to the saloons.
When he had spent what he had taken he came back for more. He never gave
my mother any money at all but stayed about until he had spent it all, a little at a
time. Then he went back to his job with the painting crew on the railroad. After
he had gone things began to arrive at our house, groceries and such things.
Sometimes there would be a dress for mother or a pair of shoes for me.
"Strange, eh? My mother loved my brother much more than she did me,
although he never said a kind word to either of us and always raved up and
down threatening us if we dared so much as touch the money that sometimes lay
on the table three days.

Thesaurus
began: (v) Gan.
clew: (n) cue, clod, glob, knob,
footmark, footprint, vestige; (v) point
out; (adj) pellet, globule, Pelote.
color: (n, v) flush, blush, tint, tinge,
paint, stain; (adj, n, v) colour; (v)
redden; (n) guise, complexion; (adj, n)
tone. ANTONYMS: (v) discolor, pale,
show, whiten, untwist, denote,
depict, represent, blanch, blench.
colored: (adj) chromatic, black, tinged,
tinted, colorful, dyed, coloured,

partial, dark, bleached, biased.
ANTONYMS: (adj) truthful, white,
uncolored, unbiased, pale, objective,
honest, genuine, real.
dollars: (n) bread.
gates: (n) bill Gates.
groceries: (n) foodstuff, provisions,
chow, victuals, grocery,
compensation, earnings, essential,
fare, fundamental, heart.
insane: (adj) foolish, daft, demented,
mad, delirious, lunatic, fool,

moonstruck, frantic, idiotic, nutty.
ANTONYM: (adj) sensible.
rubbing: (n) friction, abrasion,
grinding, detrition, rub, grip,
resistance, chafe, sweat, travail,
massage. ANTONYM: (n)
smoothness.
scrubbing: (n) scrub, stripping,
cleaning, bush, cleansing, cleanup,
mopping, sanitizing, bath, chaparral.
tramping: (adj) moving.
washtub: (n) vat, laundry tray.

Sherwood Anderson

45

"We got along pretty well. I studied to be a minister and prayed. I was a
regular ass about saying prayers. You should have heard me. When my father
died I prayed all night, just as I did sometimes when my brother was in town
drinking and going about buying the things for us. In the evening after supper I
knelt by the table where the money lay and prayed for hours. When no one was
looking I stole a dollar or two and put it in my pocket. That makes me laugh
now but then it was terrible. It was on my mind all the time. I got six dollars a
week from my job on the paper and always took it straight home to mother. The
few dollars I stole from my brother's pile I spent on myself, you know, for trifles,
candy and cigarettes and such things.%
"When my father died at the asylum over at Dayton, I went over there. I
borrowed some money from the man for whom I worked and went on the train
at night. It was raining. In the asylum they treated me as though I were a king.
"The men who had jobs in the asylum had found out I was a newspaper
reporter. That made them afraid. There had been some negligence, some
carelessness, you see, when father was ill. They thought perhaps I would write
it up in the paper and make a fuss. I never intended to do anything of the kind.
"Anyway, in I went to the room where my father lay dead and blessed the
dead body. I wonder what put that notion into my head. Wouldn't my brother,
the painter, have laughed, though. There I stood over the dead body and spread
out my hands. The superintendent of the asylum and some of his helpers came
in and stood about looking sheepish. It was very amusing. I spread out my
hands and said, 'Let peace brood over this carcass.' That's what I said. "
Jumping to his feet and breaking off the tale, Doctor Parcival began to walk
up and down in the office of the Winesburg Eagle where George Willard sat
listening. He was awkward and, as the office was small, continually knocked
against things. "What a fool I am to be talking," he said. "That is not my object in
coming here and forcing my acquaintanceship upon you. I have something else
in mind. You are a reporter just as I was once and you have attracted my
attention. You may end by becoming just such another fool. I want to warn you
and keep on warning you. That's why I seek you out."

Thesaurus
blessed: (adj) happy, holy, cursed,
sugarplum, sugar candy, praline,
lozenge, confection, lollipop; (adj, n)
sacred, damned, hallowed, blasted,
fortunate, saintly, lucky, divine.
cake.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unlucky,
carelessness: (n) negligence,
condemned, damned, disapproved,
inattention, indifference,
unhappy, unholy, secular.
nonchalance, thoughtlessness,
brood: (n, v) breed; (v) sulk, think,
abandon, incaution, disregard,
incubate; (n) offspring, issue,
omission, forgetfulness, dereliction.
ANTONYMS: (n) attention, caution,
progeny, young, posterity, family;
(adj, n) herd. ANTONYMS: (v)
alertness, vigilance, carefulness,
reassure, delight, console.
thoughtfulness, assiduousness,
candy: (n) bonbon, sweet, toffee, taffy, economy, regard, prudence,

forethought.
cigarettes: (n) tobacco, cigaret.
raining: (adj) rainy, showery, drizzly;
(n) woe. ANTONYM: (adj) dry.
sheepish: (adj) coy, diffident,
shamefaced, bashful, shy, guilty,
embarrassed, nervous, skittish, fainthearted, pusillanimous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unabashed,
proud.
trifles: (n) jests, nonsense, nugae,
trivia.

46

Winesburg, Ohio

Doctor Parcival began talking of George Willard's attitude toward men. It
seemed to the boy that the man had but one object in view, to make everyone
seem despicable. "I want to fill you with hatred and contempt so that you will
be a superior being," he declared. "Look at my brother. There was a fellow, eh?
He despised everyone, you see. You have no idea with what contempt he
looked upon mother and me. And was he not our superior? You know he was.
You have not seen him and yet I have made you feel that. I have given you a
sense of it. He is dead. Once when he was drunk he lay down on the tracks and
the car in which he lived with the other painters ran over him."
One day in August Doctor Parcival had an adventure in Winesburg. For a
month George Willard had been going each morning to spend an hour in the
doctor's office. The visits came about through a desire on the part of the doctor
to read to the boy from the pages of a book he was in the process of writing. To
write the book Doctor Parcival declared was the object of his coming to
Winesburg to live.%
On the morning in August before the coming of the boy, an incident had
happened in the doctor's office. There had been an accident on Main Street. A
team of horses had been frightened by a train and had run away. A little girl, the
daughter of a farmer, had been thrown from a buggy and killed.
On Main Street everyone had become excited and a cry for doctors had gone
up. All three of the active practitioners of the town had come quickly but had
found the child dead. From the crowd someone had run to the office of Doctor
Parcival who had bluntly refused to go down out of his office to the dead child.
The useless cruelty of his refusal had passed unnoticed. Indeed, the man who
had come up the stairway to summon him had hurried away without hearing
the refusal.
All of this, Doctor Parcival did not know and when George Willard came to
his office he found the man shaking with terror. "What I have done will arouse
the people of this town," he declared excitedly. "Do I not know human nature?
Do I not know what will happen? Word of my refusal will be whispered about.
Presently men will get together in groups and talk of it. They will come here.

Thesaurus
bluntly: (adv) frankly, directly, rudely, laudable, endearing, commendable,
nonchalantly, indifferently,
bluffly, coarsely, forthrightly,
lovable.
despondently, unenthusiastically.
painters: (n) painter.
candidly, curtly, brusquely, gruffly, despised: (adj) scorned, despicable,
openly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
stairway: (n) ladder, stairs, flight, stair,
hated, abject, disparaged, mean,
deceitfully, hesitantly, indirectly,
attaching disgrace, unpopular,
steps, flight of steps, companionway,
guardedly, politely.
unloved, reviled, opprobrious.
roadway, backstairs, escalator,
despicable: (adj) vile, base,
excitedly: (adv) passionately,
pathway.
summon: (v) assemble, convene,
abominable, mean, abject, miserable, feverishly, wildly, frantically,
dishonorable, filthy, dirty, hateful,
nervously, ardently, enthusiastically, demand, ask, invoke, evoke, invite,
ignoble. ANTONYMS: (adj)
eagerly, animatedly, fervently,
muster, page, rally, convoke.
cheerfully. ANTONYMS: (adv)
ANTONYM: (v) disband.
honorable, creditable, praiseworthy,
tracks: (n) network.
worthy, noble, loveable, likable,
lifelessly, patiently, peacefully,

Sherwood Anderson

47

We will quarrel and there will be talk of hanging. Then they will come again
bearing a rope in their hands."%
Doctor Parcival shook with fright. "I have a presentiment," he declared
emphatically. "It may be that what I am talking about will not occur this
morning. It may be put off until tonight but I will be hanged. Everyone will get
excited. I will be hanged to a lamp-post on Main Street."
Going to the door of his dirty office, Doctor Parcival looked timidly down the
stairway leading to the street. When he returned the fright that had been in his
eyes was beginning to be replaced by doubt. Coming on tiptoe across the room
he tapped George Willard on the shoulder. "If not now, sometime," he
whispered, shaking his head. "In the end I will be crucified, uselessly crucified."
Doctor Parcival began to plead with George Willard. "You must pay
attention to me," he urged. "If something happens perhaps you will be able to
write the book that I may never get written. The idea is very simple, so simple
that if you are not careful you will forget it. It is this--that everyone in the world
is Christ and they are all crucified. That's what I want to say. Don't you forget
that. Whatever happens, don't you dare let yourself forget."

Thesaurus
emphatically: (adv) decidedly,
definitely, positively, categorically,
flatly, distinctly, absolutely,
explicitly, forcefully, firmly,
expressly.
fright: (n, v) dismay, alarm, scare,
affright; (n) awe, fear, dread, terror,
horror, consternation, apprehension.
ANTONYMS: (n) calm, fearlessness,
courage, confidence, security.
plead: (v) entreat, implore, beg, adjure,
petition, ask, appeal, defend, invoke,

sue; (n, v) allege. ANTONYMS: (v)
answer, demand.
quarrel: (adj, n, v) dispute; (n, v) fight,
feud, brawl, row, altercation, argue,
conflict, squabble; (n) dissension,
difference. ANTONYMS: (n)
agreement, reconciliation,
acceptance, concord, consensus; (v)
agree.
rope: (n, v) lasso, leash, tie, tape; (n)
lariat, noose, hawser, line, string,
cord, thread.

tapped: (adj) poor, powerless, helpless.
ANTONYM: (adj) untapped.
tiptoe: (v) tip, tippytoe, creep, patter,
skirt, skip, tilt, sidle, lean; (adj) alert;
(n) quieter. ANTONYM: (v) clump.
tonight: (adv) this night.
uselessly: (adv) ineffectually, futilely,
fruitlessly, needlessly, pointlessly, in
vain, worthlessly, abortively,
hopelessly, bootlessly, unnecessarily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) helpfully,
successfully, effectively.

Sherwood Anderson

49

NOBODY KNOWS

Looking cautiously about, George Willard arose from his desk in the office of
the Winesburg Eagle and went hurriedly out at the back door. The night was
warm and cloudy and although it was not yet eight o'clock, the alleyway back of
the Eagle office was pitch dark. A team of horses tied to a post somewhere in the
darkness stamped on the hard-baked ground. A cat sprang from under George
Willard's feet and ran away into the night. The young man was nervous. All
day he had gone about his work like one dazed by a blow. In the alleyway he
trembled as though with fright.%
In the darkness George Willard walked along the alleyway, going carefully
and cautiously. The back doors of the Winesburg stores were open and he could
see men sitting about under the store lamps. In Myerbaum's Notion Store Mrs.
Willy the saloon keeper's wife stood by the counter with a basket on her arm. Sid
Green the clerk was waiting on her. He leaned over the counter and talked
earnestly.
George Willard crouched and then jumped through the path of light that
came out at the door. He began to run forward in the darkness. Behind Ed
Griffith's saloon old Jerry Bird the town drunkard lay asleep on the ground. The
runner stumbled over the sprawling legs. He laughed brokenly.

Thesaurus
brokenly: (adv) interruptedly,
low, huddled.
dazed: (adj) bewildered, stunned,
disconnectedly, crackedly,
irregularly, faultily, fragmentarily,
dumbfounded, muzzy, stupefied,
tamely, intermittently, ruggedly,
dizzy, stupid, groggy, amazed,
discontinuously, defectively.
astounded, bleary. ANTONYMS:
cloudy: (adj) dull, gloomy, nebulous,
(adj) indifferent, unimpressed,
murky, dark, turbid, foggy, muddy,
conscious.
drunkard: (n) alcoholic, drinker,
misty, sunless, vaporous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clear, bright,
boozer, dipsomaniac, rummy,
sunny, cloudless.
inebriate, toper, sot, bibber, lush,
crouched: (v) subjacent, squat; (adj)
imbiber.
crutched, hunkered down, hunkered, hurriedly: (adv) rapidly, quickly,

swiftly, abruptly, promptly, fast, in
haste, suddenly, speedily, rashly,
precipitately. ANTONYMS: (adv)
calmly, unhurriedly, patiently,
carefully, gradually, thoroughly.
sprawling: (adj) sprawled, roomy,
sizeable, untidy, straggling,
expansive, sprawly, wide, extensive;
(adv) asprawl; (n) attitude.
ANTONYM: (adj) narrow.
stamped: (adj) beaten, marked,
pressed, printed; (v) fixed, engraved.

50

Winesburg, Ohio

George Willard had set forth upon an adventure. All day he had been trying
to make up his mind to go through with the adventure and now he was acting.
In the office of the Winesburg Eagle he had been sitting since six o'clock trying to
think.%
There had been no decision. He had just jumped to his feet, hurried past Will
Henderson who was reading proof in the print-shop and started to run along the
alleyway.
Through street after street went George Willard, avoiding the people who
passed. He crossed and re-crossed the road. When he passed a street lamp he
pulled his hat down over his face. He did not dare think. In his mind there was
a fear but it was a new kind of fear. He was afraid the adventure on which he
had set out would be spoiled, that he would lose courage and turn back.
George Willard found Louise Trunnion in the kitchen of her father's house.
She was washing dishes by the light of a kerosene lamp. There she stood behind
the screen door in the little shed-like kitchen at the back of the house. George
Willard stopped by a picket fence and tried to control the shaking of his body.
Only a narrow potato patch separated him from the adventure. Five minutes
passed before he felt sure enough of himself to call to her. "Louise! Oh, Louise!"
he called. The cry stuck in his throat. His voice became a hoarse whisper.
Louise Trunnion came out across the potato patch holding the dish cloth in
her hand. "How do you know I want to go out with you," she said sulkily.
"What makes you so sure?"
George Willard did not answer. In silence the two stood in the darkness with
the fence between them. "You go on along," she said. "Pa's in there. I'll come
along. You wait by Williams' barn."
The young newspaper reporter had received a letter from Louise Trunnion.
It had come that morning to the office of the Winesburg Eagle. The letter was
brief. "I'm yours if you want me," it said. He thought it annoying that in the
darkness by the fence she had pretended there was nothing between them. "She
has a nerve! Well, gracious sakes, she has a nerve," he muttered as he went along

Thesaurus
annoying: (adj) galling, vexatious,
aggravating, vexing, worrying,
awkward, trying, bothersome,
disagreeable; (adj, v) irritating; (n)
annoyance. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pleasing, delightful, pleasant,
charming, satisfying, welcome,
convenient.
avoiding: (n) shunning; (adj) fugitive,
antisocial.
gracious: (adj) genial, benign, good,
courteous, compassionate, kind,

accommodating, civil; (adj, n)
benevolent, congenial, gentle.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ungracious,
boorish, discourteous, reserved, rude,
abrupt, critical, unkind, hardhearted,
harsh, poor.
hoarse: (adj) gruff, husky, raucous,
grating, strident, guttural, rough,
throaty; (v) coarse; (adj, v) hollow,
sepulchral. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, mellow, velvety, high.
picket: (n) watch, pale, palisade, fence,

post, stake, sentinel, sentry, guard,
piquet; (adj, v) moor.
spoiled: (adj) bad, rotten, stale, spoil,
coddled, pampered, corrupt,
damaged, spoilt, putrid, rancid.
ANTONYM: (adj) unspoiled.
sulkily: (adv) morosely, glumly,
peevishly, crossly, grumpily,
petulantly, moodily, gloomily, surly,
resentfully, angrily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) cheerily, gladly.
yours: (adj) own.

Sherwood Anderson

51

the street and passed a row of vacant lots where corn grew. The corn was
shoulder high and had been planted right down to the sidewalk.%
When Louise Trunnion came out of the front door of her house she still wore
the gingham dress in which she had been washing dishes. There was no hat on
her head. The boy could see her standing with the doorknob in her hand talking
to someone within, no doubt to old Jake Trunnion, her father. Old Jake was half
deaf and she shouted. The door closed and everything was dark and silent in the
little side street. George Willard trembled more violently than ever.
In the shadows by Williams' barn George and Louise stood, not daring to
talk. She was not particularly comely and there was a black smudge on the side
of her nose. George thought she must have rubbed her nose with her finger after
she had been handling some of the kitchen pots.
The young man began to laugh nervously. "It's warm," he said. He wanted
to touch her with his hand. "I'm not very bold," he thought. Just to touch the
folds of the soiled gingham dress would, he decided, be an exquisite pleasure.
She began to quibble. "You think you're better than I am. Don't tell me, I guess I
know," she said drawing closer to him.
A flood of words burst from George Willard. He remembered the look that
had lurked in the girl's eyes when they had met on the streets and thought of the
note she had written. Doubt left him. The whispered tales concerning her that
had gone about town gave him confidence. He became wholly the male, bold
and aggressive. In his heart there was no sympathy for her. "Ah, come on, it'll
be all right. There won't be anyone know anything. How can they know?" he
urged.
They began to walk along a narrow brick sidewalk between the cracks of
which tall weeds grew. Some of the bricks were missing and the sidewalk was
rough and irregular. He took hold of her hand that was also rough and thought
it delightfully small. "I can't go far," she said and her voice was quiet,
unperturbed.

Thesaurus
bricks: (n) walk, highway.
comely: (adj) beautiful, good-looking,
decent, fair, attractive, decorous,
shapely, proper; (adj, adv, v) seemly;
(adj, adv) sightly, lovely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) repulsive,
homely, plain, revolting, unattractive,
ugly.
delightfully: (adv) pleasantly,
enchantingly, exquisitely, gladly,
charmingly, finely, sweetly,
deliciously, beautifully, merrily; (adv,

v) happily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
unattractively, horribly, disagreeably.
folds: (n) laps.
gingham: (n) cloth.
quibble: (adj, n, v) pun; (adv, v)
equivocate; (n, v) cavil; (v) evade,
fence, bicker; (n) evasion, quiddity,
equivocation, equivoque; (adj, n)
subtlety. ANTONYM: (v) accept.
rubbed: (adj) polished, refined, terse,
attrite, marked, accomplished,
fretten.

smudge: (adj, n, v) blot, daub; (n, v)
smear, stain, blemish, slur, smirch;
(adj, v) blur; (n) spot, blotch; (v) foul.
unperturbed: (adj, v) unruffled; (adj)
calm, tranquil, placid, cool,
unconcerned, composed, unflustered,
untroubled, easy; (v) undisturbed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) agitated, anxious,
perturbed.
weeds: (n) viduity, mourning band,
garment, cypress, widowhood, dress;
(adj) willow.

52

Winesburg, Ohio

They crossed a bridge that ran over a tiny stream and passed another vacant
lot in which corn grew. The street ended. In the path at the side of the road they
were compelled to walk one behind the other. Will Overton's berry field lay
beside the road and there was a pile of boards. "Will is going to build a shed to
store berry crates here," said George and they sat down upon the boards.%
When George Willard got back into Main Street it was past ten o'clock and
had begun to rain. Three times he walked up and down the length of Main
Street. Sylvester West's Drug Store was still open and he went in and bought a
cigar. When Shorty Crandall the clerk came out at the door with him he was
pleased. For five minutes the two stood in the shelter of the store awning and
talked. George Willard felt satisfied. He had wanted more than anything else to
talk to some man. Around a corner toward the New Willard House he went
whistling softly.
On the sidewalk at the side of Winney's Dry Goods Store where there was a
high board fence covered with circus pictures, he stopped whistling and stood
perfectly still in the darkness, attentive, listening as though for a voice calling his
name. Then again he laughed nervously. "She hasn't got anything on me.
Nobody knows," he muttered doggedly and went on his way.

Thesaurus
attentive: (adj) assiduous, diligent,
heedful, watchful, observant,
advertent, mindful, careful, aware,
alert, respectful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unfocused, negligent, neglectful,
forgetful, heedless, unobservant,
rude, unprepared, unconscious,
uncaring, inconsiderate.
awning: (n) screen, shade, tilt,
sunblind, marquee, umbrella, blind,
canopy, cover, tarpaulin, shelter.
berry: (n) fruit, kernel, berries,

grain; (v) feed, keep; (adj, n)
cranberry, currant, dewberry,
hackberry, wintergreen,
commonplace.
doggedly: (adv) stubbornly, firmly,
whortleberry, teaberry, mulberry.
circus: (n) arena, hippodrome, circle,
tenaciously, persistently, resolutely,
ring, square, pygargus, Flavian
pertinaciously, perseveringly,
amphitheater, amphitheater, cockpit, obdurately, steadfastly, untiringly,
steadily. ANTONYM: (adv)
turf, troupe.
compelled: (adj) forced, obligate,
hesitantly.
o'clock: (n) period, hours.
enforced, constrained, responsible,
whistling: (n) whistle, sound, tin
answerable, unwilling, destined.
corn: (n) clavus, cereals, Zea Mays,
whistle, music, pennywhistle, sign,
callus, wheat, Indian corn, callosity,
signal, signaling.

Sherwood Anderson

GODLINESS
A TALE IN FOUR PARTS

53

Sherwood Anderson

55

PART ONE
CONCERNING JESSE BENTLEY

There were always three or four old people sitting on the front porch of the
house or puttering about the garden of the Bentley farm. Three of the old people
were women and sisters to Jesse. They were a colorless, soft voiced lot. Then
there was a silent old man with thin white hair who was Jesse's uncle.%
The farmhouse was built of wood, a board outer-covering over a framework
of logs. It was in reality not one house but a cluster of houses joined together in a
rather haphazard manner. Inside, the place was full of surprises. One went up
steps from the living room into the dining room and there were always steps to
be ascended or descended in passing from one room to another. At meal times
the place was like a beehive. At one moment all was quiet, then doors began to
open, feet clattered on stairs, a murmur of soft voices arose and people appeared
from a dozen obscure corners.
Besides the old people, already mentioned, many others lived in the Bentley
house. There were four hired men, a woman named Aunt Callie Beebe, who was
in charge of the housekeeping, a dull-witted girl named Eliza Stoughton, who
made beds and helped with the milking, a boy who worked in the stables, and
Jesse Bentley himself, the owner and overlord of it all.

Thesaurus
beehive: (n) hive, skep, yard,
workplace, wharf, usine, receptacle,
hairdo, forcing pit; (v) aviary,
alveary.
colorless: (adj) achromatic, neutral,
drab, dull, monotonous, wan, tame,
pallid, bloodless, white, colourless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) rosy, interesting,
rich, vivid, brilliant, vibrant,
stimulating, lively, glamorous,
exciting, distinctive.
descended: (v) extraught.

dining: (n) feeding, eating; (v) eat.
haphazard: (adj, n) chance; (adj)
careless, fortuitous, contingent,
random, casual, indiscriminate,
occasional, slipshod, adventitious;
(adv) casually. ANTONYMS: (adj)
methodical, discerning, planned,
organized, meticulous, regular,
careful, deliberate.
housekeeping: (n) housewifery,
household, domestic science.
murmur: (n, v) grumble, mumble,

hum, whisper, mutter, whine, babble,
drone; (v) complain, bubble, breathe.
overlord: (n) lord, seignior, seigneur,
ruler, almighty, original, nobleman,
noble, master key, maker, captain.
porch: (n) lobby, hall, vestibule,
veranda, door, entrance, deck,
gallery, portico, balcony, inlet.
voiced: (adj) vocal, spoken, sounding,
articulated, verbal, intonated,
express, oral, tonic. ANTONYMS:
(adj) surd, silent.

56

Winesburg, Ohio

By the time the American Civil War had been over for twenty years, that part
of Northern Ohio where the Bentley farms lay had begun to emerge from pioneer
life. Jesse then owned machinery for harvesting grain. He had built modern
barns and most of his land was drained with carefully laid tile drain, but in order
to understand the man we will have to go back to an earlier day.%
The Bentley family had been in Northern Ohio for several generations before
Jesse's time. They came from New York State and took up land when the
country was new and land could be had at a low price. For a long time they, in
common with all the other Middle Western people, were very poor. The land
they had settled upon was heavily wooded and covered with fallen logs and
underbrush. After the long hard labor of clearing these away and cutting the
timber, there were still the stumps to be reckoned with. Plows run through the
fields caught on hidden roots, stones lay all about, on the low places water
gathered, and the young corn turned yellow, sickened and died.
When Jesse Bentley's father and brothers had come into their ownership of
the place, much of the harder part of the work of clearing had been done, but
they clung to old traditions and worked like driven animals. They lived as
practically all of the farming people of the time lived. In the spring and through
most of the winter the highways leading into the town of Winesburg were a sea
of mud. The four young men of the family worked hard all day in the fields,
they ate heavily of coarse, greasy food, and at night slept like tired beasts on
beds of straw. Into their lives came little that was not coarse and brutal and
outwardly they were themselves coarse and brutal. On Saturday afternoons they
hitched a team of horses to a three-seated wagon and went off to town. In town
they stood about the stoves in the stores talking to other farmers or to the store
keepers. They were dressed in overalls and in the winter wore heavy coats that
were flecked with mud. Their hands as they stretched them out to the heat of
the stoves were cracked and red. It was difficult for them to talk and so they for
the most part kept silent. When they had bought meat, flour, sugar, and salt,
they went into one of the Winesburg saloons and drank beer. Under the
influence of drink the naturally strong lusts of their natures, kept suppressed by

Thesaurus
beasts: (n) stock.
flecked: (adj) speckled, dappled,
spotted, mottled, stippled,
multicolored, stained, freckled,
variegated, rainbow; (v) fleckered.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unblemished,
plain, uniform.
flour: (adj) meal, bran, spore, sporule,
paddy, rice; (n) farina, foodstuff,
wheat flour, flower, semolina.
harvesting: (n) gathering, gather,
harvest home, crop, reap, plucking,

harvests, ingathering, reaping,
farming, harvest time.
outwardly: (adv) exteriorly,
superficially, apparently, outside,
seemingly, without, ostensibly,
evidently, extrinsically, outerly,
outsidely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
internally, underneath.
overalls: (n) overall, inexpressibles,
breeches, over-all, smalls, small
clothes, boiler suit, smock, coverall,
pantaloons, coveralls.

sickened: (adj) aghast, horrified,
appalled, shocked.
tile: (n) roof, thatch, bonnet, pantile,
castor, ceiling, roofing tile, wimple,
tiling, paving stone; (v) cover.
underbrush: (n) brushwood, brush,
underwood, groundcover, thicket,
scrub, bushes, coppice, ground cover,
shrub, weed.
wooded: (adj) arboreous, sylvan,
woody, timbered, densely forested,
leafy.

Sherwood Anderson

57

the heroic labor of breaking up new ground, were released. A kind of crude and
animal-like poetic fervor took possession of them. On the road home they stood
up on the wagon seats and shouted at the stars. Sometimes they fought long and
bitterly and at other times they broke forth into songs. Once Enoch Bentley, the
older one of the boys, struck his father, old Tom Bentley, with the butt of a
teamster's whip, and the old man seemed likely to die. For days Enoch lay hid in
the straw in the loft of the stable ready to flee if the result of his momentary
passion turned out to be murder. He was kept alive with food brought by his
mother, who also kept him informed of the injured man's condition. When all
turned out well he emerged from his hiding place and went back to the work of
clearing land as though nothing had happened.%
The Civil War brought a sharp turn to the fortunes of the Bentleys and was
responsible for the rise of the youngest son, Jesse. Enoch, Edward, Harry, and
Will Bentley all enlisted and before the long war ended they were all killed. For
a time after they went away to the South, old Tom tried to run the place, but he
was not successful. When the last of the four had been killed he sent word to
Jesse that he would have to come home.
Then the mother, who had not been well for a year, died suddenly, and the
father became altogether discouraged. He talked of selling the farm and moving
into town. All day he went about shaking his head and muttering. The work in
the fields was neglected and weeds grew high in the corn. Old Tim hired men
but he did not use them intelligently. When they had gone away to the fields in
the morning he wandered into the woods and sat down on a log. Sometimes he
forgot to come home at night and one of the daughters had to go in search of
him.
When Jesse Bentley came home to the farm and began to take charge of
things he was a slight, sensitive-looking man of twenty-two. At eighteen he had
left home to go to school to become a scholar and eventually to become a
minister of the Presbyterian Church. All through his boyhood he had been what
in our country was called an "odd sheep" and had not got on with his brothers.
Of all the family only his mother had understood him and she was now dead.

Thesaurus
boyhood: (n) babyhood, adolescence,
apathy, impassiveness, aloofness,
youth, youthhood, infancy, girlhood, coolness, dejection, doubt.
flee: (v) bolt, break out, fly, desert,
age, boyism, puberty. ANTONYM:
(n) adulthood.
break, abscond, elope, elude, run
butt: (v) bunt, abut; (n) extremity,
away, run, leave. ANTONYMS: (v)
stump, grip, stub, rump, cask, rear,
appear, advance.
tail; (n, v) edge.
intelligently: (adv) brightly, wisely,
fervor: (adj, n) devotion, passion; (n)
smartly, cleverly, shrewdly,
enthusiasm, zeal, eagerness,
brilliantly, knowingly, quickly,
fervency, energy, warmth,
prudently, keenly, understandingly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) unintelligently,
earnestness, fervidness, ardour.
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
foolishly.

momentary: (adj) brief, fugitive,
transient, short, instantaneous,
ephemeral, passing, momentaneous,
temporary, impermanent, temporal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lasting, lengthy,
long.
muttering: (n) grumbling, mutter,
murmuring, grumble, murmuration,
murmur vowel, complaint, heart
murmur, cardiac murmur; (adj)
mumbling, faint.
shouted: (adj) screamed, loud.

58

Winesburg, Ohio

When he came home to take charge of the farm, that had at that time grown to
more than six hundred acres, everyone on the farms about and in the nearby
town of Winesburg smiled at the idea of his trying to handle the work that had
been done by his four strong brothers.%
There was indeed good cause to smile. By the standards of his day Jesse did
not look like a man at all. He was small and very slender and womanish of body
and, true to the traditions of young ministers, wore a long black coat and a
narrow black string tie. The neighbors were amused when they saw him, after
the years away, and they were even more amused when they saw the woman he
had married in the city.
As a matter of fact, Jesse's wife did soon go under. That was perhaps Jesse's
fault. A farm in Northern Ohio in the hard years after the Civil War was no
place for a delicate woman, and Katherine Bentley was delicate. Jesse was hard
with her as he was with everybody about him in those days. She tried to do such
work as all the neighbor women about her did and he let her go on without
interference. She helped to do the milking and did part of the housework; she
made the beds for the men and prepared their food. For a year she worked every
day from sunrise until late at night and then after giving birth to a child she
died.
As for Jesse Bentley--although he was a delicately built man there was
something within him that could not easily be killed. He had brown curly hair
and grey eyes that were at times hard and direct, at times wavering and
uncertain. Not only was he slender but he was also short of stature. His mouth
was like the mouth of a sensitive and very determined child. Jesse Bentley was a
fanatic. He was a man born out of his time and place and for this he suffered
and made others suffer. Never did he succeed in getting what he wanted out of
fife and he did not know what he wanted. Within a very short time after he
came home to the Bentley farm he made everyone there a little afraid of him, and
his wife, who should have been close to him as his mother had been, was afraid
also. At the end of two weeks after his coming, old Tom Bentley made over to
him the entire ownership of the place and retired into the background. Everyone

Thesaurus
everybody: (adv) each, any; (n, pron)
anyone, anybody; (n) every person,
world, everything, horde, throng;
(pron) any person, someone.
ANTONYMS: (n, pron) nobody.
fanatic: (n) devotee, bigot, fiend,
addict, maniac, aficionado; (adj, n)
extremist, sectarian; (adj) fanatical,
enthusiastic, partisan. ANTONYMS:
(n) naysayer, skeptic.
helped: (adj) aided, assisted; (v)
HALP.

neighbor: (v) abut, adjoin, populate,
(n) sunset, sundown, nightfall.
touch; (n) acquaintance,
wavering: (adj, v) vacillating; (n)
neighborhood, national; (adj)
fluctuation, hesitation, vacillation;
(adj) irresolute, indecisive,
neighborly, neighbouring,
neighboring, adjacent. ANTONYM:
undecided, hesitant, uncertain,
(n) foreigner.
variable, changeable. ANTONYMS:
neighbors: (n) neighbourhood.
(adj) decided, constant, resolute,
suffered: (adj) permitted, permissive.
stable, decisive; (n) resolution,
sunrise: (n) dawn, sunup, daybreak,
stability.
womanish: (adj) tender, feminine,
daylight, aurora, first light,
dayspring, twilight, dawning, break
female, womanlike, womanly, weak,
of day, crack of dawn. ANTONYMS: unmanly.

Sherwood Anderson

59

retired into the background. In spite of his youth and inexperience, Jesse had
the trick of mastering the souls of his people. He was so in earnest in everything
he did and said that no one understood him. He made everyone on the farm
work as they had never worked before and yet there was no joy in the work. If
things went well they went well for Jesse and never for the people who were his
dependents. Like a thousand other strong men who have come into the world
here in America in these later times, Jesse was but half strong. He could master
others but he could not master himself. The running of the farm as it had never
been run before was easy for him. When he came home from Cleveland where
he had been in school, he shut himself off from all of his people and began to
make plans. He thought about the farm night and day and that made him
successful. Other men on the farms about him worked too hard and were too
fired to think, but to think of the farm and to be everlastingly making plans for
its success was a relief to Jesse. It partially satisfied something in his passionate
nature. Immediately after he came home he had a wing built on to the old house
and in a large room facing the west he had windows that looked into the
barnyard and other windows that looked off across the fields. By the window he
sat down to think. Hour after hour and day after day he sat and looked over the
land and thought out his new place in life. The passionate burning thing in his
nature flamed up and his eyes became hard. He wanted to make the farm
produce as no farm in his state had ever produced before and then he wanted
something else. It was the indefinable hunger within that made his eyes waver
and that kept him always more and more silent before people. He would have
given much to achieve peace and in him was a fear that peace was the thing he
could not achieve.%
All over his body Jesse Bentley was alive. In his small frame was gathered
the force of a long line of strong men. He had always been extraordinarily alive
when he was a small boy on the farm and later when he was a young man in
school. In the school he had studied and thought of God and the Bible with his
whole mind and heart. As time passed and he grew to know people better, he
began to think of himself as an extraordinary man, one set apart from his
fellows. He wanted terribly to make his life a thing of great importance, and as

Thesaurus
barnyard: (n) farmyard; (adj) crude,
gross, obscene, vulgar.
dependents: (n) clientele.
everlastingly: (adv) perpetually,
always, lastingly, continually,
endlessly, unendingly, incessantly,
permanently, constantly, undyingly;
(adj, adv) forever.
fellows: (n) fellow, membership,
faculty.
indefinable: (adj) ineffable,
unspeakable, vague, indeterminate,

undefinable, inexpressible, elusive,
indefinite, undefined, nondescript,
equivocal. ANTONYMS: (adj)
concrete, precise.
inexperience: (adj) inexperienced,
indexterity, incomprehension,
inability; (adj, n) simplicity; (n)
freshness, innocence, ignorance,
newness, callowness, unfamiliarity.
ANTONYMS: (n) skillfulness,
sophistication, wisdom.
mastering: (adj) victorious.

passed: (adj) accepted, approved,
legal, gone.
spite: (n) malice, grudge, hatred,
malevolence, rancour, venom, rancor,
maliciousness, ill will, animosity; (n,
v) pique. ANTONYMS: (v) please; (n)
benevolence, goodwill, love,
affection, harmony.
waver: (v) vacillate, fluctuate, hesitate,
totter, hover, wave; (n, v) quiver,
flicker, shake, flutter, tremble.
ANTONYMS: (v) resolve, continue.

60

Winesburg, Ohio

he looked about at his fellow men and saw how like clods they lived it seemed to
him that he could not bear to become also such a clod. Although in his
absorption in himself and in his own destiny he was blind to the fact that his
young wife was doing a strong woman's work even after she had become large
with child and that she was killing herself in his service, he did not intend to be
unkind to her. When his father, who was old and twisted with toil, made over to
him the ownership of the farm and seemed content to creep away to a corner and
wait for death, he shrugged his shoulders and dismissed the old man from his
mind.%
In the room by the window overlooking the land that had come down to him
sat Jesse thinking of his own affairs. In the stables he could hear the tramping of
his horses and the restless movement of his cattle. Away in the fields he could
see other cattle wandering over green hills. The voices of men, his men who
worked for him, came in to him through the window. From the milkhouse there
was the steady thump, thump of a churn being manipulated by the half-witted
girl, Eliza Stoughton. Jesse's mind went back to the men of Old Testament days
who had also owned lands and herds. He remembered how God had come
down out of the skies and talked to these men and he wanted God to notice and
to talk to him also. A kind of feverish boyish eagerness to in some way achieve
in his own life the flavor of significance that had hung over these men took
possession of him. Being a prayerful man he spoke of the matter aloud to God
and the sound of his own words strengthened and fed his eagerness.
"I am a new kind of man come into possession of these fields," he declared.
"Look upon me, O God, and look Thou also upon my neighbors and all the men
who have gone before me here! O God, create in me another Jesse, like that one
of old, to rule over men and to be the father of sons who shall be rulers!" Jesse
grew excited as he talked aloud and jumping to his feet walked up and down in
the room. In fancy he saw himself living in old times and among old peoples.
The land that lay stretched out before him became of vast significance, a place
peopled by his fancy with a new race of men sprung from himself. It seemed to
him that in his day as in those other and older days, kingdoms might be created

Thesaurus
churn: (v) seethe, agitate, toss, bubble, (n) staleness, blandness, emptiness.
skies: (n) heavens, firmament,
hung: (n) hanging; (v) Heng; (adj)
eddy, whirl, roil, shake, stir, buffet;
expanse.
(n) butter churn.
thump: (n, v) thud, bang, bump,
fatigued, puzzled, decorated.
feverish: (adj) febrile, feverous, fiery, peopled: (adj) multinominal, multiple, knock, hit, strike, cuff, punch, crash,
frenzied, fevered, excited, sick,
manifold, multiplied, multitudinous, crack; (v) pound. ANTONYM: (v)
fanatical; (adj, v) hot, flushed; (adj, n)
populous, inhabited, thick, studded,
tiptoe.
hysterical. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
teeming, crowded. ANTONYM: (adj) toil: (n, v) labor, work, drudge, sweat,
drudgery, grind, labour, travail; (v)
afebrile, collected, composed,
uninhabited.
prayerful: (adj) pious, holy, religious,
plod; (n) effort, exertion.
mellow.
flavor: (n) relish, tang, smell, aroma,
ANTONYMS: (n) pastime,
godly, earnest, devotional, solemn,
salt; (n, v) taste, flavour, smack; (v)
entertainment, fun, relaxation; (v)
reverent, begging, entreating,
spice, season, sauce. ANTONYMS:
suppliant.
laze, neglect.

Sherwood Anderson

61

and new impulses given to the lives of men by the power of God speaking
through a chosen servant. He longed to be such a servant. "It is God's work I
have come to the land to do," he declared in a loud voice and his short figure
straightened and he thought that something like a halo of Godly approval hung
over him.%
It will perhaps be somewhat difficult for the men and women of a later day to
understand Jesse Bentley. In the last fifty years a vast change has taken place in
the lives of our people. A revolution has in fact taken place. The coming of
industrialism, attended by all the roar and rattle of affairs, the shrill cries of
millions of new voices that have come among us from overseas, the going and
coming of trains, the growth of cities, the building of the interurban car lines that
weave in and out of towns and past farmhouses, and now in these later days the
coming of the automobiles has worked a tremendous change in the lives and in
the habits of thought of our people of Mid-America. Books, badly imagined and
written though they may be in the hurry of our times, are in every household,
magazines circulate by the millions of copies, newspapers are everywhere. In
our day a farmer standing by the stove in the store in his village has his mind
filled to overflowing with the words of other men. The newspapers and the
magazines have pumped him full. Much of the old brutal ignorance that had in it
also a kind of beautiful childlike innocence is gone forever. The farmer by the
stove is brother to the men of the cities, and if you listen you will find him
talking as glibly and as senselessly as the best city man of us all.
In Jesse Bentley's time and in the country districts of the whole Middle West
in the years after the Civil War it was not so. Men labored too hard and were too
tired to read. In them was no desire for words printed upon paper. As they
worked in the fields, vague, half-formed thoughts took possession of them. They
believed in God and in God's power to control their lives. In the little Protestant
churches they gathered on Sunday to hear of God and his works. The churches
were the center of the social and intellectual life of the times. The figure of God
was big in the hearts of men.

Thesaurus
childlike: (adj) ingenuous, simple,
babyish, young, innocent, pure,
unsophisticated, juvenile, immature,
childly, childish. ANTONYMS: (adj)
old, untrusting, experienced,
cunning, complicated, jaded,
worldly.
glibly: (adv) smoothly, slipperily,
easily, fluently, superficially,
frivolously, eloquently, flippantly,
effortlessly, confidently, facetiously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) hesitantly,

awkwardly.
halo: (n) halation, aura, glory, ring,
circle, corona, nimbus, hoop, aureola,
band, anchor ring.
hearts: (n) Black Maria, spades.
industrialism: (n) capitalism, business,
economic system, economy.
labored: (adj) elaborate, strained,
laborious, heavy, arduous, hard,
artificial, laboured, awkward,
unnatural, studied. ANTONYM: (adj)
easy.

overflowing: (adj) full, copious,
exuberant, flooding, bountiful,
generous, brimming, profuse; (n, v)
flood, inundation, deluge.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sparse, scarce.
rattle: (n, v) jingle, jangle, clatter; (n)
click, clang, clack; (v) bang, confuse,
shake, patter, disconcert.
senselessly: (adv) stupidly,
nonsensically, foolishly, inanely,
insanely, pointlessly, unwisely, silly,
meaninglessly, blindly, futilely.

62

Winesburg, Ohio

And so, having been born an imaginative child and having within him a
great intellectual eagerness, Jesse Bentley had turned wholeheartedly toward
God. When the war took his brothers away, he saw the hand of God in that.
When his father became ill and could no longer attend to the running of the farm,
he took that also as a sign from God. In the city, when the word came to him, he
walked about at night through the streets thinking of the matter and when he
had come home and had got the work on the farm well under way, he went
again at night to walk through the forests and over the low hills and to think of
God.%
As he walked the importance of his own figure in some divine plan grew in
his mind. He grew avaricious and was impatient that the farm contained only
six hundred acres. Kneeling in a fence corner at the edge of some meadow, he
sent his voice abroad into the silence and looking up he saw the stars shining
down at him.
One evening, some months after his father's death, and when his wife
Katherine was expecting at any moment to be laid abed of childbirth, Jesse left
his house and went for a long walk. The Bentley farm was situated in a tiny
valley watered by Wine Creek, and Jesse walked along the banks of the stream to
the end of his own land and on through the fields of his neighbors. As he
walked the valley broadened and then narrowed again. Great open stretches of
field and wood lay before him. The moon came out from behind clouds, and,
climbing a low hill, he sat down to think.
Jesse thought that as the true servant of God the entire stretch of country
through which he had walked should have come into his possession. He thought
of his dead brothers and blamed them that they had not worked harder and
achieved more. Before him in the moonlight the tiny stream ran down over
stones, and he began to think of the men of old times who like himself had
owned flocks and lands.
A fantastic impulse, half fear, half greediness, took possession of Jesse
Bentley. He remembered how in the old Bible story the Lord had appeared to
that other Jesse and told him to send his son David to where Saul and the men of

Thesaurus
avaricious: (adj) greedy, grasping,
wholeheartedly: (adv) earnestly,
ambition, fervor, avidness.
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
acquisitive, avid, miserly, grabby,
heartily, totally, ardently,
parsimonious, penurious; (adj, v)
unwillingness, aloofness, disinterest, enthusiastically, seriously, zealously,
mercenary, sordid, extortionate.
lethargy, listlessness, patience,
heartfeltly, cheerfully, unreservedly,
childbirth: (n, v) parturition, travail;
devotedly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
gloom, reluctance.
(n) accouchement, childbearing,
greediness: (n) avarice, cupidity,
partially, unenthusiastically, jokingly,
confinement, childbed, delivery,
covetousness, eagerness, gluttony,
indifferently.
blessed event, birthing; (v) obstetrics, selfishness, avidity, miserliness,
midwifery.
hunger, stinginess, voracity.
eagerness: (n, v) desire, aspiration; (n) ANTONYM: (n) moderation.
watered: (adj) irriguous, dewy,
enthusiasm, avidity, cupidity,
readiness, passion, keenness,
watermarked, moist.

Sherwood Anderson

63

Israel were fighting the Philistines in the Valley of Elah. Into Jesse's mind came
the conviction that all of the Ohio farmers who owned land in the valley of Wine
Creek were Philistines and enemies of God. "Suppose," he whispered to himself,
"there %should come from among them one who, like Goliath the Philistine of
Gath, could defeat me and take from me my possessions." In fancy he felt the
sickening dread that he thought must have lain heavy on the heart of Saul
before the coming of David. Jumping to his feet, he began to run through the
night. As he ran he called to God. His voice carried far over the low hills.
"Jehovah of Hosts," he cried, "send to me this night out of the womb of
Katherine, a son. Let Thy grace alight upon me. Send me a son to be called
David who shall help me to pluck at last all of these lands out of the hands of the
Philistines and turn them to Thy service and to the building of Thy kingdom on
earth."

Thesaurus
alight: (v) light, land, perch, dismount,
get down, settle, get off, descend;
(adj) ablaze, burning, blazing.
ANTONYM: (v) mount.
dread: (n, v) apprehension, fear, panic;
(n) anxiety, awe, consternation,
alarm, trepidation, dismay,
foreboding, terror. ANTONYMS:
(adj) pleasing, welcomed, pleasant;
(v) welcome, want; (n) reassurance,
fearlessness, confidence, security,
ease, calm.

jehovah: (n) God, Yahveh, lord,
ANTONYMS: (n) cowardice,
gutlessness; (v) undercharge.
Yahwe, almighty, Yahweh, master,
sickening: (adj) revolting, nauseous,
jah, trinity, idol, creator.
lain: (adj) artless, unsophisticated,
offensive, repulsive, foul, nauseating,
unaffected, naive, untutored, simple, noisome, obnoxious, loathsome,
pure, natural, native, inartificial.
repugnant, abominable.
lands: (n) park, estate, kingdom.
ANTONYMS: (adj) attractive,
owned: (v) owed, ought; (adj) own,
pleasant, delightful, wholesome,
proprietary; (n) aught.
light, appealing, wonderful.
pluck: (adj, n) nerve; (v) cull, jerk,
womb: (n) belly, nursery, nest,
gather, pick, fleece, grab; (n) grit,
intestines, guts, vitals, bowels,
courage, boldness; (n, v) pull.
chitterings, cradle, entrails, viscera.

Sherwood Anderson

65

PART TWO
ALSO CONCERNING JESSE BENTLEY

David Hardy of Winesburg, Ohio, was the grandson of Jesse Bentley, the
owner of Bentley farms. When he was twelve years old he went to the old
Bentley place to live. His mother, Louise Bentley, the girl who came into the
world on that night when Jesse ran through the fields crying to God that he be
given a son, had grown to womanhood on the farm and had married young John
Hardy of Winesburg, who became a banker. Louise and her husband did not
live happily together and everyone agreed that she was to blame. She was a
small woman with sharp grey eyes and black hair. From childhood she had been
inclined to fits of temper and when not angry she was often morose and silent.
In Winesburg it was said that she drank. Her husband, the banker, who was a
careful, shrewd man, tried hard to make her happy. When he began to make
money he bought for her a large brick house on Elm Street in Winesburg and he
was the first man in that town to keep a manservant to drive his wife's carriage.%
But Louise could not be made happy. She flew into half insane fits of temper
during which she was sometimes silent, sometimes noisy and quarrelsome. She
swore and cried out in her anger. She got a knife from the kitchen and
threatened her husband's life. Once she deliberately set fire to the house, and
often she hid herself away for days in her own room and would see no one. Her
life, lived as a half recluse, gave rise to all sorts of stories concerning her. It was

Thesaurus
banker: (n) cashier, teller, cambist,
investor, moneyman, bank employee,
capitalist, ditcher, goldsmith, usurer,
moneyer.
bought: (n) crook, hook.
drank: (v) absorb.
manservant: (n) man, butler, valet,
gentleman, lackey, domestic, men,
gillie, menial, servitor, servant.
morose: (adj) grim, dismal, glum, dark,
moody, grumpy, dour, depressed,
sullen, blue, dejected. ANTONYMS:

(adj) happy, cheery, stable.
shrewd: (adj) sharp, astute, keen,
quarrelsome: (adj) argumentative,
piercing, clever, cunning, bright; (adj,
belligerent, combative, cantankerous, v) sagacious, knowing, crafty,
prudent. ANTONYMS: (adj) foolish,
aggressive, disputatious, ugly,
currish, termagant; (adj, n)
gullible, naive, soft, candid, dim,
contentious; (adj, v) fretful.
innocent, guileless, obtuse,
ANTONYMS: (adj) agreeable,
indiscriminate.
womanhood: (n) muliebrity,
peaceful, amiable.
recluse: (n) hermit, anchoret, solitary,
femininity, adulthood, maturity,
ascetic, eremite, loner, troglodyte;
manhood, womankind, wifehood,
(adj) reclusive, secluded, cloistered,
softness, social class, majority, adult
withdrawn. ANTONYM: (n) native.
female.

66

Winesburg, Ohio

said that she took drugs and that she hid herself away from people because she
was often so under the influence of drink that her condition could not be
concealed. Sometimes on summer afternoons she came out of the house and got
into her carriage. Dismissing the driver she took the reins in her own hands and
drove off at top speed through the streets. If a pedestrian got in her way she
drove straight ahead and the frightened citizen had to escape as best he could.
To the people of the town it seemed as though she wanted to run them down.
When she had driven through several streets, tearing around corners and
beating the horses with the whip, she drove off into the country. On the country
roads after she had gotten out of sight of the houses she let the horses slow down
to a walk and her wild, reckless mood passed. She became thoughtful and
muttered words. Sometimes tears came into her eyes. And then when she came
back into town she again drove furiously through the quiet streets. But for the
influence of her husband and the respect he inspired in people's minds she
would have been arrested more than once by the town marshal.%
Young David Hardy grew up in the house with this woman and as can well
be imagined there was not much joy in his childhood. He was too young then to
have opinions of his own about people, but at times it was difficult for him not to
have very definite opinions about the woman who was his mother. David was
always a quiet, orderly boy and for a long time was thought by the people of
Winesburg to be something of a dullard. His eyes were brown and as a child he
had a habit of looking at things and people a long time without appearing to see
what he was looking at. When he heard his mother spoken of harshly or when
he overheard her berating his father, he was frightened and ran away to hide.
Sometimes he could not find a hiding place and that confused him. Turning his
face toward a tree or if he was indoors toward the wall, he closed his eyes and
tried not to think of anything. He had a habit of talking aloud to himself, and
early in life a spirit of quiet sadness often took possession of him.
On the occasions when David went to visit his grandfather on the Bentley
farm, he was altogether contented and happy. Often he wished that he would

Thesaurus
berating: (n) reprehension, blowing
hackneyed, prosaic, dull; (n) walker,
half-wit, loon.
gotten: (v) receive, seize, get, acquire.
footer. ANTONYMS: (adj) exciting,
up, rebuke, tirade, invective.
contented: (adj) content, happy,
harshly: (adv) roughly, severely,
inspired, excellent, exceptional,
inspiring, original; (n) driver.
comfortable, quiet, cheerful, smug,
sternly, sharply, cruelly, hoarsely,
complacent, satisfied, easy, proud,
strictly, pitilessly, rigorously, rigidly; reins: (n) bridle, Reins of a vault, reins
delighted. ANTONYMS: (adj)
(adj, adv) piercingly. ANTONYMS:
of government, wheel, gearshift,
(adv) softly, harmoniously, quietly,
discontented, unhappy, depressed,
joystick, pedals, potency, power,
unsatisfied, sad, anxious.
gently, elaborately, leniently,
powerfulness.
dismissing: (v) dismiss; (n) acquittal,
tearing: (adj) fierce, violent, vehement,
smoothly, tolerantly, cheerfully,
furious, ripping, ferocious; (n)
denial, dimission.
loosely, pleasantly.
dullard: (n) dolt, dunce, duffer, oaf,
pedestrian: (adj) humdrum, ordinary,
lachrymation, lacrimation, riving
pudding head, stupid, bore, ass, lout, earthbound, banal, trite, tedious,
ahead, tear, lancination.

Sherwood Anderson

67

never have to go back to town and once when he had come home from the farm
after a long visit, something happened that had a lasting effect on his mind.%
David had come back into town with one of the hired men. The man was in a
hurry to go about his own affairs and left the boy at the head of the street in
which the Hardy house stood. It was early dusk of a fall evening and the sky
was overcast with clouds. Something happened to David. He could not bear to
go into the house where his mother and father lived, and on an impulse he
decided to run away from home. He intended to go back to the farm and to his
grandfather, but lost his way and for hours he wandered weeping and frightened
on country roads. It started to rain and lightning flashed in the sky. The boy's
imagination was excited and he fancied that he could see and hear strange things
in the darkness. Into his mind came the conviction that he was walking and
running in some terrible void where no one had ever been before. The darkness
about him seemed limitless. The sound of the wind blowing in trees was
terrifying. When a team of horses approached along the road in which he
walked he was frightened and climbed a fence. Through a field he ran until he
came into another road and getting upon his knees felt of the soft ground with
his fingers. But for the figure of his grandfather, whom he was afraid he would
never find in the darkness, he thought the world must be altogether empty.
When his cries were heard by a farmer who was walking home from town and
he was brought back to his father's house, he was so tired and excited that he did
not know what was happening to him.
By chance David's father knew that he had disappeared. On the street he had
met the farm hand from the Bentley place and knew of his son's return to town.
When the boy did not come home an alarm was set up and John Hardy with
several men of the town went to search the country. The report that David had
been kidnapped ran about through the streets of Winesburg. When he came
home there were no lights in the house, but his mother appeared and clutched
him eagerly in her arms. David thought she had suddenly become another
woman. He could not believe that so delightful a thing had happened. With her
own hands Louise Hardy bathed his tired young body and cooked him food.

Thesaurus
bathed: (adj) sweaty.
clutched: (adj) tense, worried, anxious,
neurotic.
dusk: (n) nightfall, twilight, darkness,
gloaming, sunset, gloom, night,
shade, shadow, sundown; (adj)
dusky. ANTONYMS: (n) dawn, light,
daybreak, morning, afternoon.
fancied: (adj) unreal, chimerical,
fictional, fanciful, fictitious,
fabricated, preferred, assumed,
illusory, imagined, ideal.

kidnapped: (adj) kidnaped.
knees: (n) knee.
limitless: (adj) boundless, immense,
endless, unlimited, measureless,
infinite, illimitable, interminable,
vast, bottomless, incalculable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) limited, restricted,
little, minor, small, few.
overcast: (adj) dark, cloudy, dim, dull,
gloomy, heavy, muddy, dismal; (n, v)
cloud; (adj, v) obscure; (v) darken.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sunny, clear.

terrifying: (adj) horrible, frightening,
alarming, fearsome, scary, horrifying,
terrific, appalling, formidable,
ghastly, hideous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
safe, pleasant, reassuring.
void: (adj, n) hollow, null, blank; (n)
emptiness, vacancy; (adj, v) vacant;
(v) nullify, quash, rescind; (adj)
invalid, vacuous. ANTONYMS: (v)
validate, sanction, permit, keep,
allow; (adj) full, occupied, filled,
meaningful, solid; (n) fullness.

68

Winesburg, Ohio

She would not let him go to bed but, when he had put on his nightgown, blew
out the lights and sat down in a chair to hold him in her arms. For an hour the
woman sat in the darkness and held her boy. All the time she kept talking in a
low voice. David could not understand what had so changed her. Her
habitually dissatisfied face had become, he thought, the most peaceful and
lovely thing he had ever seen. When he began to weep she held him more and
more tightly. On and on went her voice. It was not harsh or shrill as when she
talked to her husband, but was like rain falling on trees. Presently men began
coming to the door to report that he had not been found, but she made him hide
and be silent until she had sent them away. He thought it must be a game his
mother and the men of the town were playing with him and laughed joyously.
Into his mind came the thought that his having been lost and frightened in the
darkness was an altogether unimportant matter. He thought that he would have
been willing to go through the frightful experience a thousand times to be sure
of finding at the end of the long black road a thing so lovely as his mother had
suddenly become.%
During the last years of young David's boyhood he saw his mother but
seldom and she became for him just a woman with whom he had once lived. Still
he could not get her figure out of his mind and as he grew older it became more
definite. When he was twelve years old he went to the Bentley farm to live. Old
Jesse came into town and fairly demanded that he be given charge of the boy.
The old man was excited and determined on having his own way. He talked to
John Hardy in the office of the Winesburg Savings Bank and then the two men
went to the house on Elm Street to talk with Louise. They both expected her to
make trouble but were mistaken. She was very quiet and when Jesse had
explained his mission and had gone on at some length about the advantages to
come through having the boy out of doors and in the quiet atmosphere of the old
farmhouse, she nodded her head in approval. "It is an atmosphere not corrupted
by my presence," she said sharply. Her shoulders shook and she seemed about
to fly into a fit of temper. "It is a place for a man child, although it was never a
place for me," she went on. "You never wanted me there and of course the air of

Thesaurus
corrupted: (adj) tainted, rotten,
pleased, idealistic.
frightful: (adj, v) fearful; (adj)
spoiled, degraded, adulterated,
depraved, distorted, decayed,
formidable, awful, fearsome,
impaired, debased; (n) corrupter.
appalling, gruesome, horrible,
ANTONYM: (adj) pure.
terrible, dread, frightening, grim.
dissatisfied: (adj) discontent,
ANTONYMS: (adj) wonderful,
disgruntled, disappointed, put out,
calming, soothing, pleasant, lovely,
displeased, malcontent, grumpy,
fair.
annoyed, disaffected; (adj, v)
habitually: (adv) usually, ordinarily,
querulous, complaining.
normally, generally, regularly,
ANTONYMS: (adj) content,
frequently, commonly, routinely,
contented, happy, fulfilled, gratified, wontedly, conventionally,

commonplacely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
unusually, seldom, erratically,
exceptionally, occasionally.
joyously: (adv, v) happily; (adv) gaily,
gleefully, mirthfully, cheerfully,
gladly, merrily, festively, brightly,
buoyantly, pleasantly. ANTONYM:
(adv) joylessly.
nightgown: (n) nightie, nightclothes,
nightwear, pajamas, bedgown,
nightshirt, night clothes, night robe,
lingerie.

Sherwood Anderson

69

your house did me no good. It was like poison in my blood but it will be
different with him."
Louise turned and went out of the room, leaving the two men to sit in
embarrassed silence. As very often happened she later stayed in her room for
days. Even when the boy's clothes were packed and he was taken away she did
not appear. The loss of her son made a sharp break in her life and she seemed
less inclined to quarrel with her husband. John Hardy thought it had all turned
out very well indeed.%
And so young David went to live in the Bentley farmhouse with Jesse. Two
of the old farmer's sisters were alive and still lived in the house. They were
afraid of Jesse and rarely spoke when he was about. One of the women who had
been noted for her flaming red hair when she was younger was a born mother
and became the boy's caretaker. Every night when he had gone to bed she went
into his room and sat on the floor until he fell asleep. When he became drowsy
she became bold and whispered things that he later thought he must have
dreamed.
Her soft low voice called him endearing names and he dreamed that his
mother had come to him and that she had changed so that she was always as she
had been that time after he ran away. He also grew bold and reaching out his
hand stroked the face of the woman on the floor so that she was ecstatically
happy. Everyone in the old house became happy after the boy went there. The
hard insistent thing in Jesse Bentley that had kept the people in the house silent
and timid and that had never been dispelled by the presence of the girl Louise
was apparently swept away by the coming of the boy. It was as though God had
relented and sent a son to the man.
The man who had proclaimed himself the only true servant of God in all the
valley of Wine Creek, and who had wanted God to send him a sign of approval
by way of a son out of the womb of Katherine, began to think that at last his
prayers had been answered. Although he was at that time only fifty-five years
old he looked seventy and was worn out with much thinking and scheming.
The effort he had made to extend his land holdings had been successful and

Thesaurus
drowsy: (adj, n) sleepy; (adj) lazy,
engaging, pretty, winning, pleasant,
comatose, somnolent, slow, lethargic, cute. ANTONYMS: (adj) despicable,
sluggish, dull, indolent, soporific,
repellent, detestable, unpleasant.
listless. ANTONYMS: (adj) energetic, insistent: (adj) exigent, pressing,
awake, lively, vigorous, vivacious,
emphatic, persistent, crying,
refreshed.
importunate, instant, clamant,
ecstatically: (adv) happily, blissfully,
imperative, adamant, obstinate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) satisfied,
ravishingly, raptly, elatedly,
enrapturedly, joyfully, joyously,
irresolute, gentle.
scheming: (adj) designing, artful,
overjoyedly, gladly, cheerily.
endearing: (adj) adorable, lovable,
crafty, wily, tricky, sly, shrewd,
devious, astute, intriguing; (adj, n)
lovely, charming, sweet, attractive,

cunning. ANTONYMS: (adj) honest,
ingenuous, straightforward, open,
straight, guileless; (n) ingenuousness.
swept: (adj) clean.
timid: (adj) shy, afraid, diffident, coy,
bashful, nervous, frightened,
apprehensive, modest; (adj, adv)
cowardly; (adj, n) cautious.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) brave; (adj)
confident, bold, fearless, resolute,
forward, daring, brazen, extrovert,
brash, talkative.

70

Winesburg, Ohio

there were few farms in the valley that did not belong to him, but until David
came he was a bitterly disappointed man.%
There were two influences at work in Jesse Bentley and all his life his mind
had been a battleground for these influences. First there was the old thing in
him. He wanted to be a man of God and a leader among men of God. His
walking in the fields and through the forests at night had brought him close to
nature and there were forces in the passionately religious man that ran out to the
forces in nature. The disappointment that had come to him when a daughter and
not a son had been born to Katherine had fallen upon him like a blow struck by
some unseen hand and the blow had somewhat softened his egotism. He still
believed that God might at any moment make himself manifest out of the winds
or the clouds, but he no longer demanded such recognition. Instead he prayed
for it. Sometimes he was altogether doubtful and thought God had deserted the
world. He regretted the fate that had not let him live in a simpler and sweeter
time when at the beckoning of some strange cloud in the sky men left their lands
and houses and went forth into the wilderness to create new races. While he
worked night and day to make his farms more productive and to extend his
holdings of land, he regretted that he could not use his own restless energy in the
building of temples, the slaying of unbelievers and in general in the work of
glorifying God's name on earth.
That is what Jesse hungered for and then also he hungered for something
else. He had grown into maturity in America in the years after the Civil War and
he, like all men of his time, had been touched by the deep influences that were at
work in the country during those years when modem industrialism was being
born. He began to buy machines that would permit him to do the work of the
farms while employing fewer men and he sometimes thought that if he were a
younger man he would give up farming altogether and start a factory in
Winesburg for the making of machinery. Jesse formed the habit of reading
newspapers and magazines. He invented a machine for the making of fence out
of wire. Faintly he realized that the atmosphere of old times and places that he
had always cultivated in his own mind was strange and foreign to the thing that

Thesaurus
battleground: (n) field, arena, tract,
theatre of war, theatre, theater of
operations, parcel, theater, landmark,
area, Armageddon.
beckoning: (adj) irresistible.
clouds: (n) exhaust, fumes, gas, smoke,
vapors.
egotism: (n) vanity, ego, pride, conceit,
narcissism, egocentricity, selfishness,
arrogance, pridefulness, self-esteem,
solipsism. ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
selflessness.

forests: (n) country.
modem: (n) electronic equipment.
passionately: (adv) fervently,
vehemently, violently, fiercely,
eagerly, zealously, fervidly, fierily,
enthusiastically, heatedly, stormily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) mildly,
apathetically, calmly, halfheartedly,
impassively, jokingly, gently.
slaying: (n) homicide, assassination,
slaughter, carnage, killing,
bloodshed, elimination, parricide,

fratricide, destruction, liquidation.
softened: (adj) diffused, muffled,
muted, quiet, slow, touched,
sluggish, soften, pultaceous,
subdued, low-key.
temples: (n) brow.
unseen: (adj, v) unknown; (adj)
invisible, concealed, hidden,
unobserved, secret, veiled, latent; (v)
unheeded, unperceived; (n) spiritual
world. ANTONYMS: (adj) seen,
visible, open, famous, noticeable.

Sherwood Anderson

71

was growing up in the minds of others. The beginning of the most materialistic
age in the history of the world, when wars would be fought without patriotism,
when men would forget God and only pay attention to moral standards, when
the will to power would replace the will to serve and beauty would be well-nigh
forgotten in the terrible headlong rush of mankind toward the acquiring of
possessions, was telling its story to Jesse the man of God as it was to the men
about him. The greedy thing in him wanted to make money faster than it could
be made by tilling the land. More than once he went into Winesburg to talk with
his son-in-law John Hardy about it. "You are a banker and you will have chances
I never had," he said and his eyes shone. "I am thinking about it all the time. Big
things are going to be done in the country and there will be more money to be
made than I ever dreamed of. You get into it. I wish I were younger and had
your chance." Jesse Bentley walked up and down in the bank office and grew
more and more excited as he talked. At one time in his life he had been
threatened with paralysis and his left side remained somewhat weakened. As he
talked his left eyelid twitched. Later when he drove back home and when night
came on and the stars came out it was harder to get back the old feeling of a close
and personal God who lived in the sky overhead and who might at any moment
reach out his hand, touch him on the shoulder, and appoint for him some heroic
task to be done. Jesse's mind was fixed upon the things read in newspapers and
magazines, on fortunes to be made almost without effort by shrewd men who
bought and sold. For him the coming of the boy David did much to bring back
with renewed force the old faith and it seemed to him that God had at last looked
with favor upon him.%
As for the boy on the farm, life began to reveal itself to him in a thousand
new and delightful ways. The kindly attitude of all about him expanded his quiet
nature and he lost the half timid, hesitating manner he had always had with his
people. At night when he went to bed after a long day of adventures in the
stables, in the fields, or driving about from farm to farm with his grandfather, he
wanted to embrace everyone in the house. If Sherley Bentley, the woman who
came each night to sit on the floor by his bedside, did not appear at once, he went
to the head of the stairs and shouted, his young voice ringing through the

Thesaurus
adventures: (n) experiences, fortunes,
undecided, doubtful, hesitate,
sideration.
patriotism: (n) nationalism,
confessions, journal, life, biography,
reluctant, faltering, unwilling,
autobiography, personal narrative.
hesitancy, backward, hesitatingly.
nationality, love of country,
eyelid: (n) lid, palpebra, chapeau.
materialistic: (adj) mercenary,
chauvinism, jingoism, loyalty, public
harder: (adj) serious.
commercial, conservative, worldly,
spirit, xenophobia, Americanism,
headlong: (adj, adv) headfirst; (adv)
unspiritual, temporal, secular,
national character, civism.
directly, hastily, precipitately; (adj)
ANTONYM: (n) disloyalty.
cautious, greedy, impersonal,
rash, hurried, desperate, precipitous, physical. ANTONYM: (adj) generous. tilling: (n) cultivation, ploughing,
paralysis: (n) anaesthesia, numbness,
impetuous, sudden, precipitate.
tillage, tillering, surface cultivation,
ANTONYMS: (adj) cautiously,
apoplexy, akinesia, alalia,
sowing.
considered; (adv) carefully.
paralyzation, disability; (adj)
well-nigh: (adv) nearly, most; (adj)
hesitating: (adj) indecisive, irresolute,
consumption, decline, syncope,
practically.

72

Winesburg, Ohio

narrow halls where for so long there had been a tradition of silence. In the
morning when he awoke and lay still in bed, the sounds that came in to him
through the windows filled him with delight. He thought with a shudder of the
life in the house in Winesburg and of his mother's angry voice that had always
made him tremble. There in the country all sounds were pleasant sounds.
When he awoke at dawn the barnyard back of the house also awoke. In the
house people stirred about. Eliza Stoughton the half-witted girl was poked in
the ribs by a farm hand and giggled noisily, in some distant field a cow bawled
and was answered by the cattle in the stables, and one of the farm hands spoke
sharply to the horse he was grooming by the stable door. David leaped out of
bed and ran to a window. All of the people stirring about excited his mind, and
he wondered what his mother was doing in the house in town.%
From the windows of his own room he could not see directly into the
barnyard where the farm hands had now all assembled to do the morning
shores, but he could hear the voices of the men and the neighing of the horses.
When one of the men laughed, he laughed also. Leaning out at the open
window, he looked into an orchard where a fat sow wandered about with a litter
of tiny pigs at her heels. Every morning he counted the pigs. "Four, five, six,
seven," he said slowly, wetting his finger and making straight up and down
marks on the window ledge. David ran to put on his trousers and shirt. A
feverish desire to get out of doors took possession of him. Every morning he
made such a noise coming down stairs that Aunt Callie, the housekeeper,
declared he was trying to tear the house down. When he had run through the
long old house, shutting the doors behind him with a bang, he came into the
barnyard and looked about with an amazed air of expectancy. It seemed to him
that in such a place tremendous things might have happened during the night.
The farm hands looked at him and laughed. Henry Strader, an old man who had
been on the farm since Jesse came into possession and who before David's time
had never been known to make a joke, made the same joke every morning. It
amused David so that he laughed and clapped his hands. "See, come here and
look," cried the old man. "Grandfather Jesse's white mare has tom the black
stocking she wears on her foot."

Thesaurus
grooming: (n) drill, discipline,
dressing, exercise, fecundation, toilet,
schooling, reprimand, preparation,
practice, formulation.
noisily: (adv) clamorously,
boisterously, vociferously, riotously,
raucously, uproariously, loudly,
blatantly, rowdily, stridently, vocally.
ANTONYMS: (adv) noiselessly,
silently, calmly, peacefully, softly.
ribs: (n) dinner, chest, bosom.
shores: (n) coast, seaboard, seashore,

shoreline. ANTONYM: (n) interior.
tights, silk stocking, nylons, nylon
shudder: (adj, n, v) shake, quake,
stocking, rayon stocking; (adj)
tremble; (n, v) quiver, twitch, thrill;
stockinged.
(n) quivering, shivering, chill, frisson; tremble: (adj, n, v) shiver; (n, v) quiver,
(v) flutter.
shudder, thrill, palpitate; (adj, v)
shutting: (n) closing, conclusion, end,
totter, quake; (n) throb; (v) flutter,
quail, falter. ANTONYMS: (v) steady,
closure, ending, finish, mop up,
culmination, closedown; (adj)
calm.
confining, claudent. ANTONYM: (n) wetting: (n) moistening, damping,
opening.
watering, splash, leak, passing water,
stocking: (n) hosiery, boothose, trunk
ducking, making water, immersion,
hose, supplying, stocking level,
dousing, leakage.

Sherwood Anderson

73

Day after day through the long summer, Jesse Bentley drove from farm to
farm up and down the valley of Wine Creek, and his grandson went with him.
They rode in a comfortable old phaeton drawn by the white horse. The old man
scratched his thin white beard and talked to himself of his plans for increasing
the productiveness of the fields they visited and of God's part in the plans all
men made. Sometimes he looked at David and smiled happily and then for a
long time he appeared to forget the boy's existence. More and more every day
now his mind turned back again to the dreams that had filled his mind when he
had first come out of the city to live on the land. One afternoon he startled David
by letting his dreams take entire possession of him. With the boy as a witness, he
went through a ceremony and brought about an accident that nearly destroyed
the companionship that was growing up between them.%
Jesse and his grandson were driving in a distant part of the valley some miles
from home. A forest came down to the road and through the forest Wine Creek
wriggled its way over stones toward a distant river. All the afternoon Jesse had
been in a meditative mood and now he began to talk. His mind went back to the
night when he had been frightened by thoughts of a giant that might come to rob
and plunder him of his possessions, and again as on that night when he had run
through the fields crying for a son, he became excited to the edge of insanity.
Stopping the horse he got out of the buggy and asked David to get out also. The
two climbed over a fence and walked along the bank of the stream. The boy paid
no attention to the muttering of his grandfather, but ran along beside him and
wondered what was going to happen. When a rabbit jumped up and ran away
through the woods, he clapped his hands and danced with delight. He looked at
the tall trees and was sorry that he was not a little animal to climb high in the air
without being frightened. Stooping, he picked up a small stone and threw it over
the head of his grandfather into a clump of bushes. "Wake up, little animal. Go
and climb to the top of the trees," he shouted in a shrill voice.
Jesse Bentley went along under the trees with his head bowed and with his
mind in a ferment. His earnestness affected the boy, who presently became
silent and a little alarmed. Into the old man's mind had come the notion that

Thesaurus
bushes: (n) underbrush, thicket,
delirium, dementia, mania, folly,
lunacy, idiocy; (adj) madness.
undergrowth, minor league.
clump: (n, v) cluster, bundle; (n) lump, ANTONYMS: (n) sanity, sense.
meditative: (adj, v) thoughtful,
group, clot, knot, tuft, chunk, clod,
ball; (v) plod.
pensive; (adj) wistful, reflective,
ferment: (n) agitation, excitement,
broody, museful, ruminative,
musing, brooding; (v) philosophical,
barm, tumult, unrest, disturbance;
(adj, v) stew, pother; (v) effervesce,
sedate.
turn, brew. ANTONYMS: (v) quiet,
phaeton: (n) coach, tourer, automobile,
defuse, soothe.
chariot, holidaymaker, car, machine,
insanity: (adj, n) craziness,
auto, touring car, motorcar.
derangement, frenzy, aberration; (n) plunder: (n, v) pillage, spoil; (v)

despoil, harry, devastate, maraud,
destroy, strip, ransack; (n) booty,
depredation.
productiveness: (n) productivity,
fertility, fecundity, richness,
efficiency, efficacy, fertile invention,
utility, diligence, lushness, hard
work. ANTONYMS: (n) infertility,
sloth.
scratched: (adj) hurt, abraded,
sgraffito, raw, dented, spoiled,
damaged, injured.

74

Winesburg, Ohio

now he could bring from God a word or a sign out of the sky, that the presence
of the boy and man on their knees in some lonely spot in the forest would make
the miracle he had been waiting for almost inevitable. "It was in just such a place
as this that other David tended the sheep when his father came and told him to
go down unto Saul," he muttered.%
Taking the boy rather roughly by the shoulder, he climbed over a fallen log
and when he had come to an open place among the trees he dropped upon his
knees and began to pray in a loud voice.
A kind of terror he had never known before took possession of David.
Crouching beneath a tree he watched the man on the ground before him and his
own knees began to tremble. It seemed to him that he was in the presence not
only of his grandfather but of someone else, someone who might hurt him,
someone who was not kindly but dangerous and brutal. He began to cry and
reaching down picked up a small stick, which he held tightly gripped in his
fingers. When Jesse Bentley, absorbed in his own idea, suddenly arose and
advanced toward him, his terror grew until his whole body shook. In the woods
an intense silence seemed to lie over everything and suddenly out of the silence
came the old man's harsh and insistent voice. Gripping the boy's shoulders, Jesse
turned his face to the sky and shouted. The whole left side of his face twitched
and his hand on the boy's shoulder twitched also. "Make a sign to me, God," he
cried. "Here I stand with the boy David. Come down to me out of the sky and
make Thy presence known to me."
With a cry of fear, David turned and, shaking himself loose from the hands
that held him, ran away through the forest. He did not believe that the man who
turned up his face and in a harsh voice shouted at the sky was his grandfather at
all. The man did not look like his grandfather. The conviction that something
strange and terrible had happened, that by some miracle a new and dangerous
person had come into the body of the kindly old man, took possession of him.
On and on he ran down the hillside, sobbing as he ran. When he fell over the
roots of a tree and in falling struck his head, he arose and tried to run on again.
His head hurt so that presently he fell down and lay still, but it was only after

Thesaurus
brutal: (adj) barbaric, barbarous,
bestial, hard, cruel, unkind, vicious,
savage, harsh, truculent, barbarian.
ANTONYMS: (adj) merciful, kind,
liberal, humane, generous, caring,
friendly, nice, pleasant.
gripped: (adj) obsessed, engrossed,
held, seized, captivated, fanatical,
absorbed, occupied, preoccupied,
rapt, spellbound. ANTONYM: (adj)
uninterested.
hillside: (n) acclivity, slope, bank,

declivity, hill, gradient, hill-side,
mountain waist, the area half way up
a mountain, mountainside, side.
kindly: (adj) kind, amiable, genial,
charitable; (adv) sympathetically,
benevolently, tenderly; (adj, n)
benign, gentle, sympathetic,
benevolent. ANTONYMS: (adv)
harshly, nastily, callously, cruelly,
sharply, disagreeably, grumpily,
malevolently; (adj) upsetting,
unfeeling, sour.

presently: (adv) instantly, directly,
currently, before long, shortly, soon,
now, at present, readily, just,
actually. ANTONYMS: (adv) later,
now, formerly.
sobbing: (adj) crying, weeping, weepy,
tearful; (n) lamentation, shortness of
breath, shit, prick, motherfucker, tear,
lament.
trees: (n) foliage.
unto: (prep, v) to, till, up to; (prep)
towards, before.

Sherwood Anderson

75

Jesse %had carried him to the buggy and he awoke to find the old man's hand
stroking his head tenderly that the terror left him. "Take me away. There is a
terrible man back there in the woods," he declared firmly, while Jesse looked
away over the tops of the trees and again his lips cried out to God. "What have I
done that Thou dost not approve of me," he whispered softly, saying the words
over and over as he drove rapidly along the road with the boy's cut and bleeding
head held tenderly against his shoulder.

Thesaurus
approve: (v) adopt, allow, accept,
stroking: (v) caress, strike, blow; (n)
acknowledge, ratify, let, agree,
cam stroke, feeling, effleurage,
endorse, admit, support, applaud.
diagonal, CVA, commendation,
ANTONYMS: (v) condemn, censure, glide, slash.
disapprove, veto, forbid, invalidate, tenderly: (adv) softly, kindly,
disallow, disrespect, deny, desecrate, delicately, affectionately, fondly,
oppose.
warmly, painfully, sensitively,
bleeding: (adj) bloody, gory, blasted;
caringly, sympathetically, gently.
(n) haemorrhage, bloodletting,
ANTONYMS: (adv) roughly,
runout, cupping, leeches,
severely, disapprovingly, harshly.
venesection, phlebotomy; (v) bleed. terror: (n, v) alarm, scare; (adj, n)
carried: (adj) conveyed, imported.
dread, awe; (n) fear, dismay,

consternation, horror, panic,
apprehension, scourge.
ANTONYMS: (n) peace, security,
delight, calm, confidence.
tops: (n) apex, pinnacle, pick; (adj)
champion, elite, fabulous, leading,
outstanding, uppermost, superb,
superlative.
whispered: (adj) low, voiceless,
unvoiced, nonvocal, weak, unheard,
surd, supposed, sharp, thought,
quiet.

Sherwood Anderson

77

PART THREE
SURRENDER—
CONCERNING LOUISE BENTLEY

The story of Louise Bentley, who became Mrs. John Hardy and lived with her
husband in a brick house on Elm Street in Winesburg, is a story of
misunderstanding.%
Before such women as Louise can be understood and their lives made
livable, much will have to be done. Thoughtful books will have to be written
and thoughtful lives lived by people about them.
Born of a delicate and overworked mother, and an impulsive, hard,
imaginative father, who did not look with favor upon her coming into the world,
Louise was from childhood a neurotic, one of the race of over-sensitive women
that in later days industrialism was to bring in such great numbers into the
world.
During her early years she lived on the Bentley farm, a silent, moody child,
wanting love more than anything else in the world and not getting it. When she
was fifteen she went to live in Winesburg with the family of Albert Hardy, who
had a store for the sale of buggies and wagons, and who was a member of the
town board of education.

Thesaurus
impulsive: (adj) capricious, hasty,
lives: (n) life, living, estate, existence,
stable, unneurotic, rational, calm.
overworked: (adj) hackneyed, tired,
driving, rash, instinctive, changeable, earnest living.
moody: (adj) gloomy, dark, irritable,
hotheaded, quick-tempered,
weary, banal, clichd, elaborate, old,
impellent, headlong, passionate.
morose, capricious, glum, grumpy,
worn, unoriginal, trite, timeworn.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cautious,
thoughtful: (adj, v) serious, solemn,
fickle, petulant, dour, sullen.
grave; (adj) kind, careful, pensive,
considered, predictable, unflappable, ANTONYMS: (adj) equable, happy,
prepared, sensible, gradual, overdue, reliable, stable, calm.
heedful, attentive, discreet, sensible,
neurotic: (adj) unstable, jittery,
courteous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
patient, placid, premeditated.
livable: (adj) endurable, inhabitable,
excitable, disturbed, neural,
thoughtless, careless, heedless,
overwrought, edgy, fussy; (adj, n)
habitable, liveable, tolerable.
uncaring, unkind, tactless,
ANTONYMS: (adj) uninhabitable,
psychoneurotic; (n) mental case,
superficial, stupid, negligent, idiotic,
sufferer. ANTONYMS: (adj) modern, unthinking.
unlivable.

78

Winesburg, Ohio

Louise went into town to be a student in the Winesburg High School and she
went to live at the Hardys' because Albert Hardy and her father were friends.%
Hardy, the vehicle merchant of Winesburg, like thousands of other men of his
times, was an enthusiast on the subject of education. He had made his own way
in the world without learning got from books, but he was convinced that had he
but known books things would have gone better with him. To everyone who
came into his shop he talked of the matter, and in his own household he drove
his family distracted by his constant harping on the subject.
He had two daughters and one son, John Hardy, and more than once the
daughters threatened to leave school altogether. As a matter of principle they
did just enough work in their classes to avoid punishment. "I hate books and I
hate anyone who likes books," Harriet, the younger of the two girls, declared
passionately.
In Winesburg as on the farm Louise was not happy. For years she had
dreamed of the time when she could go forth into the world, and she looked
upon the move into the Hardy household as a great step in the direction of
freedom. Always when she had thought of the matter, it had seemed to her that
in town all must be gaiety and life, that there men and women must live happily
and freely, giving and taking friendship and affection as one takes the feel of a
wind on the cheek. After the silence and the cheerlessness of life in the Bentley
house, she dreamed of stepping forth into an atmosphere that was warm and
pulsating with life and reality. And in the Hardy household Louise might have
got something of the thing for which she so hungered but for a mistake she made
when she had just come to town.
Louise won the disfavor of the two Hardy girls, Mary and Harriet, by her
application to her studies in school. She did not come to the house until the day
when school was to begin and knew nothing of the feeling they had in the
matter. She was timid and during the first month made no acquaintances. Every
Friday afternoon one of the hired men from the farm drove into Winesburg and
took her home for the week-end, so that she did not spend the Saturday holiday
with the town people. Because she was embarrassed and lonely she worked

Thesaurus
acquaintances: (n) associates.
cheerlessness: (n) sadness, depression,
joylessness, squalidness,
uncheerfulness, unhappiness,
plainness, misery, dullness,
shabbiness, infestivity. ANTONYMS:
(n) smartness, splendor.
disfavor: (n) disapproval, displeasure,
disaffection, aversion, disrepute,
disesteem; (n, v) disgrace, disfavour,
discredit; (v) discountenance, hate.
ANTONYMS: (n) favor, liking,

regard, respect, service, kindness; (v)
advantage.
enthusiast: (n) addict, fanatic, fiend,
fan, admirer, freak, aficionado,
advocate, fancier, buff; (adj, n) zealot.
ANTONYMS: (n) skeptic,
depreciator, disparager, opponent.
gaiety: (n) fun, cheerfulness,
exhilaration, mirth, glee, merriment,
hilarity, happiness, joy, joviality,
jollity. ANTONYMS: (n) seriousness,
misery, sadness.

harping: (n) run, recurrence,
reiteration, iteration, repetition; (v)
iterative, unvaried, monotonous.
hired: (adj) leased, chartered,
mercenary, hackneyed, hack; (v)
contented, compensated, paid.
pulsating: (adj) vibrant, beating,
vivacious, resonant, rhythmical,
rhythmic, animated, exciting, lively,
pulsatile, pulsing. ANTONYM: (adj)
listless.
stepping: (n) steps.

Sherwood Anderson

79

constantly at her studies. To Mary and Harriet, it seemed as though she tried to
make trouble for them by her proficiency. In her eagerness to appear well
Louise wanted to answer every question put to the class by the teacher. She
jumped up and down and her eyes flashed. Then when she had answered some
question the others in the class had been unable to answer, she smiled happily.
"See, I have done it for you," her eyes seemed to say. "You need not bother about
the matter. I will answer all questions. For the whole class it will be easy while I
am here."
In the evening after supper in the Hardy house, Albert Hardy began to praise
Louise. One of the teachers had spoken highly of her and he was delighted.
"Well, again I have heard of it," he began, looking hard at his daughters and then
turning to smile at Louise. "Another of the teachers has told me of the good
work Louise is doing. Everyone in Winesburg is telling me how smart she is. I
am ashamed that they do not speak so of my own girls." Arising, the merchant
marched about the room and lighted his evening cigar.%
The two girls looked at each other and shook their heads wearily. Seeing
their indifference the father became angry. "I tell you it is something for you two
to be thinking about," he cried, glaring at them. "There is a big change coming
here in America and in learning is the only hope of the coming generations.
Louise is the daughter of a rich man but she is not ashamed to study. It should
make you ashamed to see what she does."
The merchant took his hat from a rack by the door and prepared to depart for
the evening. At the door he stopped and glared back. So fierce was his manner
that Louise was frightened and ran upstairs to her own room. The daughters
began to speak of their own affairs. "Pay attention to me," roared the merchant.
"Your minds are lazy. Your indifference to education is affecting your
characters. You will amount to nothing. Now mark what I say--Louise will be so
far ahead of you that you will never catch up."
The distracted man went out of the house and into the street shaking with
wrath. He went along muttering words and swearing, but when he got into
Main Street his anger passed. He stopped to talk of the weather or the crops

Thesaurus
arising: (n) emanation.
depart: (v) go, deviate, decease,
diverge, start, stray, wander, leave,
die, vary, part. ANTONYMS: (v) stay,
arrive, enter, come, abide, conform,
continue, remain, appear, converge,
return.
distracted: (adj) demented, inattentive,
abstracted, crazy, frenzied,
distraught, preoccupied, distressed,
confused; (adj, v) mad, disconcerted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) attentive, alert,

assured, calm, mellow.
generations: (n) generation, family.
glaring: (adj) conspicuous, bright,
blatant, egregious, obvious, plain,
flaming, garish, crying, gross, glary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soft,
inconspicuous, dull, minor.
proficiency: (n) ability, expertise,
capability, dexterity, competence,
efficiency, knowledge, expertness,
skill, facility, craft. ANTONYMS: (n)
inability, inexperience.

rack: (n, v) torment, wrack, Scud; (n)
manger, grid, cage, bracket, stand; (v)
excruciate, afflict, agonize.
swearing: (n) curse, expletive,
profanity, oath, abuse, blasphemy,
swearword, execration, adjuration,
asseveration; (v) swear.
wrath: (n) rage, resentment, ire, fury,
displeasure, indignation, passion,
madness, choler, irritation; (adj)
angry. ANTONYMS: (n) happiness,
love, composure, serenity.

80

Winesburg, Ohio

with some other merchant or with a farmer who had come into town and forgot
his daughters altogether or, if he thought of them, only shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, well, girls will be girls," he muttered philosophically.%
In the house when Louise came down into the room where the two girls sat,
they would have nothing to do with her. One evening after she had been there
for more than six weeks and was heartbroken because of the continued air of
coldness with which she was always greeted, she burst into tears. "Shut up your
crying and go back to your own room and to your books," Mary Hardy said
sharply.
The room occupied by Louise was on the second floor of the Hardy house,
and her window looked out upon an orchard. There was a stove in the room and
every evening young John Hardy carried up an armful of wood and put it in a
box that stood by the wall. During the second month after she came to the
house, Louise gave up all hope of getting on a friendly footing with the Hardy
girls and went to her own room as soon as the evening meal was at an end.
Her mind began to play with thoughts of making friends with John Hardy.
When he came into the room with the wood in his arms, she pretended to be
busy with her studies but watched him eagerly. When he had put the wood in
the box and turned to go out, she put down her head and blushed. She tried to
make talk but could say nothing, and after he had gone she was angry at herself
for her stupidity.
The mind of the country girl became filled with the idea of drawing close to
the young man. She thought that in him might be found the quality she had all
her life been seeking in people. It seemed to her that between herself and all the
other people in the world, a wall had been built up and that she was living just
on the edge of some warm inner circle of life that must be quite open and
understandable to others. She became obsessed with the thought that it wanted
but a courageous act on her part to make all of her association with people
something quite different, and that it was possible by such an act to pass into a
new life as one opens a door and goes into a room. Day and night she thought of

Thesaurus
armful: (n) mouthful, containerful,
capful, spoonful.
coldness: (n) chilliness, coolness,
indifference, distance, apathy, iciness,
reserve, frost, frigidity, unconcern;
(adj, n) cold. ANTONYMS: (n)
friendliness, sympathy, sensitivity,
hotness, heat, responsiveness,
concern, brightness, kindness.
courageous: (adj, n) bold; (adj)
audacious, fearless, valiant, gallant,
intrepid, spirited, heroic, undaunted,

manly, confident. ANTONYMS: (adj) (adj) happy, euphoric.
orchard: (n) park, garden, plantation,
timid, wimpy, weak, spineless,
pusillanimous, fearful, fainthearted,
arboretum, avenue, pinetum,
afraid, despicable.
shrubbery, woodlet, parterre, pinery,
footing: (n) foothold, base, bottom,
copse.
stupidity: (n) foolishness, nonsense,
foundation, status, rank, foot,
pedestal, situation, relation, root.
obtuseness, dullness, fatuity,
ANTONYM: (n) top.
absurdity, stolidity, slowness,
heartbroken: (adj) disconsolate, sad,
denseness, idiocy, imbecility.
ANTONYMS: (n) sense, logic,
sorrowful, heartsick, inconsolable,
miserable, distressed, sorry, crushed, cleverness, shrewdness, wisdom,
desolate, despondent. ANTONYMS:
ability.

Sherwood Anderson

81

the matter, but although the thing she wanted so earnestly was something very
warm and close it had as yet no conscious connection with sex. It had not
become that definite, and her mind had only alighted upon the person of John
Hardy because he was at hand and unlike his sisters had not been unfriendly to
her.%
The Hardy sisters, Mary and Harriet, were both older than Louise. In a
certain kind of knowledge of the world they were years older. They lived as all
of the young women of Middle Western towns lived. In those days young
women did not go out of our towns to Eastern colleges and ideas in regard to
social classes had hardly begun to exist. A daughter of a laborer was in much the
same social position as a daughter of a farmer or a merchant, and there were no
leisure classes. A girl was "nice" or she was "not nice." If a nice girl, she had a
young man who came to her house to see her on Sunday and on Wednesday
evenings. Sometimes she went with her young man to a dance or a church
social. At other times she received him at the house and was given the use of the
parlor for that purpose. No one intruded upon her. For hours the two sat
behind closed doors. Sometimes the lights were turned low and the young man
and woman embraced. Cheeks became hot and hair disarranged. After a year or
two, if the impulse within them became strong and insistent enough, they
married.
One evening during her first winter in Winesburg, Louise had an adventure
that gave a new impulse to her desire to break down the wall that she thought
stood between her and John Hardy. It was Wednesday and immediately after
the evening meal Albert Hardy put on his hat and went away. Young John
brought the wood and put it in the box in Louise's room. "You do work hard,
don't you?" he said awkwardly, and then before she could answer he also went
away.
Louise heard him go out of the house and had a mad desire to run after him.
Opening her window she leaned out and called softly, "John, dear John, come
back, don't go away." The night was cloudy and she could not see far into the
darkness, but as she waited she fancied she could hear a soft little noise as of

Thesaurus
adventure: (n, v) venture, chance; (n)
evasive, indefinite, indescribable,
accident, escapade, incident, event,
dubious.
undertaking, consequence, essay; (v) disarranged: (adj) disheveled,
risk, jeopardize. ANTONYMS: (n)
disorderly, untidy, deranged,
stillness, passiveness, inactivity,
disturbed, delirious, disordered,
inaction, avoidance, inertia, bore.
unkempt, tousled, topsy-turvy,
definite: (adj) certain, clear, distinct,
mussy. ANTONYM: (adj) neat.
concrete, plain, conclusive, specific, impulse: (n) pulse, urge, impulsion,
precise, categorical, decisive; (adj, v)
force, motive, whim, drive, goad,
absolute. ANTONYMS: (adj)
motivation, momentum, incentive.
imprecise, unclear, vague, undefined, ANTONYMS: (n) aversion,
doubtful, indeterminate, qualified,
disincentive, disinclination.

parlor: (n) front room, lounge, sitting
room, saloon, salon, parlour, parlors,
livingroom, common room, parlours,
drawing room.
unfriendly: (adj) inimical, distant,
adverse, antagonistic, unkind, cold,
inhospitable, icy; (adj, adv) chilly; (adj,
v) unfavorable; (adv) hostilely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
welcoming, warm, amiable,
approachable, sociable, hospitable,
kindly, nice, outgoing, pleasant.

82

Winesburg, Ohio

someone going on tiptoes through the trees in the orchard. She was frightened
and closed the window quickly. For an hour she moved about the room
trembling with excitement and when she could not longer bear the waiting, she
crept into the hall and down the stairs into a closet-like room that opened off the
parlor.%
Louise had decided that she would perform the courageous act that had for
weeks been in her mind. She was convinced that John Hardy had concealed
himself in the orchard beneath her window and she was determined to find him
and tell him that she wanted him to come close to her, to hold her in his arms, to
tell her of his thoughts and dreams and to listen while she told him her thoughts
and dreams. "In the darkness it will be easier to say things," she whispered to
herself, as she stood in the little room groping for the door.
And then suddenly Louise realized that she was not alone in the house. In
the parlor on the other side of the door a man's voice spoke softly and the door
opened. Louise just had time to conceal herself in a little opening beneath the
stairway when Mary Hardy, accompanied by her young man, came into the little
dark room.
For an hour Louise sat on the floor in the darkness and listened. Without
words Mary Hardy, with the aid of the man who had come to spend the evening
with her, brought to the country girl a knowledge of men and women. Putting
her head down until she was curled into a little ball she lay perfectly still. It
seemed to her that by some strange impulse of the gods, a great gift had been
brought to Mary Hardy and she could not understand the older woman's
determined protest.
The young man took Mary Hardy into his arms and kissed her. When she
struggled and laughed, he but held her the more tightly. For an hour the contest
between them went on and then they went back into the parlor and Louise
escaped up the stairs. "I hope you were quiet out there. You must not disturb
the little mouse at her studies," she heard Harriet saying to her sister as she stood
by her own door in the hallway above.

Thesaurus
conceal: (v) hide, disguise, bury,
disclosed, uncovered, noticeable,
organize.
gods: (n) gallery.
screen, cloak, smother, shield,
mainstream.
suppress, mask, obscure; (n, v) veil.
curled: (adj) coiled, curling, having
tightly: (adv) closely, steadily, tautly,
ANTONYMS: (v) reveal, show,
curls, round, braided, twisted,
strictly, securely, densely, stiffly,
expose, divulge, clarify, uncover,
bowed, wreathy, Crull, curled up,
solidly, tipsily, stably,
parsimoniously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
disclose, tell, admit, spotlight, flaunt. tressed.
concealed: (adj) covert, clandestine,
disturb: (v) trouble, disorder,
loosely, insecurely, sparsely.
blind, occult, secret, mysterious,
disconcert, distress, perturb, disquiet, trembling: (adj, n) shaking; (adj, n, v)
tremor; (adj) shaky, quaking,
obscure, buried, invisible, secreted,
distract, discompose, disrupt, upset,
surreptitious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
concern. ANTONYMS: (v) calm,
shivering, flutter; (n) palpitation,
unconcealed, available, overt, open,
please, soothe, smooth, order,
quiver, vibration, shiver, quake.
ANTONYMS: (adj) stable, steady.
divulged, Shown, revealed,
reassure, sort, settle, respect, quiet,

Sherwood Anderson

83

Louise wrote a note to John Hardy and late that night, when all in the house
were asleep, she crept downstairs and slipped it under his door. She was afraid
that if she did not do the thing at once her courage would fail. In the note she
tried to be quite definite about what she wanted. "I want someone to love me
and I want to love someone," she wrote. "If you are the one for me I want you to
come into the orchard at night and make a noise under my window. It will be
easy for me to crawl down over the shed and come to you. I am thinking about
it all the time, so if you are to come at all you must come soon."
For a long time Louise did not know what would be the outcome of her bold
attempt to secure for herself a lover. In a way she still did not know whether or
not she wanted him to come. Sometimes it seemed to her that to be held tightly
and kissed was the whole secret of life, and then a new impulse came and she
was terribly afraid. The age-old woman's desire to be possessed had taken
possession of her, but so vague was her notion of life that it seemed to her just
the touch of John Hardy's hand upon her own hand would satisfy. She
wondered if he would understand that. At the table next day while Albert
Hardy talked and the two girls whispered and laughed, she did not look at John
but at the table and as soon as possible escaped. In the evening she went out of
the house until she was sure he had taken the wood to her room and gone away.
When after several evenings of intense listening she heard no call from the
darkness in the orchard, she was half beside herself with grief and decided that
for her there was no way to break through the wall that had shut her off from the
joy of life.%
And then on a Monday evening two or three weeks after the writing of the
note, John Hardy came for her. Louise had so entirely given up the thought of
his coming that for a long time she did not hear the call that came up from the
orchard. On the Friday evening before, as she was being driven back to the farm
for the week-end by one of the hired men, she had on an impulse done a thing
that had startled her, and as John Hardy stood in the darkness below and called
her name softly and insistently, she walked about in her room and wondered
what new impulse had led her to commit so ridiculous an act.

Thesaurus
age-old: (adj) old, aged, immemorial,
antediluvian.
bold: (adj) adventurous, audacious,
manly, arrogant, intrepid, fearless,
spirited, heroic, daring, courageous,
stalwart. ANTONYMS: (adj) timid,
modest, afraid, meek, shy, light,
courteous, discreet, faint, fearful,
abashed.
crawl: (adv, v) grovel, lag; (n, v)
clamber, climb; (v) sneak, fawn,
cringe, teem, swarm, scramble, inch.

ANTONYMS: (v) fly, rush, hurry,
dismayed, distressed, aghast,
hasten, dart, dash, lead, soothe,
frightened, astonished, amazed,
speed.
terrified, afraid, shocked, astounded.
escaped: (adj) at large, at liberty, loose, terribly: (adv) horribly, awfully,
on the loose, runaway, easy, wild; (n) terrifically, very, badly, awful,
freer; (v) escaping.
appallingly, atrociously, terrificly;
insistently: (adv) stubbornly,
(adj, adv) frightfully, shockingly.
obstinately, forcefully, unrelentingly, ANTONYMS: (adv) wonderfully,
doggedly, importunately, resolutely, slightly, superbly, fortunately,
pressingly, assertively, urgently,
happily, laudably, little, marvelously,
uncompromisingly.
pleasantly, hardly, honorably.
startled: (adj) dumbfounded,
walked: (adj) exempt; (v) yode.

84

Winesburg, Ohio

The farm hand, a young fellow with black curly hair, had come for her
somewhat late on that Friday evening and they drove home in the darkness.
Louise, whose mind was filled with thoughts of John Hardy, tried to make talk
but the country boy was embarrassed and would say nothing. Her mind began
to review the loneliness of her childhood and she remembered with a pang the
sharp new loneliness that had just come to her. "I hate everyone," she cried
suddenly, and then broke forth into a tirade that frightened her escort. "I hate
father and the old man Hardy, too," she declared vehemently. "I get my lessons
there in the school in town but I hate that also."
Louise frightened the farm hand still more by turning and putting her cheek
down upon his shoulder. Vaguely she hoped that he like that young man who
had stood in the darkness with Mary would put his arms about her and kiss her,
but the country boy was only alarmed. He struck the horse with the whip and
began to whistle. "The road is rough, eh?" he said loudly. Louise was so angry
that reaching up she snatched his hat from his head and threw it into the road.
When he jumped out of the buggy and went to get it, she drove off and left him
to walk the rest of the way back to the farm.%
Louise Bentley took John Hardy to be her lover. That was not what she
wanted but it was so the young man had interpreted her approach to him, and so
anxious was she to achieve something else that she made no resistance. When
after a few months they were both afraid that she was about to become a mother,
they went one evening to the county seat and were married. For a few months
they lived in the Hardy house and then took a house of their own. All during the
first year Louise tried to make her husband understand the vague and intangible
hunger that had led to the writing of the note and that was still unsatisfied.
Again and again she crept into his arms and tried to talk of it, but always without
success. Filled with his own notions of love between men and women, he did
not listen but began to kiss her upon the lips. That confused her so that in the
end she did not want to be kissed. She did not know what she wanted.
When the alarm that had tricked them into marriage proved to be
groundless, she was angry and said bitter, hurtful things. Later when her son

Thesaurus
groundless: (adj) unfounded,
gratuitous, unwarranted, false,
wanton, idle, vain, ungrounded,
unjustifiable, unjustified, unreal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) proven, true,
justified, rational, sound.
hurtful: (adj) harmful, destructive,
evil, detrimental, deleterious, bad,
injurious, cutting, baneful, baleful,
noisome. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pleasing, harmless, pleasant,
comforting, complimentary, merciful,

helpful, advantageous, flattering,
speech, recitation, Philippic, oration,
benign, generous.
delivery, broadside, lecture, say.
intangible: (adj) immaterial,
ANTONYMS: (n) calm, harmony,
incorporeal, ethereal, indefinite,
praise.
took: (adj) taken; (v) receive.
spiritual, elusive, imperceptible,
insubstantial, airy, indefinable; (n)
unsatisfied: (adj) dissatisfied,
intangible asset. ANTONYMS: (adj)
disgruntled, unsatiated, unsated,
concrete, palpable, touchable, actual. ungratified, restless, discontent,
pang: (n) pain, torture, ache, agony,
fidgety, fretful, unsatiable; (v)
twinge, affliction, sting, stab, distress, unslaked. ANTONYMS: (adj)
ailment, cramp.
pleased, happy.
tirade: (n) diatribe, invective, sermon, women: (n) sex, gentle sex.

Sherwood Anderson

85

David was born, %she could not nurse him and did not know whether she
wanted him or not. Sometimes she stayed in the room with him all day, walking
about and occasionally creeping close to touch him tenderly with her hands, and
then other days came when she did not want to see or be near the tiny bit of
humanity that had come into the house. When John Hardy reproached her for
her cruelty, she laughed. "It is a man child and will get what it wants anyway,"
she said sharply. "Had it been a woman child there is nothing in the world I
would not have done for it."

Thesaurus
came: (v) arrive, come.
decency.
creeping: (n) creep, crawl, locomotion, humanity: (n) benevolence, mankind,
spreading; (v) lentor; (adj) reptile,
flesh, human race, human,
slow, reptant, reptatory, serpiginous, humankind; (adj, n) compassion,
moving.
charity, kindness, benignity,
cruelty: (n) brutality, cruelness,
gentleness. ANTONYMS: (n)
oppression, barbarity, ferociousness, severity, inhumanity, nastiness,
tyranny, violence, atrocity, ferocity,
selfishness.
nurse: (n, v) nourish, nurture; (v) look
mercilessness, harshness.
ANTONYMS: (n) compassion,
after, entertain, attend, cherish,
gentleness, friendliness, humanity,
lactate, harbor, foster, cultivate,
benevolence, sensitivity, liberty,
cradle.

sharply: (adj, adv) piercingly, harshly,
penetratingly; (adv) keenly, severely,
abruptly, trenchantly, shrewdly,
bitingly, cuttingly, bitterly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) gently, kindly,
sweetly, politely, gradually,
pleasantly.
stayed: (v) staid, serious, philosophic,
sedate, platonic, stoical; (n) stays;
(adj) late.
wants: (n) need, necessities.
whether: (pron) where.

Sherwood Anderson

87

PART FOUR
TERROR—
CONCERNING DAVID HARDY

When David Hardy was a tall boy of fifteen, he, like his mother, had an
adventure that changed the whole current of his life and sent him out of his quiet
corner into the world. The shell of the circumstances of his life was broken and
he was compelled to start forth. He left Winesburg and no one there ever saw
him again. After his disappearance, his mother and grandfather both died and
his father became very rich. He spent much money in trying to locate his son,
but that is no part of this story.%
It was in the late fall of an unusual year on the Bentley farms. Everywhere
the crops had been heavy. That spring, Jesse had bought part of a long strip of
black swamp land that lay in the valley of Wine Creek. He got the land at a low
price but had spent a large sum of money to improve it. Great ditches had to be
dug and thousands of tile laid. Neighboring farmers shook their heads over the
expense. Some of them laughed and hoped that Jesse would lose heavily by the
venture, but the old man went silently on with the work and said nothing.
When the land was drained he planted it to cabbages and onions, and again
the neighbors laughed. The crop was, however, enormous and brought high
prices. In the one year Jesse made enough money to pay for all the cost of
preparing the land and had a surplus that enabled him to buy two more farms.

Thesaurus
disappearance: (n) vanishing, loss,
going, fade, evaporation,
disappearing, departure, passing,
death, receding, ending.
ANTONYMS: (n) recurrence,
appearing, arrival, renaissance,
revitalization, show, emergence,
survival.
drained: (adj) tired, weary, spent,
dead, wiped out, beat, pooped,
depleted, effete, run-down; (adj, v)
dry. ANTONYMS: (adj) undrained,

planted: (adj) ingrained, established,
bouncy, lively, energized, relaxed,
vigorous, zippy, refreshed, fresh,
set, concealed.
silently: (adv) mutely, stilly, quietly,
strong.
locate: (v) base, lay, localize, find,
noiselessly, soundlessly, taciturnly,
discover, situate, set, determine,
wordlessly, secretly, speechlessly,
install, unearth; (n, v) fix.
placidly, tacitly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
ANTONYM: (v) remove.
loudly, audibly, openly, brazenly.
neighboring: (adj, adv) adjacent, near; swamp: (v) flood, submerge,
(adj) adjoining, nearby, contiguous,
overwhelm, inundate, drench; (n)
neighbor, abutting, next, neighborly, marsh, mire, quagmire, morass; (adj,
nigh, next to. ANTONYMS: (adj)
v) sink, drown. ANTONYMS: (v)
distant, remote, far, national.
underwhelm, disperse, dry.

88

Winesburg, Ohio

He was exultant and could not conceal his delight. For the first time in all the
history of his ownership of the farms, he went among his men with a smiling
face.%
Jesse bought a great many new machines for cutting down the cost of labor
and all of the remaining acres in the strip of black fertile swamp land. One day
he went into Winesburg and bought a bicycle and a new suit of clothes for David
and he gave his two sisters money with which to go to a religious convention at
Cleveland, Ohio.
In the fall of that year when the frost came and the trees in the forests along
Wine Creek were golden brown, David spent every moment when he did not
have to attend school, out in the open. Alone or with other boys he went every
afternoon into the woods to gather nuts. The other boys of the countryside, most
of them sons of laborers on the Bentley farms, had guns with which they went
hunting rabbits and squirrels, but David did not go with them. He made himself
a sling with rubber bands and a forked stick and went off by himself to gather
nuts. As he went about thoughts came to him. He realized that he was almost a
man and wondered what he would do in life, but before they came to anything,
the thoughts passed and he was a boy again. One day he killed a squirrel that sat
on one of the lower branches of a tree and chattered at him. Home he ran with
the squirrel in his hand. One of the Bentley sisters cooked the little animal and he
ate it with great gusto. The skin he tacked on a board and suspended the board
by a string from his bedroom window.
That gave his mind a new turn. After that he never went into the woods
without carrying the sling in his pocket and he spent hours shooting at
imaginary animals concealed among the brown leaves in the trees. Thoughts of
his coming manhood passed and he was content to be a boy with a boy's
impulses.
One Saturday morning when he was about to set off for the woods with the
sling in his pocket and a bag for nuts on his shoulder, his grandfather stopped
him. In the eyes of the old man was the strained serious look that always a little
frightened David. At such times Jesse Bentley's eyes did not look straight ahead

Thesaurus
exultant: (adj, v) jubilant, triumphant;
delight, delicacy, flavour; (n, v) glow. manliness, ripe age, maturity full age.
(n) buoyant, buoyed up; (adj) gleeful, ANTONYMS: (n) apathy,
sling: (v) pitch, fling, hurl, dangle,
chuck, toss, throw, heave; (adj) hang;
joyful, triumphal, victorious,
sluggishness.
(adj, v) suspend; (n, v) cast.
exulting, ecstatic, glad. ANTONYMS: imaginary: (adj) fictitious, unreal,
(adj) miserable, downhearted,
squirrel: (n) hackee, spermophile,
false, mythical, illusory, ideal,
depressed, sorrowful, unhappy.
hypothetical, visionary, fictional,
baranduki, burunduki, gopher,
forked: (adj) bifurcate, divided,
baronduki, barunduki, collector; (v)
notional, chimerical. ANTONYMS:
(adj) real, palpable, actual, concrete,
bank, conserve; (adj) courser.
branching, bifurcated, furcated,
squirrels: (n) squirrel, mice, beavers,
biramous, double, forked road,
prosaic, normal, true.
manhood: (n) majority, maturity,
furcate, tined, forky.
agoutis, marmots, gophers, guinea
gusto: (n) relish, enjoyment, zest,
valor, resolution, personality,
pigs, hamsters, rats, Rodentia, order
humanity, integrity, bravery; (adj)
pleasure, gust, taste, enthusiasm,
Rodentia.

Sherwood Anderson

89

but wavered and seemed to be looking at nothing. Something like an invisible
curtain appeared to have come between the man and all the rest of the world. "I
want you to come with me," he said briefly, and his eyes looked over the boy's
head into the sky. "We have something important to do today. You may bring
the bag for nuts if you wish. It does not matter and anyway we will be going
into the woods."
Jesse and David set out from the Bentley farmhouse in the old phaeton that
was drawn by the white horse. When they had gone along in silence for a long
way they stopped at the edge of a field where a flock of sheep were grazing.
Among the sheep was a lamb that had been born out of season, and this David
and his grandfather caught and tied so tightly that it looked like a little white
ball. When they drove on again Jesse let David hold the lamb in his arms. "I saw
it yesterday and it put me in mind of what I have long wanted to do," he said,
and again he looked away over the head of the boy with the wavering, uncertain
stare in his eyes.%
After the feeling of exaltation that had come to the farmer as a result of his
successful year, another mood had taken possession of him. For a long time he
had been going about feeling very humble and prayerful. Again he walked
alone at night thinking of God and as he walked he again connected his own
figure with the figures of old days. Under the stars he knelt on the wet grass and
raised up his voice in prayer. Now he had decided that like the men whose
stories filled the pages of the Bible, he would make a sacrifice to God. "I have
been given these abundant crops and God has also sent me a boy who is called
David," he whispered to himself. "Perhaps I should have done this thing long
ago." He was sorry the idea had not come into his mind in the days before his
daughter Louise had been born and thought that surely now when he had
erected a pile of burning sticks in some lonely place in the woods and had
offered the body of a lamb as a burnt offering, God would appear to him and
give him a message.
More and more as he thought of the matter, he thought also of David and his
passionate self-love was partially forgotten. "It is time for the boy to begin

Thesaurus
abundant: (adj, n) lush, luxuriant; (adj) belittlement, debasement,
generous, thick, plenty, affluent,
degradation, humiliation, sorrow,
liberal, fruitful, teeming, fertile,
derogation, disparagement.
ample. ANTONYMS: (adj) sparse,
farmhouse: (n) toft, farmstead,
meager, scanty, infertile, scant, arid,
hacienda, house, cottage, manor,
rare, empty, skimpy, lacking,
grange, homestead, building,
fruitless.
accommodation, bungalow.
exaltation: (n) elation, ecstasy,
flock: (n, v) crowd, cluster, pack, mass;
(adj, n) bevy; (adj, n, v) swarm; (n)
apotheosis, worship, praise, rapture,
deification, grandeur, adoration; (n,
band, horde, congregation, herd; (v)
v) sublimation; (v) laud.
assemble. ANTONYM: (v) disperse.
ANTONYMS: (n) abasement,
grazing: (n) pasturage, feeding,

shaving, farming, Estancia, eating,
skimming.
nuts: (adj) crazy, insane, balmy, nutty,
crackers, loopy, batty, barmy, loony,
dotty, daft. ANTONYM: (adj)
sensible.
self-love: (n) egoism, vanity, pride,
arrogance.
sticks: (n) backwoods, firewood,
frontier, outskirts, suburb, town,
wilderness, brushwood, high sticks;
(adj) distant.

90

Winesburg, Ohio

thinking of going out into the world and the message will be one concerning
him," he decided. "God will make a pathway for him. He will tell me what place
David is to take in life and when he shall set out on his journey. It is right that
the boy should be there. If I am fortunate and an angel of God should appear,
David will see the beauty and glory of God made manifest to man. It will make a
true man of God of him also."
In silence Jesse and David drove along the road until they came to that place
where Jesse had once before appealed to God and had frightened his grandson.
The morning had been bright and cheerful, but a cold wind now began to blow
and clouds hid the sun. When David saw the place to which they had come he
began to tremble with fright, and when they stopped by the bridge where the
creek came down from among the trees, he wanted to spring out of the phaeton
and run away.%
A dozen plans for escape ran through David's head, but when Jesse stopped
the horse and climbed over the fence into the wood, he followed. "It is foolish to
be afraid. Nothing will happen," he told himself as he went along with the lamb
in his arms. There was something in the helplessness of the little animal held so
tightly in his arms that gave him courage. He could feel the rapid beating of the
beast's heart and that made his own heart beat less rapidly. As he walked swiftly
along behind his grandfather, he untied the string with which the four legs of the
lamb were fastened together. "If anything happens we will run away together,"
he thought.
In the woods, after they had gone a long way from the road, Jesse stopped in
an opening among the trees where a clearing, overgrown with small bushes, ran
up from the creek. He was still silent but began at once to erect a heap of dry
sticks which he presently set afire. The boy sat on the ground with the lamb in
his arms. His imagination began to invest every movement of the old man with
significance and he became every moment more afraid. "I must put the blood of
the lamb on the head of the boy," Jesse muttered when the sticks had begun to
blaze greedily, and taking a long knife from his pocket he turned and walked
rapidly across the clearing toward David.

Thesaurus
afire: (adj) flaming, burning, blazing,
collection, accumulation, mound,
fiery, on fire, glowing, aflare, aflame, mass, group, lot; (v) bank, collect.
in flames, passionate; (adj, v) alight.
ANTONYM: (v) tidy.
creek: (n) brook, cove, bay, stream,
helplessness: (n) powerlessness,
inlet, river, bayou, rivulet; (v) burn,
defenselessness, dependence,
runnel, beck.
impotency, impotence, inability,
greedily: (adv) covetously, avidly,
impuissance, incapability, incapacity,
voraciously, ravenously, rapaciously, defencelessness, failing.
acquisitively, gluttonously, hungrily, ANTONYMS: (n) resistance, capacity,
graspingly, eagerly, enviously.
strength.
ANTONYM: (adv) sparingly.
muttered: (adj) garbled, incoherent,
heap: (n, v) pile, aggregate, amass; (n)
broken, inarticulate.

overgrown: (adj) excessive, exorbitant,
inordinate, extravagant, monstrous,
covered, exaggerated, dropsical, lush;
(v) turgid, tumid.
pathway: (n) lane, road, path,
footpath, course, trail, alley, highway,
way, tract, track.
untied: (adj) unfastened, unchained,
unshackled, unlaced, unbound,
unfettered, free, unsewed, open,
unconnected, rambling.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tied, laced.

Sherwood Anderson

91

Terror seized upon the soul of the boy. He was sick with it. For a moment he
sat perfectly still and then his body stiffened and he sprang to his feet. His face
became as white as the fleece of the lamb that, now finding itself suddenly
released, ran down the hill. David ran also. Fear made his feet fly. Over the low
bushes and logs he leaped frantically. As he ran he put his hand into his pocket
and took out the branched stick from which the sling for shooting squirrels was
suspended. When he came to the creek that was shallow and splashed down
over the stones, he dashed into the water and turned to look back, and when he
saw his grandfather still running toward him with the long knife held tightly in
his hand he did not hesitate, but reaching down, selected a stone and put it in the
sling. With all his strength he drew back the heavy rubber bands and the stone
whistled through the air. It hit Jesse, who had entirely forgotten the boy and was
pursuing the lamb, squarely in the head. With a groan he pitched forward and
fell almost at the boy's feet. When David saw that he lay still and that he was
apparently dead, his fright increased immeasurably. It became an insane panic.%
With a cry he turned and ran off through the woods weeping convulsively.
"I don't care--I killed him, but I don't care," he sobbed. As he ran on and on he
decided suddenly that he would never go back again to the Bentley farms or to
the town of Winesburg. "I have killed the man of God and now I will myself be a
man and go into the world," he said stoutly as he stopped running and walked
rapidly down a road that followed the windings of Wine Creek as it ran through
fields and forests into the west.
On the ground by the creek Jesse Bentley moved uneasily about. He groaned
and opened his eyes. For a long time he lay perfectly still and looked at the sky.
When at last he got to his feet, his mind was confused and he was not surprised
by the boy's disappearance. By the roadside he sat down on a log and began to
talk about God. That is all they ever got out of him. Whenever David's name
was mentioned he looked vaguely at the sky and said that a messenger from God
had taken the boy. "It happened because I was too greedy for glory," he
declared, and would have no more to say in the matter.

Thesaurus
branched: (adj) bifurcate, branching,
(v) howl, complain; (n) complaint.
splashed: (adj) dabbled, bespattered,
ramous, ramose, divided, biramous, immeasurably: (adv) boundlessly,
besplashed, spattered, marked,
branchy, prongy, bearing branches,
endlessly, immensely, greatly, much; unclean, dirty, splattered,
(adj) exceedingly, extremely,
split, pronged.
distributed, showy, dotted.
convulsively: (adv) spasmodically,
exquisitely, acutely, ultra, intensely. squarely: (adv) straightforwardly,
ANTONYM: (adv) slightly.
paroxysmally, spasticly, with
square, forthright, rightly, fairly,
pitched: (adj) oblique, thrown,
convulsions.
quadrately, truely, right, squaredly,
fleece: (v) extort, bilk, pluck, deceive,
slanting, at an angle, leaning; (v)
correspondly, straightly.
stoutly: (adv) sturdily, robustly,
rip off, swindle, strip, pigeon, shear;
fixed, pight, determined.
(adj, v) bleed; (n) wool.
ANTONYM: (adj) level.
strongly, solidly, lustily, vigorously,
groan: (n, v) grumble, murmur, cry,
roadside: (n) verge, shoulder, border,
toughly, resolutely, stockily, portly,
obstinately. ANTONYM: (adv) feebly.
sigh, mutter, squeak, rumble, scrape; edge, margin.

Sherwood Anderson

A

%MAN

93

OF IDEAS

He lived with his mother, a grey, silent woman with a peculiar ashy
complexion. The house in which they lived stood in a little grove of trees beyond
where the main street of Winesburg crossed Wine Creek. His name was Joe
Welling, and his father had been a man of some dignity in the community, a
lawyer, and a member of the state legislature at Columbus. Joe himself was
small of body and in his character unlike anyone else in town. He was like a tiny
little volcano that lies silent for days and then suddenly spouts fire. No, he
wasn't like that-he was like a man who is subject to fits, one who walks among
his fellow men inspiring fear because a fit may come upon him suddenly and
blow him away into a strange uncanny physical state in which his eyes roll and
his legs and arms jerk. He was like that, only that the visitation that descended
upon Joe Welling was a mental and not a physical thing. He was beset by ideas
and in the throes of one of his ideas was uncontrollable. Words rolled and
tumbled from his mouth. A peculiar smile came upon his lips. The edges of his
teeth that were tipped with gold glistened in the light. Pouncing upon a
bystander he began to talk. For the bystander there was no escape. The excited
man breathed into his face, peered into his eyes, pounded upon his chest with a
shaking forefinger, demanded, compelled attention.
In those days the Standard Oil Company did not deliver oil to the consumer
in big wagons and motor trucks as it does now, but delivered instead to retail

Thesaurus
ashy: (adj) wan, ashen, pale, sallow,
pallid, grey, livid, gray, cadaverous,
pasty, white.
bystander: (n) spectator, witness,
eyewitness, observer, beholder,
looker-on, viewer, watcher, passer
by, outsider, looker.
forefinger: (n) index finger, index,
forefingers, paw, thumb, hand,
exponent, antenna, feeler.
inspiring: (adj) rousing, provocative,
inspire, inspirational, inspiringly,

heartening, encourage, entertaining, uncontrollable: (adj) unruly,
exhilarating, hopeful, imposing.
incontrollable, ungovernable,
ANTONYMS: (adj) ridiculous,
unmanageable, intractable,
uninspiring, banal, boring, dull,
undisciplined, disobedient, indocile,
overwhelming, boisterous; (adj, v)
unimpressive.
jerk: (n, v) jump, yank, shake, twitch,
uncontrolled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
jar, tug, bump, heave, pull; (v) fling,
controllable, imperceptible, orderly,
flip. ANTONYM: (v) ease.
biddable, weak.
pounded: (adj) beaten, ground,
visitation: (v) visit, examination; (n)
crushed, pulverized, minced, broken tribulation, calamity, annoyance,
up, milled.
misfortune, irritation, infliction,
throes: (n) hurt, labor, suffering.
inspection, test, ordeal.

94

Winesburg, Ohio

grocers, hardware stores, and the like. Joe was the Standard Oil agent in
Winesburg and in several towns up and down the railroad that went through
Winesburg. He collected bills, booked orders, and did other things. His father,
the legislator, had secured the job for him.%
In and out of the stores of Winesburg went Joe Welling--silent, excessively
polite, intent upon his business. Men watched him with eyes in which lurked
amusement tempered by alarm. They were waiting for him to break forth,
preparing to flee. Although the seizures that came upon him were harmless
enough, they could not be laughed away. They were overwhelming. Astride an
idea, Joe was overmastering. His personality became gigantic. It overrode the
man to whom he talked, swept him away, swept all away, all who stood within
sound of his voice.
In Sylvester West's Drug Store stood four men who were talking of horse
racing. Wesley Moyer's stallion, Tony Tip, was to race at the June meeting at
Tiffin, Ohio, and there was a rumor that he would meet the stiffest competition
of his career. It was said that Pop Geers, the great racing driver, would himself
be there. A doubt of the success of Tony Tip hung heavy in the air of Winesburg.
Into the drug store came Joe Welling, brushing the screen door violently
aside. With a strange absorbed light in his eyes he pounced upon Ed Thomas, he
who knew Pop Geers and whose opinion of Tony Tip's chances was worth
considering.
"The water is up in Wine Creek," cried Joe Welling with the air of
Pheidippides bringing news of the victory of the Greeks in the struggle at
Marathon. His finger beat a tattoo upon Ed Thomas's broad chest. "By Trunion
bridge it is within eleven and a half inches of the flooring," he went on, the words
coming quickly and with a little whistling noise from between his teeth. An
expression of helpless annoyance crept over the faces of the four.
"I have my facts correct. Depend upon that. I went to Sinnings' Hardware
Store and got a rule. Then I went back and measured. I could hardly believe my
own eyes. It hasn't rained you see for ten days. At first I didn't know what to
think. Thoughts rushed through my head. I thought of subterranean passages

Thesaurus
bills: (n) currency, folding money.
brushing: (n) brush, slashing,
hairdressing, rub, striking, combing;
(adj) ripping. ANTONYM: (n) set.
excessively: (adj, adv) immoderately,
exorbitantly, inordinately; (adv)
extremely, enormously, exceedingly,
very, profusely, overly,
exaggeratedly, intemperately.
ANTONYMS: (adv) justifiably,
moderately, insufficiently.
knew: (adj) known; (v) recognize, wist.

legislator: (n) lawgiver, representative,
congressman, deputy, filibuster,
frontbencher, backbencher,
crossbencher, statist, statemonger,
parliamentarian.
overmastering: (adj) deeply felt, deep,
lowly, profound.
rumor: (n) hearsay, talk, news; (n, v)
gossip, fame, buzz, bruit, noise,
rumour; (v) repute, reputation.
ANTONYM: (n) truth.
subterranean: (adj) underground,

backdoor, profound, subaqueous,
submarine, subterrene, subterrestrial,
deep, hole-and-corner,
subterraneous, subterrany.
tattoo: (n) drumbeat, tattoos, bugle
call, decoration.
tempered: (adj) attempered,
temperate, moderated, toughened,
subdued, set, enured, proportioned,
properly adapted, emotionally
hardened, treated. ANTONYM: (adj)
untempered.

Sherwood Anderson

95

and springs. Down under the ground went my mind, delving about. I sat on the
floor of the bridge and rubbed my head. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, not
one. Come out into the street and you'll see. There wasn't a cloud. There isn't a
cloud now. Yes, there was a cloud. I don't want to keep back any facts. There
was a cloud in the west down near the horizon, a cloud no bigger than a man's
hand.%
"Not that I think that has anything to do with it. There it is, you see. You
understand how puzzled I was.
"Then an idea came to me. I laughed. You'll laugh, too. Of course it rained
over in Medina County. That's interesting, eh? If we had no trains, no mails, no
telegraph, we would know that it rained over in Medina County. That's where
Wine Creek comes from. Everyone knows that. Little old Wine Creek brought
us the news. That's interesting. I laughed. I thought I'd tell you--it's interesting,
eh?"
Joe Welling turned and went out at the door. Taking a book from his pocket,
he stopped and ran a finger down one of the pages. Again he was absorbed in
his duties as agent of the Standard Oil Company. "Hern's Grocery will be getting
low on coal oil. I'll see them," he muttered, hurrying along the street, and
bowing politely to the right and left at the people walking past.
When George Willard went to work for the Winesburg Eagle he was
besieged by Joe Welling. Joe envied the boy. It seemed to him that he was
meant by Nature to be a reporter on a newspaper. "It is what I should be doing,
there is no doubt of that," he declared, stopping George Willard on the sidewalk
before Daugherty's Feed Store. His eyes began to glisten and his forefinger to
tremble. "Of course I make more money with the Standard Oil Company and I'm
only telling you," he added. "I've got nothing against you but I should have your
place. I could do the work at odd moments. Here and there I would run finding
out things you'll never see."
Becoming more excited Joe Welling crowded the young reporter against the
front of the feed store. He appeared to be lost in thought, rolling his eyes about
and running a thin nervous hand through his hair. A smile spread over his face

Thesaurus
besieged: (adj) enclosed, under
pressure, under attack, targeted,
struggling, stressed, under fire,
fraught, embattled, careworn,
harassed.
bowing: (n) obeisance, playing,
gesticulation, capitulation,
genuflection, scraping, submission;
(adj) bowed, bent, fawning,
submissive.
delving: (n) inquest, probe, quest,
research, inquiry, investigation.

glisten: (n, v) gleam, sparkle, flash,
brusquely, discourteously,
glance, shimmer, glitter, glister; (v)
disrespectfully, uncooperatively,
glimmer, beam, coruscate, glint.
disagreeably.
hurrying: (n) hastening, speed,
puzzled: (adj) bewildered, confused,
quickening, rushing, early, speeding, baffled, nonplussed, doubtful,
speeding up, stepping up,
bemused, at a loss, curious,
amphetamine, forward, eager.
mystified, nonplused, dazed.
politely: (adv) kindly, civilly,
ANTONYM: (adj) clear.
telegraph: (n) telegram, telegraphy,
respectfully, properly, graciously,
flagstaff, setup; (v) wire, broadcast,
urbanely, elegantly, gallantly,
genteelly, refinedly, considerately.
electrify, forecast, foreshadow,
ANTONYMS: (adv) rudely,
forewarn, telecommunicate.

96

Winesburg, Ohio

and his gold teeth glittered. "You get out your note book," he commanded. "You
carry a little pad of paper in your pocket, don't you? I knew you did. Well, you
set this down. I thought of it the other day. Let's take decay. Now what is
decay? It's fire. It burns up wood and other things. You never thought of that?
Of course not. This sidewalk here and this feed store, the trees down the street
there--they're all on fire. They're burning up. Decay you see is always going on.
It doesn't stop. Water and paint can't stop it. If a thing is iron, then what? It
rusts, you see. That's fire, too. The world is on fire. Start your pieces in the paper
that way. Just say in big letters 'The World Is On Fire.' That will make 'em look
up. They'll say you're a smart one. I don't care. I don't envy you. I just snatched
that idea out of the air. I would make a newspaper hum. You got to admit that."'
Turning quickly, Joe Welling walked rapidly away. When he had taken
several steps he stopped and looked back. "I'm going to stick to you," he said.
"I'm going to make you a regular hummer. I should start a newspaper myself,
that's what I should do. I'd be a marvel. Everybody knows that."
When George Willard had been for a year on the Winesburg Eagle, four
things happened to Joe Welling. His mother died, he came to live at the New
Willard House, he became involved in a love affair, and he organized the
Winesburg Baseball Club.%
Joe organized the baseball club because he wanted to be a coach and in that
position he began to win the respect of his townsmen. "He is a wonder," they
declared after Joe's team had whipped the team from Medina County. "He gets
everybody working together. You just watch him."
Upon the baseball field Joe Welling stood by first base, his whole body
quivering with excitement. In spite of themselves all the players watched him
closely. The opposing pitcher became confused.
"Now! Now! Now! Now!" shouted the excited man. "Watch me! Watch me!
Watch my fingers! Watch my hands! Watch my feet! Watch my eyes! Let's work
together here! Watch me! In me you see all the movements of the game! Work
with me! Work with me! Watch me! Watch me! Watch me!"

Thesaurus
baseball: (n) hockey, ball game,
rustler, hustler, live man.
marvel: (n, v) wonder; (n) prodigy,
ballock, baseball game, football.
burns: (n) George Burns, Nathan
curiosity, phenomenon, amazement,
Birnbaum, Robert Burns.
miracle, portent, marl, surprise,
commanded: (adj) lawful.
admiration; (v) admire. ANTONYMS:
envy: (v) begrudge, want; (n)
(v) disregard; (n) nightmare.
opposing: (adj) conflicting,
enviousness, desire, heartburning,
resentment, envies, heartburn,
antagonistic, opponent, contrary,
jealousy, hatred; (adj) jealous.
adverse, hostile, antithetical, anti,
ANTONYM: (n) generosity.
contradictory, rival; (prep) against.
hummer: (n) bullet, heater, fastball,
ANTONYMS: (adj) compatible,
gage, ganja, grass, smoke, dope; (adj) consistent, allied, accepting.

paint: (n, v) color, tint; (v) daub, coat,
decorate, varnish, depict, enamel,
lacquer, apply; (n) painting.
pitcher: (n) jar, ewer, mug, pot, hurler,
creamer, container, pail, bucket,
flagon, tankard.
quivering: (adj, n) trembling, tremor,
quaking, trepidation; (n) palpitation,
quiver, vibration; (adj) flutter,
quavering, shivering, tremulous.
ANTONYM: (adj) steady.
whipped: (v) whipt.

Sherwood Anderson

97

With runners of the Winesburg team on bases, Joe Welling became as one
inspired. Before they knew what had come over them, the base runners were
watching the man, edging off the bases, advancing, retreating, held as by an
invisible cord. The players of the opposing team also watched Joe. They were
fascinated. For a moment they watched and then, as though to break a spell that
hung over them, they began hurling the ball wildly about, and amid a series of
fierce animal-like cries from the coach, the runners of the Winesburg team
scampered home.%
Joe Welling's love affair set the town of Winesburg on edge. When it began
everyone whispered and shook his head. When people tried to laugh, the
laughter was forced and unnatural. Joe fell in love with Sarah King, a lean, sadlooking woman who lived with her father and brother in a brick house that stood
opposite the gate leading to the Winesburg Cemetery.
The two Kings, Edward the father, and Tom the son, were not popular in
Winesburg. They were called proud and dangerous. They had come to
Winesburg from some place in the South and ran a cider mill on the Trunion
Pike. Tom King was reported to have killed a man before he came to Winesburg.
He was twenty-seven years old and rode about town on a grey pony. Also he
had a long yellow mustache that dropped down over his teeth, and always
carried a heavy, wicked-looking walking stick in his hand. Once he killed a dog
with the stick. The dog belonged to Win Pawsey, the shoe merchant, and stood
on the sidewalk wagging its tail. Tom King killed it with one blow. He was
arrested and paid a fine of ten dollars.
Old Edward King was small of stature and when he passed people in the
street laughed a queer unmirthful laugh. When he laughed he scratched his left
elbow with his right hand. The sleeve of his coat was almost worn through from
the habit. As he walked along the street, looking nervously about and laughing,
he seemed more dangerous than his silent, fierce-looking son.
When Sarah King began walking out in the evening with Joe Welling, people
shook their heads in alarm. She was tall and pale and had dark rings under her
eyes. The couple looked ridiculous together. Under the trees they walked and

Thesaurus
advancing: (adj) progressive, moving
forward, increasing, moving,
processive, thriving, ongoing,
aggressive; (n) advancement,
progression, proceeding.
cider: (v) Brazil tea, ice water, claret;
(n) inebriant, alcoholic beverage,
hard cider, pomade, sicer, sider,
alcohol, beverage.
edging: (n) border, edge, brim, brink,
lace, trimming, boundary, galloon,
hem, list, frame.

fascinated: (adj) captivated, absorbed,
gripped, engrossed, interested,
attentive, preoccupied, entranced,
attracted, enchanted, enthralled.
ANTONYMS: (adj) indifferent,
disinterested, disenchanted,
detached.
hurling: (adj) moving; (n) field game.
queer: (adj) fantastic, odd, eccentric,
funny, curious, gay, peculiar, strange,
quaint, fishy, outlandish.
ANTONYMS: (adj) conventional,

normal, well.
retreating: (n) flight; (adj) moving
back.
stature: (n) height, altitude, standing,
tallness, prestige, figure, growth,
status, quality, rank, greatness.
unnatural: (adj) affected, artificial,
grotesque, supernatural, forced,
abnormal, eccentric, uncanny, stilted,
mannered, anomalous. ANTONYMS:
(adj) natural, normal, real, unaffected,
commonplace, genuine, sincere.

98

Winesburg, Ohio

Joe talked. His passionate eager protestations of love, heard coming out of the
darkness by the cemetery wall, or from the deep shadows of the trees on the hill
that ran up to the Fair Grounds from Waterworks Pond, were repeated in the
stores. Men stood by the bar in the New Willard House laughing and talking of
Joe's courtship. After the laughter came the silence. The Winesburg baseball
team, under his management, was winning game after game, and the town had
begun to respect him. Sensing a tragedy, they waited, laughing nervously.%
Late on a Saturday afternoon the meeting between Joe Welling and the two
Kings, the anticipation of which had set the town on edge, took place in Joe
Welling's room in the New Willard House. George Willard was a witness to the
meeting. It came about in this way:
When the young reporter went to his room after the evening meal he saw
Tom King and his father sitting in the half darkness in Joe's room. The son had
the heavy walking stick in his hand and sat near the door. Old Edward King
walked nervously about, scratching his left elbow with his right hand. The
hallways were empty and silent.
George Willard went to his own room and sat down at his desk. He tried to
write but his hand trembled so that he could not hold the pen. He also walked
nervously up and down. Like the rest of the town of Winesburg he was
perplexed and knew not what to do.
It was seven-thirty and fast growing dark when Joe Welling came along the
station platform toward the New Willard House. In his arms he held a bundle
of weeds and grasses. In spite of the terror that made his body shake, George
Willard was amused at the sight of the small spry figure holding the grasses and
half running along the platform.
Shaking with fright and anxiety, the young reporter lurked in the hallway
outside the door of the room in which Joe Welling talked to the two Kings. There
had been an oath, the nervous giggle of old Edward King, and then silence.
Now the voice of Joe Welling, sharp and clear, broke forth. George Willard
began to laugh. He understood. As he had swept all men before him, so now Joe

Thesaurus
amused: (adj) amusing, smiling,
prayer, entreaty, gallantry, addresses,
tickled pink, pleased, diverted.
cause, affection.
bundle: (n, v) pack, cluster, clump,
giggle: (n, v) laugh, chuckle, titter,
wad; (n) sheaf, pile, batch, stack,
twitter, guffaw, gurgle, snort, hoot;
package, group, heap. ANTONYMS: (v) cackle, snicker, snigger.
(v) scatter, separate, disperse, divide. nervously: (adv) edgily, anxiously,
cemetery: (n) graveyard, tomb, burial
timidly, worriedly, uneasily,
ground, burying ground,
restlessly, timorously, skittishly,
churchyard, necropolis, burial site,
excitedly, neurotically,
resting place, site, burial place, grave. apprehensively. ANTONYMS: (adv)
courtship: (n) courting, wooing, love,
confidently, boldly, fearlessly,
bundling, the soft impeachment,
unconcernedly, nonchalantly,

trustingly.
oath: (n) expletive, malediction,
imprecation, promise, affidavit, cuss,
swearing, pledge, assurance,
asseveration; (v) swear.
platform: (n) dais, stand, stage,
rostrum, quay, pulpit, plan, landing,
ambo; (adj, n) floor; (n, v) program.
spry: (adj) quick, lively, active, agile,
nimble, energetic, sprightly, frisky,
prompt, ready, alert. ANTONYMS:
(adj) inactive, sluggish, slow.

Sherwood Anderson

99

Welling was carrying the two men in the room off their feet with a tidal wave of
words. The listener in the hall walked up and down, lost in amazement.%
Inside the room Joe Welling had paid no attention to the grumbled threat of
Tom King. Absorbed in an idea he closed the door and, lighting a lamp, spread
the handful of weeds and grasses upon the floor. "I've got something here," he
announced solemnly. "I was going to tell George Willard about it, let him make
a piece out of it for the paper. I'm glad you're here. I wish Sarah were here also.
I've been going to come to your house and tell you of some of my ideas. They're
interesting. Sarah wouldn't let me. She said we'd quarrel. That's foolish."
Running up and down before the two perplexed men, Joe Welling began to
explain. "Don't you make a mistake now," he cried. "This is something big." His
voice was shrill with excitement. "You just follow me, you'll be interested. I
know you will. Suppose this--suppose all of the wheat, the corn, the oats, the
peas, the potatoes, were all by some miracle swept away. Now here we are, you
see, in this county. There is a high fence built all around us. We'll suppose that.
No one can get over the fence and all the fruits of the earth are destroyed,
nothing left but these wild things, these grasses. Would we be done for? I ask
you that. Would we be done for?" Again Tom King growled and for a moment
there was silence in the room. Then again Joe plunged into the exposition of his
idea. "Things would go hard for a time. I admit that. I've got to admit that. No
getting around it. We'd be hard put to it. More than one fat stomach would cave
in. But they couldn't down us. I should say not."
Tom King laughed good naturedly and the shivery, nervous laugh of
Edward King rang through the house. Joe Welling hurried on. "We'd begin, you
see, to breed up new vegetables and fruits. Soon we'd regain all we had lost.
Mind, I don't say the new things would be the same as the old. They wouldn't.
Maybe they'd be better, maybe not so good. That's interesting, eh? You can think
about that. It starts your mind working, now don't it?"
In the room there was silence and then again old Edward King laughed
nervously. "Say, I wish Sarah was here," cried Joe Welling. "Let's go up to your
house. I want to tell her of this."

Thesaurus
cave: (n) lair, hole, grotto, hollow,
cove, den, cell, grot, nest; (v)
undermine, calve. ANTONYMS: (n)
hump; (v) withstand.
exposition: (n) comment, exhibition,
show, explanation, elucidation,
clarification, exhibit, description,
demonstration, dissertation, fair.
fruits: (n) revenue.
listener: (n, v) auditor; (n)
eavesdropper, audience, observer,
perceiver, hearkener, attender,

attendee, attendant, beholder.
oats: (n) Avena, grain, millet, cereal,
cereal grass, common oats, genus
Avena, Haver, holder, maize,
buckwheat.
peas: (n) beans, bean, bills.
potatoes: (n) root crop.
regain: (v) retrieve, recoup, recuperate,
reclaim, recapture, redeem, get,
discover, feel, recall, get back.
shivery: (adj) fragile, cold, crumbly,
frangible, friable, frail, scarey, scary,

gimcrack, chilling, brash.
solemnly: (adv) earnestly, gravely,
majestically, stately, sternly, staidly,
thoughtfully, soberly, formally,
ceremoniously, importantly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) cheerfully,
flippantly.
tidal: (adj) flowing.
wheat: (n) corn, spelt, bulgur, emmer,
hard wheat, maize, bulghur, wheat
berry, soft wheat, food grain, Indian
corn.

100

Winesburg, Ohio

There %was a scraping of chairs in the room. It was then that George Willard
retreated to his own room. Leaning out at the window he saw Joe Welling going
along the street with the two Kings. Tom King was forced to take extraordinary
long strides to keep pace with the little man. As he strode along, he leaned over,
listening--absorbed, fascinated. Joe Welling again talked excitedly. "Take
milkweed now," he cried. "A lot might be done with milkweed, eh? It's almost
unbelievable. I want you to think about it. I want you two to think about it.
There would be a new vegetable kingdom you see. It's interesting, eh? It's an
idea. Wait till you see Sarah, she'll get the idea. She'll be interested. Sarah is
always interested in ideas. You can't be too smart for Sarah, now can you? Of
course you can't. You know that."

Thesaurus
chairs: (n) seats.
marvelous, marvellous, tall; (adj, v)
swallowwort.
leaned: (v) erudite, lettered; (adj)
retreated: (adj) withdrawn, people.
staggering. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smart: (adj, n) sharp, quick, bright; (n,
tilted, inclined, educated.
credible, plausible, believable,
leaning: (adj, n) bent, disposition,
v) pain; (adj) shrewd, crafty, sly,
mundane, ordinary, real, conceivable,
partiality; (n) propensity, bias,
dapper, prompt, astute, intelligent.
unremarkable, truthful, sensible,
tendency, incline, lean; (adj) tilted,
ANTONYMS: (adj) stupid, scruffy,
probable.
canted, inclined. ANTONYMS: (n)
unkempt, dim, shabby, slow, naive, vegetable: (adj, n) vegetal; (n) plant,
antipathy, dislike; (adj) upright.
unfashionable, unstylish,
earthnut, fennel, pumpkin, rhubarb,
milkweed: (n) chiggerflower, Sonchus unintelligent, thick.
gumbo, truffle, artichoke, cucumber,
unbelievable: (adj) improbable,
celery. ANTONYM: (adj) mineral.
oleraceus, Asclepias, blood flower,
butterfly weed, genus Asclepias,
implausible, unlikely, inconceivable,
horsetail milkweed, milk thistle,
fabulous, impossible, unthinkable,

Sherwood Anderson

101

ADVENTURE

Alice Hindman, a woman of twenty-seven when George Willard was a mere
boy, had lived in Winesburg all her life. She clerked in Winney's Dry Goods
Store and lived with her mother, who had married a second husband.%
Alice's step-father was a carriage painter, and given to drink. His story is an
odd one. It will be worth telling some day.
At twenty-seven Alice was tall and somewhat slight. Her head was large and
overshadowed her body. Her shoulders were a little stooped and her hair and
eyes brown. She was very quiet but beneath a placid exterior a continual
ferment went on.
When she was a girl of sixteen and before she began to work in the store,
Alice had an affair with a young man. The young man, named Ned Currie, was
older than Alice. He, like George Willard, was employed on the Winesburg
Eagle and for a long time he went to see Alice almost every evening. Together
the two walked under the trees through the streets of the town and talked of
what they would do with their lives. Alice was then a very pretty girl and Ned
Currie took her into his arms and kissed her. He became excited and said things
he did not intend to say and Alice, betrayed by her desire to have something
beautiful come into her rather narrow life, also grew excited. She also talked.
The outer crust of her life, all of her natural diffidence and reserve, was tom

Thesaurus
continual: (adj, adv) constant; (adj)
shyness, pudency, coyness,
easygoing, equable, gentle, quiet,
pacific, tranquil, cool, peaceable; (adj,
ceaseless, incessant, endless,
timorousness, doubt, humility,
v) peaceful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
continuous, frequent, everlasting,
timidity, uncertainty, constraint.
ANTONYMS: (n) approachability,
uninterrupted, perpetual,
rough, energetic, stormy, frenetic,
unrelenting, perennial. ANTONYMS: arrogance, security, brashness.
excitable, agitated, unstable,
(adj) sporadic, temporary, occasional, exterior: (adj, n) outside, surface,
bothered, harsh, boisterous.
finite, inconstant, infrequent, ending, outward; (n) appearance, skin, front; sixteen: (n) large integer.
(adj) external, superficial, outlying,
stooped: (adj) hunched, stoop,
ceasing, halting, rare, acute.
crust: (n) skin, peel, bark, cheekiness,
outer, outdoor. ANTONYMS: (adj, n) stooping, crooked, bended, not
interior, inside; (adj) inner, internal,
gall, impertinence, covering, shell,
straight, inclined, not erect, arched,
cortex, coating, encrustation.
intrinsic, middle, deep.
asymmetrical, droopy.
diffidence: (n) reserve, modesty,
placid: (adj) calm, composed,
went: (v) walked, proceeded.

102

Winesburg, Ohio

away and she gave herself over to the emotions of love. When, late in the fall of
her sixteenth year, Ned Currie went away to Cleveland where he hoped to get a
place on a city newspaper and rise in the world, she wanted to go with him.
With a trembling voice she told him what was in her mind. "I will work and you
can work," she said. "I do not want to harness you to a needless expense that
will prevent your making progress. Don't marry me now. We will get along
without that and we can be together. Even though we live in the same house no
one will say anything. In the city we will be unknown and people will pay no
attention to us."
Ned Currie was puzzled by the determination and abandon of his sweetheart
and was also deeply touched. He had wanted the girl to become his mistress but
changed his mind. He wanted to protect and care for her. "You don't know
what you're talking about," he said sharply; "you may be sure I'll let you do no
such thing. As soon as I get a good job I'll come back. For the present you'll have
to stay here. It's the only thing we can do."
On the evening before he left Winesburg to take up his new life in the city,
Ned Currie went to call on Alice. They walked about through the streets for an
hour and then got a rig from Wesley Moyer's livery and went for a drive in the
country. The moon came up and they found themselves unable to talk. In his
sadness the young man forgot the resolutions he had made regarding his
conduct with the girl.%
They got out of the buggy at a place where a long meadow ran down to the
bank of Wine Creek and there in the dim light became lovers. When at midnight
they returned to town they were both glad. It did not seem to them that
anything that could happen in the future could blot out the wonder and beauty
of the thing that had happened. "Now we will have to stick to each other,
whatever happens we will have to do that," Ned Currie said as he left the girl at
her father's door.
The young newspaper man did not succeed in getting a place on a Cleveland
paper and went west to Chicago. For a time he was lonely and wrote to Alice
almost every day. Then he was caught up by the life of the city; he began to

Thesaurus
blot: (n, v) spot, blemish, smudge,
mark, slur, taint, shame; (v) tarnish,
blob; (n) blotch; (adj, n) fault.
ANTONYMS: (v) dampen, grace,
soak, wet, beautify, improve,
enhance.
harness: (adj, n) strap, tether; (n, v)
yoke, rein, couple, check; (adj, v)
hitch; (v) wear, equip, limit, use.
ANTONYM: (v) undo.
livery: (adj) liverish, bilious; (n)
clothing, accouterment, uniform,

complexion, legal transfer, color, hue, justifiable.
sadness: (n, v) melancholy,
dye, bailment.
meadow: (n) hayfield, lea, mead,
despondency; (adj, n) grief, distress;
(n) misery, sorrow, desolation, regret,
grassland, plain, lawn, sward,
grazing land, greensward, pasturage, gloom, mourning, affliction.
ANTONYMS: (n) joy, amusement,
paddock.
needless: (adj, v) unnecessary,
cheerfulness, laughter, contentment,
superfluous; (adj) futile, dispensable, comfort, cheer, hopefulness.
sweetheart: (n) dear, girl, darling,
bootless, excessive, preventable,
meaningless, pointless, wanton,
mistress, flame, beloved, boyfriend,
unavailing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
love, steady; (adj, n) beau, admirer.
ANTONYMS: (n) foe, enemy.
essential, worthwhile, inevitable,

Sherwood Anderson

103

make friends and found new interests in life. In Chicago he boarded at a house
where there were several women. One of them attracted his attention and he
forgot Alice in Winesburg. At the end of a year he had stopped writing letters,
and only once in a long time, when he was lonely or when he went into one of
the city parks and saw the moon shining on the grass as it had shone that night
on the meadow by Wine Creek, did he think of her at all.%
In Winesburg the girl who had been loved grew to be a woman. When she
was twenty-two years old her father, who owned a harness repair shop, died
suddenly. The harness maker was an old soldier, and after a few months his
wife received a widow's pension. She used the first money she got to buy a loom
and became a weaver of carpets, and Alice got a place in Winney's store. For a
number of years nothing could have induced her to believe that Ned Currie
would not in the end return to her.
She was glad to be employed because the daily round of toil in the store
made the time of waiting seem less long and uninteresting. She began to save
money, thinking that when she had saved two or three hundred dollars she
would follow her lover to the city and try if her presence would not win back his
affections.
Alice did not blame Ned Currie for what had happened in the moonlight in
the field, but felt that she could never marry another man. To her the thought of
giving to another what she still felt could belong only to Ned seemed monstrous.
When other young men tried to attract her attention she would have nothing to
do with them. "I am his wife and shall remain his wife whether he comes back or
not," she whispered to herself, and for all of her willingness to support herself
could not have understood the growing modern idea of a woman's owning
herself and giving and taking for her own ends in life.
Alice worked in the dry goods store from eight in the morning until six at
night and on three evenings a week went back to the store to stay from seven
until nine. As time passed and she became more and more lonely she began to
practice the devices common to lonely people. When at night she went upstairs
into her own room she knelt on the floor to pray and in her prayers whispered

Thesaurus
affections: (n) bosom.
heinous, monster, immense, gigantic, acknowledgment.
devices: (n) device, tactics, strategy,
parks: (n) Parkes, Rosa Parks, fowl for
grievous, ugly, flagitious, dreadful;
(adj, v) grotesque. ANTONYMS: (adj) decorative purposes in aviaries.
plans.
loom: (v) appear, threaten, emerge,
tiny, minute, beautiful, good, small, shining: (adj, v) brilliant; (adj) lustrous,
impend, overshadow, rise, menace,
lovely, attractive.
radiant, glossy, luminous, glorious,
bulk large, hulk, hover; (adj, v) lower. moonlight: (adj, n) moonshine; (n)
glowing; (adj, n) lucid, resplendent,
ANTONYMS: (v) recede, retreat.
clear; (v) shine. ANTONYMS: (adj)
moonbeam, moonglade, occupation,
maker: (n) creator, manufacturer,
lunation, lunar month, labor; (n, v)
dull, pale, blemished.
work; (v) pilfer, do work; (adj)
weaver: (n) avadavat, Baya, ricebird,
author, architect, builder, producer,
inventor, constructor, father,
moonshiny.
amadavat, oscine, weaver finch,
owning: (n) admission, avowal,
generator, designer.
tissue, texture, textile fabric,
monstrous: (adj) huge, atrocious,
confession, courteous recognition,
weaverbird, oscine bird.

104

Winesburg, Ohio

things she wanted to say to her lover. She became attached to inanimate objects,
and because it was her own, could not bare to have anyone touch the furniture of
her room. The trick of saving money, begun for a purpose, was carried on after
the scheme of going to the city to find Ned Currie had been given up. It became
a fixed habit, and when she needed new clothes she did not get them.
Sometimes on rainy afternoons in the store she got out her bank book and,
letting it lie open before her, spent hours dreaming impossible dreams of saving
money enough so that the interest would support both herself and her future
husband.%
"Ned always liked to travel about," she thought. "I'll give him the chance.
Some day when we are married and I can save both his money and my own, we
will be rich. Then we can travel together all over the world."
In the dry goods store weeks ran into months and months into years as Alice
waited and dreamed of her lover's return. Her employer, a grey old man with
false teeth and a thin grey mustache that drooped down over his mouth, was not
given to conversation, and sometimes, on rainy days and in the winter when a
storm raged in Main Street, long hours passed when no customers came in.
Alice arranged and rearranged the stock. She stood near the front window
where she could look down the deserted street and thought of the evenings
when she had walked with Ned Currie and of what he had said. "We will have
to stick to each other now." The words echoed and re-echoed through the mind
of the maturing woman. Tears came into her eyes. Sometimes when her
employer had gone out and she was alone in the store she put her head on the
counter and wept. "Oh, Ned, I am waiting," she whispered over and over, and
all the time the creeping fear that he would never come back grew stronger
within her.
In the spring when the rains have passed and before the long hot days of
summer have come, the country about Winesburg is delightful. The town lies in
the midst of open fields, but beyond the fields are pleasant patches of
woodlands. In the wooded places are many little cloistered nooks, quiet places
where lovers go to sit on Sunday afternoons. Through the trees they look out

Thesaurus
cloistered: (adj) secluded, solitary,
dreaming: (n) reverie, ambition,
claustral, isolated, recluse, cloistral,
nightmare, conception, castle in the
air; (adj) absent-minded, asleep,
conventual, monastic, monastical,
private, sequestered. ANTONYMS:
visionary, vacant, wistful, rapt.
(adj) public, conspicuous, open.
inanimate: (adj) defunct, dull,
customers: (n) trade.
breathless, inorganic, inactive,
deserted: (adj) desert, solitary, empty, lifeless, exanimate, deceased, extinct,
lonely, isolated, forsaken, lonesome,
unconscious, spiritless. ANTONYMS:
desolate, bleak, vacant; (adj, v)
(adj) living, animate, spirited.
forlorn. ANTONYMS: (adj) occupied, maturing: (adj) growing, budding,
green, payable; (n) maturation,
packed, crowded, mobbed,
populated, populous, overcrowded.
maturement, development, growth,

ripening, firing range, biological
process.
midst: (adj, n) middle; (adv) mid,
between; (prep) among, amid; (n)
core, center, thick, interior, heart,
waist.
rains: (n) wet.
rainy: (adj) moist, pluvial, damp,
pluvious, stormy, juicy, dirty, soppy,
raining, drizzly; (adj, v) showery.
ANTONYM: (adj) pleasant.
woodlands: (n) country.

Sherwood Anderson

105

across the fields and see farmers at work about the barns or people driving up
and down on the roads. In the town bells ring and occasionally a train passes,
looking like a toy thing in the distance.%
For several years after Ned Currie went away Alice did not go into the wood
with the other young people on Sunday, but one day after he had been gone for
two or three years and when her loneliness seemed unbearable, she put on her
best dress and set out. Finding a little sheltered place from which she could see
the town and a long stretch of the fields, she sat down. Fear of age and
ineffectuality took possession of her. She could not sit still, and arose. As she
stood looking out over the land something, perhaps the thought of never ceasing
life as it expresses itself in the flow of the seasons, fixed her mind on the passing
years. With a shiver of dread, she realized that for her the beauty and freshness
of youth had passed. For the first time she felt that she had been cheated. She
did not blame Ned Currie and did not know what to blame. Sadness swept over
her. Dropping to her knees, she tried to pray, but instead of prayers words of
protest came to her lips. "It is not going to come to me. I will never find
happiness. Why do I tell myself lies?" she cried, and an odd sense of relief came
with this, her first bold attempt to face the fear that had become a part of her
everyday life.
In the year when Alice Hindman became twenty-five two things happened to
disturb the dull uneventfulness of her days. Her mother married Bush Milton,
the carriage painter of Winesburg, and she herself became a member of the
Winesburg Methodist Church. Alice joined the church because she had become
frightened by the loneliness of her position in life. Her mother's second marriage
had emphasized her isolation. "I am becoming old and queer. If Ned comes he
will not want me. In the city where he is living men are perpetually young.
There is so much going on that they do not have time to grow old," she told
herself with a grim little smile, and went resolutely about the business of
becoming acquainted with people. Every Thursday evening when the store had
closed she went to a prayer meeting in the basement of the church and on

Thesaurus
acquainted: (adj) knowledgeable,
informed, aware, cognizant,
conversant, hand and glove, intimate,
thick; (adv) abreast; (v) inform,
acquaint.
ceasing: (n) stopping, subsidence.
cheated: (adj) embittered, resentful.
emphasized: (adj) accentuated,
accented, stressed, emphatic.
freshness: (adj) coolness; (n)
impertinence, gall, greenness,
impudence, insolence, newness,

viridity, originality, crust, crispness.
ANTONYMS: (n) oldness, clutter,
humidity, mustiness.
ineffectuality: (n) impotence,
uselessness, emptiness, futility,
worthlessness, pointlessness,
ineffectualness, impotency.
ANTONYMS: (n) value,
effectiveness, usefulness,
competence, fruitfulness.
perpetually: (adv) eternally,
everlastingly, always, incessantly,

continually, endlessly, permanently,
unceasingly, ceaselessly, ever; (adj,
adv) forever. ANTONYMS: (adv)
erratically, sporadically.
resolutely: (adv) determinedly,
decidedly, steadfastly, decisively,
unfalteringly, boldly, steadily,
stubbornly, definitely, resolvedly,
unwaveringly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
irresolutely, indecisively, uncertainly,
feebly, hesitantly, aimlessly.

106

Winesburg, Ohio

Sunday evening attended a meeting of an organization called The Epworth
League.
When Will Hurley, a middle-aged man who clerked in a drug store and who
also belonged to the church, offered to walk home with her she did not protest.
"Of course I will not let him make a practice of being with me, but if he comes to
see me once in a long time there can be no harm in that," she told herself, still
determined in her loyalty to Ned Currie.%
Without realizing what was happening, Alice was trying feebly at first, but
with growing determination, to get a new hold upon life. Beside the drug clerk
she walked in silence, but sometimes in the darkness as they went stolidly along
she put out her hand and touched softly the folds of his coat. When he left her at
the gate before her mother's house she did not go indoors, but stood for a
moment by the door. She wanted to call to the drug clerk, to ask him to sit with
her in the darkness on the porch before the house, but was afraid he would not
understand. "It is not him that I want," she told herself; "I want to avoid being so
much alone. If I am not careful I will grow unaccustomed to being with people."
During the early fall of her twenty-seventh year a passionate restlessness took
possession of Alice. She could not bear to be in the company of the drug clerk,
and when, in the evening, he came to walk with her she sent him away. Her
mind became intensely active and when, weary from the long hours of standing
behind the counter in the store, she went home and crawled into bed, she could
not sleep. With staring eyes she looked into the darkness. Her imagination, like
a child awakened from long sleep, played about the room. Deep within her
there was something that would not be cheated by fantasies and that demanded
some definite answer from life.
Alice took a pillow into her arms and held it tightly against her breasts.
Getting out of bed, she arranged a blanket so that in the darkness it looked like a
form lying between the sheets and, kneeling beside the bed, she caressed it,
whispering words over and over, like a refrain. "Why doesn't something
happen? Why am I left here alone?" she muttered. Although she sometimes
thought of Ned Currie, she no longer depended on him. Her desire had grown

Thesaurus
awakened: (adj) excited, aroused,
awakens, awoke, interested.
feebly: (adv) faintly,
unenthusiastically, dimly, hopelessly,
unproductively, unpersuasively,
unconvincingly, uncertainly,
reluctantly, powerlessly, insipidly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) robustly,
confidently, domineeringly,
vehemently, stubbornly, strongly,
effectively, convincingly,
competently, admirably,

wholeheartedly.
refrain: (v) desist, cease, fast, avoid,
leave off, withhold, stop, spare; (adj,
v) forbear; (n) chorus, hold.
ANTONYMS: (v) participate, act,
consume, persist.
stolidly: (adv) stupidly,
phlegmatically, phlegmaticly,
doltishly, dully, bovinely, obtusely,
heavily, bluntly, firmly,
unintelligently.
unaccustomed: (adj) new, strange,

unusual, inexperienced, unseasoned,
unacquainted, uncustomary, rare,
unfamiliar, unwonted; (adj, v)
untrained. ANTONYMS: (adj)
familiar, normal, ready, usual,
prepared, knowledgeable,
customary.
whispering: (n) whisper, murmur,
susurration, rustle, report, stage
whisper; (adj, n) rustling; (adj)
susurrant, tranquil, hoarse,
susurrous.

Sherwood Anderson

107

vague. She did not want Ned Currie or any other man. She wanted to be loved,
to have something answer the call that was growing louder and louder within
her.%
And then one night when it rained Alice had an adventure. It frightened and
confused her. She had come home from the store at nine and found the house
empty. Bush Milton had gone off to town and her mother to the house of a
neighbor. Alice went upstairs to her room and undressed in the darkness. For a
moment she stood by the window hearing the rain beat against the glass and
then a strange desire took possession of her. Without stopping to think of what
she intended to do, she ran downstairs through the dark house and out into the
rain. As she stood on the little grass plot before the house and felt the cold rain
on her body a mad desire to run naked through the streets took possession of
her.
She thought that the rain would have some creative and wonderful effect on
her body. Not for years had she felt so full of youth and courage. She wanted to
leap and run, to cry out, to find some other lonely human and embrace him. On
the brick sidewalk before the house a man stumbled homeward. Alice started to
run. A wild, desperate mood took possession of her. "What do I care who it is.
He is alone, and I will go to him," she thought; and then without stopping to
consider the possible result of her madness, called softly. "Wait!" she cried.
"Don't go away. Whoever you are, you must wait."
The man on the sidewalk stopped and stood listening. He was an old man
and somewhat deaf. Putting his hand to his mouth, he shouted. "What? What
say?" he called.
Alice dropped to the ground and lay trembling. She was so frightened at the
thought of what she had done that when the man had gone on his way she did
not dare get to her feet, but crawled on hands and knees through the grass to the
house. When she got to her own room she bolted the door and drew her
dressing table across the doorway. Her body shook as with a chill and her hands
trembled so that she had difficulty getting into her nightdress. When she got
into bed she buried her face in the pillow and wept brokenheartedly. "What is

Thesaurus
bolted: (adj) barred, Bolten, secured,
firm, barricaded, blockaded, bolted
attachment, fast, fastened, latched,
tight.
brokenheartedly: (adv) disconsolately,
despondently, wretchedly,
desolately, despairingly, heartsickly,
mournfully.
chill: (adj, v) cool; (adj, n) cold; (adj)
bleak, icy, chilly, frosty, depressing;
(v) freeze, dispirit, damp; (n)
coolness. ANTONYMS: (adj, v) warm;

(n) warmth, warmness; (v)
encourage, hearten, inspirit, thaw;
(adj) hot, gregarious, friendly,
sociable.
drew: (n) move, John Drew.
homeward: (adj) oriented, orientated.
madness: (n) frenzy, insanity, lunacy,
idiocy, folly, delirium, insaneness;
(adj, n) furor, rage, desperation,
furore. ANTONYMS: (n) sense,
calmness, order.
nightdress: (n) nightclothes, nightie,

nightwear, nightshirt, pajamas, night
robe, lingerie, night clothes.
pillow: (v) rest, breathe, lie, not move;
(adj) wadding; (n) throw pillow,
Wanger, bed pillow, feather bed, long
pillow, padding.
undressed: (adj) naked, unclad,
unclothed, bare, raw, stripped,
unattired, unappareled, crude, rough,
disrobed. ANTONYMS: (adj)
covered, decent.

108

Winesburg, Ohio

the matter with me? I will do something dreadful if I am not careful," she
thought, and turning %her face to the wall, began trying to force herself to face
bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg.

Thesaurus
alone: (adj) forlorn, individual, lonely,
lonesome; (adj, adv) only, apart; (adv)
solely, entirely, exclusively,
separately, individually.
ANTONYMS: (adj) overshadowed,
ordinary, mobbed, equaled, crowded,
accompanied, common, grouped,
surpassed; (adv) jointly; (n) foe.
bravely: (adv) courageously, fearlessly,
valiantly, boldly, intrepidly,
dauntlessly, gallantly, audaciously,
undauntedly, heroically, doughtily.

ANTONYMS: (adv) timidly, fearfully,
execrably, nervously.
dreadful: (adj) bad, awful, alarming,
atrocious, fearful, terrible,
abominable, appalling, direful, grisly;
(adj, v) dread. ANTONYMS: (adj)
wonderful, great, lovely, fantastic,
marvelous, admirable, successful,
nice, joyous, honorable, fair.
force: (n, v) drive, squeeze, pressure,
thrust; (n) energy, strength, agency;
(v) coerce, push, press, compel.

ANTONYMS: (n) persuasion,
ineffectiveness, inertia, apathy,
moderation; (v) request, wheedle,
pull, push, restrain, prevent.
turning: (n) turn, revolution, bend,
rotation, deviation, gyration,
conversion, veering; (adj) rotating,
revolving, rotary.
wall: (n, v) fence, bar; (n) barrier,
rampart, bulwark, cliff, earthwork,
fortification, screen, rail, fencing.

Sherwood Anderson

109

RESPECTABILITY

If you have lived in cities and have walked in the park on a summer
afternoon, you have perhaps seen, blinking in a corner of his iron cage, a huge,
grotesque kind of monkey, a creature with ugly, sagging, hairless skin below his
eyes and a bright purple underbody. This monkey is a true monster. In the
completeness of his ugliness he achieved a kind of perverted beauty. Children
stopping before the cage are fascinated, men turn away with an air of disgust,
and women linger for a moment, trying perhaps to remember which one of their
male acquaintances the thing in some faint way resembles.%
Had you been in the earlier years of your life a citizen of the village of
Winesburg, Ohio, there would have been for you no mystery in regard to the
beast in his cage. "It is like Wash Williams," you would have said. "As he sits in
the corner there, the beast is exactly like old Wash sitting on the grass in the
station yard on a summer evening after he has closed his office for the night."
Wash Williams, the telegraph operator of Winesburg, was the ugliest thing in
town. His girth was immense, his neck thin, his legs feeble. He was dirty.
Everything about him was unclean. Even the whites of his eyes looked soiled.
I go too fast. Not everything about Wash was unclean. He took care of his
hands. His fingers were fat, but there was something sensitive and shapely in
the hand that lay on the table by the instrument in the telegraph office. In his

Thesaurus
girth: (n) width, belt, circumference,
baggy, hanging, limp, flagging,
fatness, bellyband; (n, v) cinch; (v)
lifeless, floppy; (n) sag, dropping.
begird, girdle, gird, encircle, enclose. ANTONYMS: (adj) taut, firm,
hairless: (adj) tonsured, glabrous,
upright, tight.
shapely: (adj) symmetrical, comely,
shorn, balding, smooth, beardless,
depilous, depilated.
graceful, neat, fit, curvaceous, slim,
perverted: (adj) perverse, immoral,
pleasing, busty, seemly, beautiful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight,
distorted, kinky, corrupt, twisted,
abnormal, debauched, deviant,
misshapen, unshapely.
reprobate, unnatural. ANTONYMS: ugliness: (n) eyesore, offensiveness,
(adj) normal, moral, unchanged.
hideousness, garishness, gaudiness,
sagging: (adj) drooping, flabby, slack,
grotesqueness, grotesquery,

repulsiveness, homeliness,
unsightliness; (adj, n) unpleasantness.
ANTONYMS: (n) beauty,
attractiveness, pleasantness.
unclean: (adj) foul, impure, nasty,
dirty, grubby, muddy, squalid,
grimy, sordid, dingy, soiled.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, hygienic,
pure, uncontaminated.
underbody: (n) underbelly, lower side,
belly, abdomen, stomach.
whites: (n) thirds.

110

Winesburg, Ohio

youth Wash Williams had been called the best telegraph operator in the state,
and in spite of his degradement to the obscure office at Winesburg, he was still
proud of his ability.%
Wash Williams did not associate with the men of the town in which he lived.
"I'll have nothing to do with them," he said, looking with bleary eyes at the men
who walked along the station platform past the telegraph office. Up along Main
Street he went in the evening to Ed Griffith's saloon, and after drinking
unbelievable quantities of beer staggered off to his room in the New Willard
House and to his bed for the night.
Wash Williams was a man of courage. A thing had happened to him that
made him hate life, and he hated it wholeheartedly, with the abandon of a poet.
First of all, he hated women. "Bitches," he called them. His feeling toward men
was somewhat different. He pitied them. "Does not every man let his life be
managed for him by some bitch or another?" he asked.
In Winesburg no attention was paid to Wash Williams and his hatred of his
fellows. Once Mrs. White, the banker's wife, complained to the telegraph
company, saying that the office in Winesburg was dirty and smelled
abominably, but nothing came of her complaint. Here and there a man
respected the operator. Instinctively the man felt in him a glowing resentment of
something he had not the courage to resent. When Wash walked through the
streets such a one had an instinct to pay him homage, to raise his hat or to bow
before him. The superintendent who had supervision over the telegraph
operators on the railroad that went through Winesburg felt that way. He had
put Wash into the obscure office at Winesburg to avoid discharging him, and he
meant to keep him there. When he received the letter of complaint from the
banker's wife, he tore it up and laughed unpleasantly. For some reason he
thought of his own wife as he tore up the letter.
Wash Williams once had a wife. When he was still a young man he married
a woman at Dayton, Ohio. The woman was tall and slender and had blue eyes
and yellow hair. Wash was himself a comely youth. He loved the woman with a
love as absorbing as the hatred he later felt for all women.

Thesaurus
abominably: (adv) atrociously,
awfully, terribly, repulsively, badly,
frightfully, awful, sadly, hideously,
sickeningly, rottenly.
absorbing: (adj) fascinating,
engrossing, charming, enthralling,
gripping, captivating, riveting,
absorbent, attractive, readable; (adj, v)
exciting. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
irksome, tedious, repellent,
uninteresting.
bleary: (adj) misty, blear, fuzzy,

blurry, filmy, vague, foggy, dim,
take offense, take umbrage, take
exception, loathe. ANTONYMS: (v)
muzzy, blurred, indistinct.
ANTONYM: (adj) clear.
welcome, wish, accept.
discharging: (n) unloading, discharge, tore: (v) tare; (n) moulding, molding.
fulfillment, acquittal; (v) unload.
unpleasantly: (adv) distastefully,
homage: (n) allegiance, obeisance,
disagreeably, rudely, obnoxiously,
fealty, accolade, honor, loyalty,
bitterly, painfully, awfully,
worship, veneration, deference,
troublesomely, offensively, hardly,
displeasingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
devotion, compliment.
quantities: (n) quantity.
delightfully, agreeably, kindly,
resent: (v) resentful, envy, grudge,
politely, graciously, attractively,
begrudge, embittered, angry, abhor,
sweetly, well, humbly.

Sherwood Anderson

111

In all of Winesburg there was but one person who knew the story of the thing
that had made ugly the person and the character of Wash Williams. He once told
the story to George Willard and the telling of the tale came about in this way:
George Willard went one evening to walk with Belle Carpenter, a trimmer of
women's hats who worked in a millinery shop kept by Mrs. Kate McHugh. The
young man was not in love with the woman, who, in fact, had a suitor who
worked as bartender in Ed Griffith's saloon, but as they walked about under the
trees they occasionally embraced. The night and their own thoughts had aroused
something in them. As they were returning to Main Street they passed the little
lawn beside the railroad station and saw Wash Williams apparently asleep on
the grass beneath a tree. On the next evening the operator and George Willard
walked out together. Down the railroad they went and sat on a pile of decaying
railroad ties beside the tracks. It was then that the operator told the young
reporter his story of hate.%
Perhaps a dozen times George Willard and the strange, shapeless man who
lived at his father's hotel had been on the point of talking. The young man
looked at the hideous, leering face staring about the hotel dining room and was
consumed with curiosity. Something he saw lurking in the staring eyes told him
that the man who had nothing to say to others had nevertheless something to say
to him. On the pile of railroad ties on the summer evening, he waited
expectantly. When the operator remained silent and seemed to have changed his
mind about talking, he tried to make conversation. "Were you ever married, Mr.
Williams?" he began. "I suppose you were and your wife is dead, is that it?"
Wash Williams spat forth a succession of vile oaths. "Yes, she is dead," he
agreed. "She is dead as all women are dead. She is a living-dead thing, walking
in the sight of men and making the earth foul by her presence." Staring into the
boy's eyes, the man became purple with rage. "Don't have fool notions in your
head," he commanded. "My wife, she is dead; yes, surely. I tell you, all women
are dead, my mother, your mother, that tall dark woman who works in the
millinery store and with whom I saw you walking about yesterday--all of them,
they are all dead. I tell you there is something rotten about them. I was married,

Thesaurus
bartender: (n) barman, barkeep,
barmaid, publican, employee, tapster,
mixologist.
decaying: (adj) rotten, decayed,
rotting, stale, decadent, stinking,
decomposed, smelly, shabby, seedy;
(n) fading. ANTONYM: (adj) pristine.
dozen: (adj, n) XII; (n) dozens, boxcars.
expectantly: (adv) optimistically,
expectingly, pregnantly,
anticipatively, hopefully, confidently,
bigly, watchfully, heavily, largely.

lurking: (n) ambush; (adj) snaky,
trimming capacitor, hand shearer,
backstair, backstairs, clandestine,
timeserver, hedger, guillotine,
concealed, dormant, latent, potential, lopper, electrical condenser,
condenser; (adj) foes to nobleness.
skulking, sneaky.
millinery: (n) hat shop, store, shop,
vile: (adj, n) contemptible, dirty, low;
(adj, v) base; (adj) despicable, ignoble,
turban, toque, tailoring, man
millinery, lid, hat, frippery, foppery.
evil, sorry, revolting, offensive, nasty.
suitor: (n) plaintiff, suer, admirer,
ANTONYMS: (adj) attractive, kind,
beau, candidate, complainant,
nice, lovely, lovable, gentle,
gallant, boyfriend, applicant,
honorable, good, delightful,
petitioner; (n, v) wooer.
admirable, noble.
trimmer: (v) Vicar of Bray, timist; (n) worked: (adj) elaborated, beaten.

112

Winesburg, Ohio

sure. My wife was dead before she married me, she was a foul thing come out a
woman more foul. She was a thing sent to make life unbearable to me. I was a
fool, do you see, as you are now, and so I married this woman. I would like to
see men a little begin to understand women. They are sent to prevent men
making the world worth while. It is a trick in Nature. Ugh! They are creeping,
crawling, squirming things, they with their soft hands and their blue eyes. The
sight of a woman sickens me. Why I don't kill every woman I see I don't know."
Half frightened and yet fascinated by the light burning in the eyes of the
hideous old man, George Willard listened, afire with curiosity. Darkness came
on and he leaned forward trying to see the face of the man who talked. When, in
the gathering darkness, he could no longer see the purple, bloated face and the
burning eyes, a curious fancy came to him. Wash Williams talked in low even
tones that made his words seem the more terrible. In the darkness the young
reporter found himself imagining that he sat on the railroad ties beside a comely
young man with black hair and black shining eyes. There was something almost
beautiful in the voice of Wash Williams, the hideous, telling his story of hate.%
The telegraph operator of Winesburg, sitting in the darkness on the railroad
ties, had become a poet. Hatred had raised him to that elevation. "It is because I
saw you kissing the lips of that Belle Carpenter that I tell you my story," he said.
"What happened to me may next happen to you. I want to put you on your
guard. Already you may be having dreams in your head. I want to destroy
them."
Wash Williams began telling the story of his married life with the tall blonde
girl with the blue eyes whom he had met when he was a young operator at
Dayton, Ohio. Here and there his story was touched with moments of beauty
intermingled with strings of vile curses. The operator had married the daughter
of a dentist who was the youngest of three sisters. On his marriage day, because
of his ability, he was promoted to a position as dispatcher at an increased salary
and sent to an office at Columbus, Ohio. There he settled down with his young
wife and began buying a house on the installment plan.

Thesaurus
bloated: (adj) swollen, inflated,
distended, turgid, proud,
supercilious, haughty, puffed,
pompous, tumescent, tumid.
crawling: (adj, n) creeping; (n) creep,
itch; (adj) slow, teeming, thick,
swarming, reptant, populous,
packed, moving.
curses: (n) abuse.
dentist: (n) dental surgeon,
endodontist, exodontist, orthodontist,
tooth doctor, toothdrawer.

dispatcher: (n) sender, flight
imaginant.
operations officer, crank, messenger, installment: (n) episode, deposit,
traffic controller, starter, courier,
installing, portion, segment, share,
train dispatcher. ANTONYM: (n)
fascicle, instalment, part, section,
recipient.
cliffhanger.
hideous: (adj) dreadful, frightful,
intermingled: (adj) amalgamated,
fearful, ghastly, horrid, ugly,
integrated, coalesced, blended,
repulsive, lurid, horrible, grisly,
incorporated, assorted, consolidated,
grim. ANTONYMS: (adj) lovely,
incorporate, amalgamate, fused.
squirming: (adj) wiggling, sinuate,
pleasant, beautiful, wonderful.
imagining: (n) conception, daydream, moving, sinuous, twisting, writhing,
fantasy, opinion; (v) imagine; (adj)
wiggly, wriggly.

Sherwood Anderson

113

The young telegraph operator was madly in love. With a kind of religious
fervor he had managed to go through the pitfalls of his youth and to remain
virginal until after his marriage. He made for George Willard a picture of his life
in the house at Columbus, Ohio, with the young wife. "in the garden back of our
house we planted vegetables," he said, "you know, peas and corn and such
things. We went to Columbus in early March and as soon as the days became
warm I went to work in the garden. With a spade I turned up the black ground
while she ran about laughing and pretending to be afraid of the worms I
uncovered. Late in April came the planting. In the little paths among the seed
beds she stood holding a paper bag in her hand. The bag was filled with seeds.
A few at a time she handed me the seeds that I might thrust them into the warm,
soft ground."
For a moment there was a catch in the voice of the man talking in the
darkness. "I loved her," he said. "I don't claim not to be a fool. I love her yet.
There in the dusk in the spring evening I crawled along the black ground to her
feet and groveled before her. I kissed her shoes and the ankles above her shoes.
When the hem of her garment touched my face I trembled. When after two years
of that life I found she had managed to acquire three other lovers who came
regularly to our house when I was away at work, I didn't want to touch them or
her. I just sent her home to her mother and said nothing. There was nothing to
say. I had four hundred dollars in the bank and I gave her that. I didn't ask her
reasons. I didn't say anything. When she had gone I cried like a silly boy. Pretty
soon I had a chance to sell the house and I sent that money to her."
Wash Williams and George Willard arose from the pile of railroad ties and
walked along the tracks toward town. The operator finished his tale quickly,
breathlessly.%
"Her mother sent for me," he said. "She wrote me a letter and asked me to
come to their house at Dayton. When I got there it was evening about this time."
Wash Williams' voice rose to a half scream. "I sat in the parlor of that house
two hours. Her mother took me in there and left me. Their house was stylish.
They were what is called respectable people. There were plush chairs and a

Thesaurus
garment: (n, v) garb, apparel; (n)
magnificent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
habiliment, habit, gown, vest, things, meager, austere, shabby, Spartan,
guise; (v) clothe, tog, raiment.
cheap.
madly: (adv) insanely, furiously,
scream: (n, v) shout, call, howl, yell,
sorely, frantically, wildly, devilishly, screech, shriek, wail; (v) cry out, roar,
bellow, hollo. ANTONYM: (n) bore.
deadly, dementedly, foolishly,
distractedly; (adj, adv) rabidly.
spade: (v) grub, delve, scoop, excavate;
ANTONYMS: (adv) sensibly, calmly, (n) nigger, coon, nigra, jigaboo, boy,
sanely, carefully; (adj) slightly.
black person, spit.
plush: (adj) lush, splendid, opulent,
stylish: (adj) fashionable, elegant,
sumptuous, luxuriant, luxurious,
dapper, chic, dressy, trendy, modern,
rich, gorgeous, swish, deluxe,
natty, neat, popular, smart.

ANTONYMS: (adj) unfashionable,
unstylish, styleless, bland, plain,
unsophisticated, awkward, modern,
out, primitive, shabby.
uncovered: (adj) naked, open, bare,
nude, unclothed, bald, unreserved,
unprotected, evident, frank, manifest.
ANTONYMS: (adj) indoor, concealed.
virginal: (adj) pure, chaste, vestal,
virtuous, innocent, intact, spotless,
fresh, maidenly; (n) Ebenezer, pair of
virginals.

114

Winesburg, Ohio

couch in the room. I was trembling all over. I hated the men I thought had
wronged her. I was sick of living alone and wanted her back. The longer I
waited the more raw and tender I became. I thought that if she came in and just
touched me with her hand I would perhaps faint away. I ached to forgive and
forget."%
Wash Williams stopped and stood staring at George Willard. The boy's body
shook as from a chill. Again the man's voice became soft and low. "She came
into the room naked," he went on. "Her mother did that. While I sat there she
was taking the girl's clothes off, perhaps coaxing her to do it. First I heard voices
at the door that led into a little hallway and then it opened softly. The girl was
ashamed and stood perfectly still staring at the floor. The mother didn't come
into the room. When she had pushed the girl in through the door she stood in
the hallway waiting, hoping we would--well, you see-waiting."
George Willard and the telegraph operator came into the main street of
Winesburg. The lights from the store windows lay bright and shining on the
sidewalks. People moved about laughing and talking. The young reporter felt
ill and weak. In imagination, he also became old and shapeless. "I didn't get the
mother killed," said Wash Williams, staring up and down the street. "I struck her
once with a chair and then the neighbors came in and took it away. She
screamed so loud you see. I won't ever have a chance to kill her now. She died
of a fever a month after that happened."

Thesaurus
ashamed: (adj) hangdog, guilty,
embarrassed, sheepish, remorseful,
regretful, bashful, disconcerted,
contrite, chagrined; (v) dashed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) proud, arrogant,
unremorseful, unashamed, pleased,
blatant, bold, happy, unabashed,
unrepentant.
coaxing: (n) blarney, flattery, sweet
talk, temptation, enticement, soft
soap; (adv) coaxingly; (adj)
ingratiatory, persuasive, oily.

couch: (n) bed, sofa, settee, divan; (adj,
v) lie; (v) express, put, frame, lower,
repose; (adj) recline.
fever: (n) malaria, delirium, pyrexia,
heat, frenzy, feverishness, febricity,
Bilious typhoid fever, Levant fever,
Hectic infantile fever, Typhoid fever.
forgive: (v) absolve, excuse, acquit,
remit, pardon, justify, to forgive,
exonerate, overlook, clear, to excuse.
ANTONYMS: (v) condemn, punish,
castigate.

hoping: (adj) desirous, expectant,
optimistic, eager.
operator: (n) driver, hustler,
manipulator, agent, doer,
telegrapher, telegraphist, speculator,
operative, welding operator, identity.
reporter: (n) journalist, correspondent,
commentator, pressman, columnist,
reviewer, newsperson, newswoman;
(v) informant, intelligencer, authority.
wronged: (adj) upset, hurt, indignant,
offended.

Sherwood Anderson

115

THE THINKER

The house in which Seth Richmond of Winesburg lived with his mother had
been at one time the show place of the town, but when young Seth lived there its
glory had become somewhat dimmed. The huge brick house which Banker
White had built on Buckeye Street had overshadowed it. The Richmond place
was in a little valley far out at the end of Main Street. Farmers coming into town
by a dusty road from the south passed by a grove of walnut trees, skirted the
Fair Ground with its high board fence covered with advertisements, and trotted
their horses down through the valley past the Richmond place into town. As
much of the country north and south of Winesburg was devoted to fruit and
berry raising, Seth saw wagon-loads of berry pickers--boys, girls, and women-going to the fields in the morning and returning covered with dust in the
evening. The chattering crowd, with their rude jokes cried out from wagon to
wagon, sometimes irritated him sharply. He regretted that he also could not
laugh boisterously, shout meaningless jokes and make of himself a figure in the
endless stream of moving, giggling activity that went up and down the road.%
The Richmond house was built of limestone, and, although it was said in the
village to have become run down, had in reality grown more beautiful with
every passing year. Already time had begun a little to color the stone, lending a
golden richness to its surface and in the evening or on dark days touching the
shaded places beneath the eaves with wavering patches of browns and blacks.

Thesaurus
dimmed: (adj) wan, soft, blurred,
displeased, provoked. ANTONYMS:
vague, faint, dull, bleak, black, dense. (adj) calm, pleased, patient,
eaves: (n) arch, balcony, cupola, dome, contented.
penthouse, eave, overhang, attic, loft, lending: (n) lend, loaning, borrowing,
projection, roof space.
usury, disposal, disposition.
giggling: (n) laughter.
richness: (adj, n) opulence, abundance,
grove: (n) forest, orchard, thicket,
affluence, riches; (n) fruitfulness,
coppice, wood, gardens, residences,
profusion, fecundity, fullness, luxury,
Holt, bosquet, park, Hurst.
exuberance, cornucopia.
irritated: (adj) annoyed, exasperated,
ANTONYMS: (n) infertility, poverty,
incensed, enraged, aggravated,
narrowness, shabbiness, weakness,
furious, irate, inflamed, sore,
bareness.

shaded: (adj) dark, shads, sheltered,
shadowed, umbrageous, twilight,
sunless, subdued, soft, colored,
darksome. ANTONYM: (adj)
unshaded.
shout: (n, v) cry, clamor, scream, yell,
roar, call, bellow, screech; (v) bawl,
hollo; (n) cheer.
walnut: (n) wood, walnut tree; (v)
succotash, waffle, vanilla, trepang,
porterhouse steak, supawn, salmis,
sea slug, sauerkraut.

116

Winesburg, Ohio

The house had been built by Seth's grandfather, a stone quarryman, and it,
together with the stone quarries on Lake Erie eighteen miles to the north, had
been left to his son, Clarence Richmond, Seth's father. Clarence Richmond, a
quiet passionate man extraordinarily admired by his neighbors, had been killed
in a street fight with the editor of a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. The fight
concerned the publication of Clarence Richmond's name coupled with that of a
woman school teacher, and as the dead man had begun the row by firing upon
the editor, the effort to punish the slayer was unsuccessful. After the
quarryman's death it was found that much of the money left to him had been
squandered in speculation and in insecure investments made through the
influence of friends.%
Left with but a small income, Virginia Richmond had settled down to a
retired life in the village and to the raising of her son. Although she had been
deeply moved by the death of the husband and father, she did not at all believe
the stories concerning him that ran about after his death. To her mind, the
sensitive, boyish man whom all had instinctively loved, was but an unfortunate,
a being too fine for everyday life. "You'll be hearing all sorts of stories, but you
are not to believe what you hear," she said to her son. "He was a good man, full
of tenderness for everyone, and should not have tried to be a man of affairs. No
matter how much I were to plan and dream of your future, I could not imagine
anything better for you than that you turn out as good a man as your father."
Several years after the death of her husband, Virginia Richmond had become
alarmed at the growing demands upon her income and had set herself to the task
of increasing it. She had learned stenography and through the influence of her
husband's friends got the position of court stenographer at the county seat.
There she went by train each morning during the sessions of the court, and when
no court sat, spent her days working among the rosebushes in her garden. She
was a tall, straight figure of a woman with a plain face and a great mass of brown
hair.
In the relationship between Seth Richmond and his mother, there was a
quality that even at eighteen had begun to color all of his traffic with men. An

Thesaurus
insecure: (adj) unsound, slippery,
slayer: (n) assassin, killer, executioner,
doubtful, shaky, risky, rickety, bad,
thug, exterminator, poisoner,
uncertain, hazardous; (adj, v)
garroter, regicide, eradicator, cause of
death; (n, v) butcher. ANTONYM: (n)
unstable, precarious. ANTONYMS:
(adj) confident, safe, overconfident,
creator.
squandered: (adj) wasted, dissipated,
steady, certain, firm, stable,
promising, brash.
emaciated, devastated, dissolute,
investments: (n) funds, money, assets, diminished, desolated, desolate,
cadaverous; (v) bewildered,
cash, savings, capital.
quarryman: (n) quarrier, breaker,
employed ineffectually.
stenographer: (n) shorthand typist,
cutter, quarry worker, stonecutter,
ledgeman, hewer.
amanuensis, stenographist, clerk,

recorder, writer, secretarial assistant,
brachygrapher, secretary; (v)
typewriter, typist.
stenography: (n) tachygraphy,
brachygraphy, handwriting,
shorthand writing; (v) cryptography.
tenderness: (n) fondness, soreness,
love, affection, sympathy; (adj, n)
clemency, mildness, compassion,
gentleness, softness, delicacy.
ANTONYMS: (n) pleasure, dryness,
hatred, strength, detachment.

Sherwood Anderson

117

almost unhealthy respect for the youth kept the mother for the most part silent in
his presence. When she did speak sharply to him he had only to look steadily
into her eyes to see dawning there the puzzled look he had already noticed in the
eyes of others when he looked at them.%
The truth was that the son thought with remarkable clearness and the mother
did not. She expected from all people certain conventional reactions to life. A
boy was your son, you scolded him and he trembled and looked at the floor.
When you had scolded enough he wept and all was forgiven. After the weeping
and when he had gone to bed, you crept into his room and kissed him.
Virginia Richmond could not understand why her son did not do these
things. After the severest reprimand, he did not tremble and look at the floor but
instead looked steadily at her, causing uneasy doubts to invade her mind. As for
creeping into his room-after Seth had passed his fifteenth year, she would have
been half afraid to do anything of the kind.
Once when he was a boy of sixteen, Seth in company with two other boys ran
away from home. The three boys climbed into the open door of an empty freight
car and rode some forty miles to a town where a fair was being held. One of the
boys had a bottle filled with a combination of whiskey and blackberry wine, and
the three sat with legs dangling out of the car door drinking from the bottle.
Seth's two companions sang and waved their hands to idlers about the stations of
the towns through which the train passed. They planned raids upon the baskets
of farmers who had come with their families to the fair. "We will five like kings
and won't have to spend a penny to see the fair and horse races," they declared
boastfully.
After the disappearance of Seth, Virginia Richmond walked up and down the
floor of her home filled with vague alarms. Although on the next day she
discovered, through an inquiry made by the town marshal, on what adventure
the boys had gone, she could not quiet herself. All through the night she lay
awake hearing the clock tick and telling herself that Seth, like his father, would
come to a sudden and violent end. So determined was she that the boy should
this time feel the weight of her wrath that, although she would not allow the

Thesaurus
blackberry: (v) bloater, bouilli,
castigate, chastise; (n) chastisement,
purity, limpidity, intelligibility.
ANTONYMS: (n) ambiguity, opacity, admonition, castigation.
bouillon, breadfruit, chop suey,
blancmange; (n) drupelet, mulberry,
ANTONYMS: (v) commend,
dirtiness, vagueness, unclearness,
approve; (n) commendation,
bramble, black haw, blackberry bush. obscureness, indistinctness, clutter,
boastfully: (adv) proudly, conceitedly, haziness, mustiness.
compliment, approval, reward.
dawning: (n) daybreak, sunrise, start, tick: (n, v) beat, mark, check; (n) score,
arrogantly, vaingloriously,
pretentiously, braggartly, big,
beginning, aurora, cockcrow,
credit, moment, second, minute,
crowingly, thrasonically, pompously, dayspring, morning, birth, first light, ticking; (v) tally, click.
break of day. ANTONYM: (n) sunset. whiskey: (n) liquor, rye, blended
bigly.
clearness: (n) clarity, brightness,
forgiven: (v) conciliatory, placable.
whiskey, blended whisky, bourbon,
reprimand: (n, v) censure, reproach,
distinctness, perspicuity, lucidity,
corn, corn whiskey, corn whisky,
lecture, blame, reproof; (v) chide,
explicitness, sharpness, simplicity,
Irish, malt whisky, rye whiskey.

118

Winesburg, Ohio

marshal to interfere with his adventure, she got out a pencil and paper and
wrote down a series of sharp, stinging reproofs she intended to pour out upon
him. The reproofs she committed to memory, going about the garden and saying
them aloud like an actor memorizing his part.%
And when, at the end of the week, Seth returned, a little weary and with coal
soot in his ears and about his eyes, she again found herself unable to reprove
him. Walking into the house he hung his cap on a nail by the kitchen door and
stood looking steadily at her. "I wanted to turn back within an hour after we had
started," he explained. "I didn't know what to do. I knew you would be
bothered, but I knew also that if I didn't go on I would be ashamed of myself. I
went through with the thing for my own good. It was uncomfortable, sleeping
on wet straw, and two drunken Negroes came and slept with us. When I stole a
lunch basket out of a farmer's wagon I couldn't help thinking of his children
going all day without food. I was sick of the whole affair, but I was determined
to stick it out until the other boys were ready to come back."
"I'm glad you did stick it out," replied the mother, half resentfully, and
kissing him upon the forehead pretended to busy herself with the work about
the house.
On a summer evening Seth Richmond went to the New Willard House to
visit his friend, George Willard. It had rained during the afternoon, but as he
walked through Main Street, the sky had partially cleared and a golden glow lit
up the west. Going around a corner, he turned in at the door of the hotel and
began to climb the stairway leading up to his friend's room. In the hotel office
the proprietor and two traveling men were engaged in a discussion of politics.
On the stairway Seth stopped and listened to the voices of the men below.
They were excited and talked rapidly. Tom Willard was berating the traveling
men. "I am a Democrat but your talk makes me sick," he said. "You don't
understand McKinley. McKinley and Mark Hanna are friends. It is impossible
perhaps for your mind to grasp that. If anyone tells you that a friendship can be
deeper and bigger and more worth while than dollars and cents, or even more
worth while than state politics, you snicker and laugh."

Thesaurus
ears: (n) antenna.
marshal: (v) dispose, rally, mobilize,
guide, group, muster, order, collect,
organize, arrange; (n) Marshall.
ANTONYMS: (v) disturb,
demobilize, disband, dismiss,
disperse.
mckinley: (n) president Mckinley,
William Mckinley.
pretended: (adj, v) sham, mock,
counterfeit, pseudo, spurious; (adj)
assumed, fake, feigned, fictitious,

snicker: (n, v) giggle, chuckle, titter; (v)
bogus, affected.
reprove: (n, v) censure, blame, chide,
laugh, cackle, chortle, crow, deride,
rebuke, reprehend; (v) admonish,
mock, scorn; (n) laughter.
ANTONYM: (v) cry.
reproach, lecture, condemn, warn,
castigate. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
soot: (n) smut, lampblack, carbon
black, grime, carbon, crock, dirt; (adj)
approve, commend.
resentfully: (adv) bitterly, enviously,
ink, ebony, coal pitch, jet.
stinging: (adj) cutting, bitter, piquant,
jealously, indignantly, angrily,
crossly, sulkily, maliciously, sullenly, prickling; (adj, v) caustic, acrid,
petulantly, reluctantly. ANTONYMS: piercing, poignant, biting, pungent,
(adv) gladly, contentedly, graciously, keen. ANTONYMS: (adj) stingless,
sweetly.
gentle.

Sherwood Anderson

119

The landlord was interrupted by one of the guests, a tall, grey-mustached
man who worked for a wholesale grocery house. "Do you think that I've lived in
Cleveland all these years without knowing Mark Hanna?" he demanded. "Your
talk is piffle. Hanna is after money and nothing else. This McKinley is his tool.
He has McKinley bluffed and don't you forget it."
The young man on the stairs did not linger to hear the rest of the discussion,
but went on up the stairway and into the little dark hall. Something in the voices
of the men talking in the hotel office started a chain of thoughts in his mind. He
was lonely and had begun to think that loneliness was a part of his character,
something that would always stay with him. Stepping into a side hall he stood
by a window that looked into an alleyway. At the back of his shop stood Abner
Groff, the town baker. His tiny bloodshot eyes looked up and down the
alleyway. In his shop someone called the baker, who pretended not to hear. The
baker had an empty milk bottle in his hand and an angry sullen look in his
eyes.%
In Winesburg, Seth Richmond was called the "deep one." "He's like his
father," men said as he went through the streets. "He'll break out some of these
days. You wait and see."
The talk of the town and the respect with which men and boys instinctively
greeted him, as all men greet silent people, had affected Seth Richmond's outlook
on life and on himself. He, like most boys, was deeper than boys are given credit
for being, but he was not what the men of the town, and even his mother,
thought him to be. No great underlying purpose lay back of his habitual silence,
and he had no definite plan for his life. When the boys with whom he associated
were noisy and quarrelsome, he stood quietly at one side. With calm eyes he
watched the gesticulating lively figures of his companions. He wasn't
particularly interested in what was going on, and sometimes wondered if he
would ever be particularly interested in anything. Now, as he stood in the halfdarkness by the window watching the baker, he wished that he himself might
become thoroughly stirred by something, even by the fits of sullen anger for
which Baker Groff was noted. "It would be better for me if I could become

Thesaurus
bloodshot: (n) inflamed.
hogwash, nonsense; (v) chatter, talk,
confirmed, accustomed, natural,
gesticulating: (adj) communicative.
commonplace, everyday, ordinary.
gabble, twaddle, tattle, prattle, prate.
greet: (n, v) receive; (v) address,
ANTONYMS: (adj) occasional,
stairs: (n) stair, ladder, staircase,
acknowledge, hail, welcome, cry,
infrequent, mild, irregular,
stairway, flight of steps, flight, steps,
salute, bid, weep, meet, recognize.
exceptional, erratic, abnormal,
flight of stairs, escalator,
grocery: (n) foodstuff, marketplace,
innovative.
companionway, backstairs.
sullen: (adj, n) morose, sulky, sour;
grocery store, preserve, supermarket, linger: (v) loiter, delay, dally, hover,
(adj) gloomy, gruff, glum, moody,
julep, jam, mart, food market,
stay, hesitate, hang around,
confiture, consumer goods.
procrastinate, dawdle, tarry, saunter. dark, cross, surly; (adj, v) grim.
guests: (n) guest, visitors.
ANTONYMS: (v) hurry, end, rush,
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, cheery; (n)
habitual: (adj, n) common, frequent,
depart, lead.
cheeriness.
usual; (adj) chronic, conventional,
piffle: (n) balderdash, rigmarole,

120

Winesburg, Ohio

excited and wrangle about politics like windy old Tom Willard," he thought, as
he left the window and went again along the hallway to the room occupied by
his friend, George Willard.%
George Willard was older than Seth Richmond, but in the rather odd
friendship between the two, it was he who was forever courting and the younger
boy who was being courted. The paper on which George worked had one
policy. It strove to mention by name in each issue, as many as possible of the
inhabitants of the village. Like an excited dog, George Willard ran here and
there, noting on his pad of paper who had gone on business to the county seat or
had returned from a visit to a neighboring village. All day he wrote little facts
upon the pad. "A. P. Wringlet had received a shipment of straw hats. Ed
Byerbaum and Tom Marshall were in Cleveland Friday. Uncle Tom Sinnings is
building a new barn on his place on the Valley Road."
The idea that George Willard would some day become a writer had given
him a place of distinction in Winesburg, and to Seth Richmond he talked
continually of the matter, "It's the easiest of all lives to live," he declared,
becoming excited and boastful. "Here and there you go and there is no one to
boss you. Though you are in India or in the South Seas in a boat, you have but to
write and there you are. Wait till I get my name up and then see what fun I shall
have."
In George Willard's room, which had a window looking down into an
alleyway and one that looked across railroad tracks to Biff Carter's Lunch Room
facing the railroad station, Seth Richmond sat in a chair and looked at the floor.
George Willard, who had been sitting for an hour idly playing with a lead pencil,
greeted him effusively. "I've been trying to write a love story," he explained,
laughing nervously. Lighting a pipe he began walking up and down the room.
"I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to fall in love. I've been sitting here and
thinking it over and I'm going to do it."
As though embarrassed by his declaration, George went to a window and
turning his back to his friend leaned out. "I know who I'm going to fall in love

Thesaurus
boastful: (adj, v) braggart; (adj)
demonstratively, ebulliently,
pompous, arrogant, proud, vaunting, garrulously, talkatively,
thrasonical, vainglorious, vain,
unreservedly.
ostentatious; (v) Thrasonic; (adj, n)
idly: (adj, adv) foolishly; (adv) vainly,
noble. ANTONYMS: (adj)
vaguely, listlessly, forgetfully,
distractedly; (adj) thoughtlessly.
deprecating, humble, insecure.
courting: (n) wooing, courtship,
ANTONYM: (adv) energetically.
shipment: (n) freight, load,
bundling, appeal, attraction, case,
causa, cause, flirtation, suit.
consignment, delivery, lading,
effusively: (adv) expansively,
shipping, burden, dispatch, loading,
emotionally, gushily, sentimentally,
despatch, forwarding.
strove: (v) strive.
profusely, extravagantly,

windy: (adj) gusty, verbose, blowy,
flatulent, wordy, breezy,
tempestuous, empty, airy, prolix,
bombastic. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
still, straight, uncommunicative,
unresponsive, airless, pleasant,
direct.
wrangle: (adj, n, v) squabble; (n, v)
quarrel, dispute, brawl, debate,
bicker, contest, row, altercation, fight,
argue. ANTONYMS: (v) agree; (n)
peace.

Sherwood Anderson

121

with," he said sharply. "It's Helen White. She is the only girl in town with any
'get-up' to her."
Struck with a new idea, young Willard turned and walked toward his visitor.
"Look here," he said. "You know Helen White better than I do. I want you to tell
her what I said. You just get to talking to her and say that I'm in love with her.
See what she says to that. See how she takes it, and then you come and tell me."
Seth Richmond arose and went toward the door. The words of his comrade
irritated him unbearably. "Well, good-bye," he said briefly.%
George was amazed. Running forward he stood in the darkness trying to
look into Seth's face. "What's the matter? What are you going to do? You stay
here and let's talk," he urged.
A wave of resentment directed against his friend, the men of the town who
were, he thought, perpetually talking of nothing, and most of all, against his own
habit of silence, made Seth half desperate. "Aw, speak to her yourself," he burst
forth and then, going quickly through the door, slammed it sharply in his
friend's face. "I'm going to find Helen White and talk to her, but not about him,"
he muttered.
Seth went down the stairway and out at the front door of the hotel muttering
with wrath. Crossing a little dusty street and climbing a low iron railing, he
went to sit upon the grass in the station yard. George Willard he thought a
profound fool, and he wished that he had said so more vigorously. Although his
acquaintanceship with Helen White, the banker's daughter, was outwardly but
casual, she was often the subject of his thoughts and he felt that she was
something private and personal to himself. "The busy fool with his love stories,"
he muttered, staring back over his shoulder at George Willard's room, "why does
he never tire of his eternal talking."
It was berry harvest time in Winesburg and upon the station platform men
and boys loaded the boxes of red, fragrant berries into two express cars that
stood upon the siding. A June moon was in the sky, although in the west a
storm threatened, and no street lamps were lighted. In the dim light the figures

Thesaurus
amazed: (adj) astounded, astonished,
savory, fragrance, odoriferous, scent. railway, building material, falsehood,
ANTONYMS: (adj) smelly, putrid,
stunned, dumbfounded,
spur.
slammed: (adj) tight.
flabbergasted, shocked, staggered,
malodorous, odorless.
railing: (n) balustrade, rail, barrier,
tire: (n, v) bore, jade; (adj, n, v) fatigue;
bewildered, surprised,
(v) exhaust, harass, fag, weary, wear,
thunderstruck, aghast.
guardrail, banister, fence, pale,
comrade: (n) colleague, chum, buddy, paling, breastwork, handrail; (adj, n)
pall, prostrate; (n) tyre. ANTONYMS:
(v) interest, invigorate, energize.
fellow, compeer, partner, brother,
invective.
mate, familiar; (adj, n) associate, ally. seth: (n) exercise set, circle, hardening, unbearably: (adv) excruciatingly,
ANTONYMS: (n) stranger, enemy,
lot, readiness, set, bent, band.
unendurably, horrifically,
siding: (n) weatherboard,
foe, opponent.
disagreeably, unfeasibly, impossibly,
fragrant: (adj) spicy, odorous, balmy,
weatherboarding, railroad siding,
terribly, rudely, agonizingly, badly,
sweet, odorant, scented, redolent,
clapboard, shunt, turnout, switch,
dreadfully.

122

Winesburg, Ohio

of the men standing upon the express truck and pitching the boxes in at the
doors of the cars were but dimly discernible. Upon the iron railing that protected
the station lawn sat other men. Pipes were lighted. Village jokes went back and
forth. Away in the distance a train whistled and the men loading the boxes into
the cars worked with renewed activity.%
Seth arose from his place on the grass and went silently past the men perched
upon the railing and into Main Street. He had come to a resolution. "I'll get out
of here," he told himself. "What good am I here? I'm going to some city and go to
work. I'll tell mother about it tomorrow."
Seth Richmond went slowly along Main Street, past Wacker's Cigar Store and
the Town Hall, and into Buckeye Street. He was depressed by the thought that
he was not a part of the life in his own town, but the depression did not cut
deeply as he did not think of himself as at fault. In the heavy shadows of a big
tree before Doctor Welling's house, he stopped and stood watching half-witted
Turk Smollet, who was pushing a wheelbarrow in the road. The old man with
his absurdly boyish mind had a dozen long boards on the wheelbarrow, and, as
he hurried along the road, balanced the load with extreme nicety. "Easy there,
Turk! Steady now, old boy!" the old man shouted to himself, and laughed so that
the load of boards rocked dangerously.
Seth knew Turk Smollet, the half dangerous old wood chopper whose
peculiarities added so much of color to the life of the village. He knew that when
Turk got into Main Street he would become the center of a whirlwind of cries
and comments, that in truth the old man was going far out of his way in order to
pass through Main Street and exhibit his skill in wheeling the boards. "If George
Willard were here, he'd have something to say," thought Seth. "George belongs to
this town. He'd shout at Turk and Turk would shout at him. They'd both be
secretly pleased by what they had said. It's different with me. I don't belong. I'll
not make a fuss about it, but I'm going to get out of here."
Seth stumbled forward through the half-darkness, feeling himself an outcast
in his own town. He began to pity himself, but a sense of the absurdity of his
thoughts made him smile. In the end he decided that he was simply old beyond

Thesaurus
absurdly: (adv) ridiculously, foolishly, nicety: (n) detail, exactness,
ludicrously, nonsensically,
fastidiousness, nuance, refinement,
idiotically, silly, stupidly,
exactitude, justness, precision,
inconsistently, comically, illogically,
correctness, daintiness, elegance.
irrationally. ANTONYMS: (adv)
outcast: (n) exile, castaway, leper,
solemnly, impressively, rationally,
expatriate, outlaw, vagabond, lown,
loon, refugee; (adj, n) derelict; (adj)
harmoniously.
boards: (n) timber, arena, table, stage,
homeless. ANTONYM: (n) native.
pitching: (n) cast, lurch, nosing
fence, floor.
chopper: (n) helicopter, axe, cleaver,
motion, playing, slant, delivery,
lunge, stone facing, pitch shot; (adj)
whirlybird, mincer, chop, grounder,
inclined; (adv) headlong.
knife, copter, hatchet, tooth.

wheelbarrow: (n) barrow, handcart,
pushcart, lawn cart, garden cart,
tumulus, burial mound, truck,
barrowful, grave mound.
wheeling: (adj) rotating, revolving,
moving; (n) rolling, city, metropolis,
peal, propulsion, roll, transmission
service, urban center.
whirlwind: (n) tornado, hurricane,
twister, gale, tempest, cyclone,
typhoon, waterspout, windstorm,
flurry, dust devil.

Sherwood Anderson

123

his years and not at all a subject for self-pity. "I'm made to go to work. I may be
able to make a place for myself by steady working, and I might as well be at it,"
he decided.
Seth went to the house of Banker White and stood in the darkness by the
front door. On the door hung a heavy brass knocker, an innovation introduced
into the village by Helen White's mother, who had also organized a women's
club for the study of poetry. Seth raised the knocker and let it fall. Its heavy
clatter sounded like a report from distant guns. "How awkward and foolish I
am," he thought. "If Mrs. White comes to the door, I won't know what to say."
It was Helen White who came to the door and found Seth standing at the
edge of the porch. Blushing with pleasure, she stepped forward, closing the door
softly. "I'm going to get out of town. I don't know what I'll do, but I'm going to
get out of here and go to work. I think I'll go to Columbus," he said. "Perhaps I'll
get into the State University down there. Anyway, I'm going. I'll tell mother
tonight." He hesitated and looked doubtfully about. "Perhaps you wouldn't
mind coming to walk with me?"
Seth and Helen walked through the streets beneath the trees. Heavy clouds
had drifted across the face of the moon, and before them in the deep twilight
went a man with a short ladder upon his shoulder. Hurrying forward, the man
stopped at the street crossing and, putting the ladder against the wooden lamppost, lighted the village lights so that their way was half lighted, half darkened,
by the lamps and by the deepening shadows cast by the low-branched trees. In
the tops of the trees the wind began to play, disturbing the sleeping birds so that
they flew about calling plaintively. In the lighted space before one of the lamps,
two bats wheeled and circled, pursuing the gathering swarm of night flies.%
Since Seth had been a boy in knee trousers there had been a half expressed
intimacy between him and the maiden who now for the first time walked beside
him. For a time she had been beset with a madness for writing notes which she
addressed to Seth. He had found them concealed in his books at school and one
had been given him by a child met in the street, while several had been delivered
through the village post office.

Thesaurus
bats: (adj) nutty, loony, crackers,
plaintively: (adv) piteously,
indecisively, unsurely, skeptically,
cracked, barmy, batty, balmy, goofy,
precariously, shadily. ANTONYMS:
sorrowfully, mournfully, pitifully,
(adv) indisputably, surely, trustingly, ruefully, grievously, lugubriously,
wacky, nuts, loopy.
clatter: (n, v) rattle, jingle, bang, clank, inevitably, confidently,
pathetically, woefully, lamentingly,
clang, roll, clink; (v) clash, chatter; (n) optimistically, plausibly.
wistfully.
noise, racket. ANTONYM: (n) quiet. knocker: (n) boob, tit, breast,
twilight: (n) nightfall, night, sunset,
darkened: (adj) darkens, obscured,
doorknocker, nipple, knock, doorgloaming, evening, sundown,
eventide, fall, decline, evenfall; (adj)
old, obfuscate, murky, cloudy,
knocker, depreciator, disparager,
aurora. ANTONYMS: (n) daybreak,
opaque, overcast.
detractor, hatemonger.
doubtfully: (adj, adv) hesitantly,
maiden: (n) maid, girl, demoiselle,
sunrise.
distrustfully; (adv) suspiciously,
damosel, wench, fille, lass, miss; (adj) wheeled: (adj) on wheels. ANTONYM:
(adj) wheelless.
uncertainly, doubtingly, tentatively,
first, initiatory, unmarried.

124

Winesburg, Ohio

The notes had been written in a round, boyish hand and had reflected a mind
inflamed by novel reading. Seth had not answered them, although he had been
moved and flattered by some of the sentences scrawled in pencil upon the
stationery of the banker's wife. Putting them into the pocket of his coat, he went
through the street or stood by the fence in the school yard with something
burning at his side. He thought it fine that he should be thus selected as the
favorite of the richest and most attractive girl in town.%
Helen and Seth stopped by a fence near where a low dark building faced the
street. The building had once been a factory for the making of barrel staves but
was now vacant. Across the street upon the porch of a house a man and woman
talked of their childhood, their voices coming dearly across to the halfembarrassed youth and maiden. There was the sound of scraping chairs and the
man and woman came down the gravel path to a wooden gate. Standing outside
the gate, the man leaned over and kissed the woman. "For old times' sake," he
said and, turning, walked rapidly away along the sidewalk.
"That's Belle Turner," whispered Helen, and put her hand boldly into Seth's
hand. "I didn't know she had a fellow. I thought she was too old for that." Seth
laughed uneasily. The hand of the girl was warm and a strange, dizzy feeling
crept over him. Into his mind came a desire to tell her something he had been
determined not to tell. "George Willard's in love with you," he said, and in spite
of his agitation his voice was low and quiet. "He's writing a story, and he wants
to be in love. He wants to know how it feels. He wanted me to tell you and see
what you said."
Again Helen and Seth walked in silence. They came to the garden
surrounding the old Richmond place and going through a gap in the hedge sat
on a wooden bench beneath a bush.
On the street as he walked beside the girl new and daring thoughts had come
into Seth Richmond's mind. He began to regret his decision to get out of town.
"It would be something new and altogether delightful to remain and walk often
through the streets with Helen White," he thought. In imagination he saw
himself putting his arm about her waist and feeling her arms clasped tightly

Thesaurus
barrel: (n) vessel, keg, roll, barrels,
dearly: (adv) affectionately, preciously,
barrelful, tun, vase, cask, vat,
darlingly, sweetly, petly,
container, hogshead.
expensively, belovedly, intimately,
boldly: (adj, adv) courageously,
highly, heartfeltly, lovely.
valiantly, heroically; (adv) fearlessly, favorite: (adj, n) darling, favourite,
dear, number one; (adj) favored,
daringly, bravely, intrepidly,
beloved, popular; (n) pet, choice,
impudently, audaciously,
pick, preference. ANTONYMS: (n)
shamelessly, brashly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) discreetly, modestly, nervously, indifference, superior, underdog;
(adj) unwanted, despised, disliked,
hesitantly, shyly, fearfully, meekly,
submissively, secretly, respectfully,
hated, unusual.
flattered: (adj) pleased.
diffidently.

inflamed: (adj) impassioned, excited,
angry, hot, flaming, ablaze, irritated,
passionate, painful, burning; (n) red.
reflected: (adj) reflecting, reverberant,
reflectent.
scrawled: (adj) scribbled, hard to
decipher, incomprehensible, written,
unreadable, indecipherable,
impossible to read.
stationery: (n) notepaper, stationary,
note, writing materials, writing
paper, office equipment, letterhead.

Sherwood Anderson

125

about his neck. One of those odd combinations of events and places made him
connect the idea of love-making with this girl and a spot he had visited some
days before. He had gone on an errand to the house of a farmer who lived on a
hillside beyond the Fair Ground and had returned by a path through a field. At
the foot of the hill below the farmer's house Seth had stopped beneath a
sycamore tree and looked about him. A soft humming noise had greeted his
ears. For a moment he had thought the tree must be the home of a swarm of
bees.%
And then, looking down, Seth had seen the bees everywhere all about him in
the long grass. He stood in a mass of weeds that grew waist-high in the field that
ran away from the hillside. The weeds were abloom with tiny purple blossoms
and gave forth an overpowering fragrance. Upon the weeds the bees were
gathered in armies, singing as they worked.
Seth imagined himself lying on a summer evening, buried deep among the
weeds beneath the tree. Beside him, in the scene built in his fancy, lay Helen
White, her hand lying in his hand. A peculiar reluctance kept him from kissing
her lips, but he felt he might have done that if he wished. Instead, he lay
perfectly still, looking at her and listening to the army of bees that sang the
sustained masterful song of labor above his head.
On the bench in the garden Seth stirred uneasily. Releasing the hand of the
girl, he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. A desire to impress the mind of
his companion with the importance of the resolution he had made came over
him and he nodded his head toward the house. "Mother'll make a fuss, I
suppose," he whispered. "She hasn't thought at all about what I'm going to do in
life. She thinks I'm going to stay on here forever just being a boy."
Seth's voice became charged with boyish earnestness. "You see, I've got to
strike out. I've got to get to work. It's what I'm good for."
Helen White was impressed. She nodded her head and a feeling of
admiration swept over her. "This is as it should be," she thought. "This boy is not
a boy at all, but a strong, purposeful man." Certain vague desires that had been
invading her body were swept away and she sat up very straight on the bench.

Thesaurus
abloom: (adj) flowering, efflorescent,
reeking, bustling, grunting, stinking; meek, inept.
(n) buzzing, vocalizing, sound,
overpowering: (adj) overwhelming,
mature, maturer.
desires: (n) requirements, needs.
murmur, growling.
oppressive, resistless, compelling,
errand: (n) chore, mission, job, task,
invading: (adj) invade, incursive,
intense, heavy, strong, onerous,
assignment, embassy, duty, charge,
attacking, impertinent, abhorrent,
devastating, uncontrollable,
depressing. ANTONYMS: (adj) light,
messenger, communication, work.
abusive, aggressive, assailant,
fragrance: (n, v) aroma, perfume,
disgusting, disagreeable, distasteful.
subtle, imperceptible, insignificant,
scent, smell; (n) bouquet, odor,
masterful: (adj) consummate,
shallow, weak, faint, bland.
sycamore: (n) plane tree, maple, great
essence, odour, redolence, sweetness; imperious, dictatorial, overbearing,
(adj) fragrant. ANTONYMS: (n) stink, masterly, Masterful beggar, skillful,
maple, mulberry fig, lacewood,
stench.
proficient, adept, perfect, expert.
buttonwood, platan, Scottish maple,
humming: (adj) droning, zippy,
ANTONYMS: (adj) incompetent,
tree, wood, plane.

126

Winesburg, Ohio

The thunder continued to rumble and flashes of heat lightning lit up the eastern
sky. The garden that had been so mysterious and vast, a place that with Seth
beside her might have become the background for strange and wonderful
adventures, now seemed no more than an ordinary Winesburg back yard, quite
definite and limited in its outlines.%
"What will you do up there?" she whispered.
Seth turned half around on the bench, striving to see her face in the darkness.
He thought her infinitely more sensible and straightforward than George
Willard, and was glad he had come away from his friend. A feeling of
impatience with the town that had been in his mind returned, and he tried to tell
her of it. "Everyone talks and talks," he began. "I'm sick of it. I'll do something,
get into some kind of work where talk don't count. Maybe I'll just be a mechanic
in a shop. I don't know. I guess I don't care much. I just want to work and keep
quiet. That's all I've got in my mind."
Seth arose from the bench and put out his hand. He did not want to bring the
meeting to an end but could not think of anything more to say. "It's the last time
we'll see each other," he whispered.
A wave of sentiment swept over Helen. Putting her hand upon Seth's
shoulder, she started to draw his face down toward her own upturned face. The
act was one of pure affection and cutting regret that some vague adventure that
had been present in the spirit of the night would now never be realized. "I think
I'd better be going along," she said, letting her hand fall heavily to her side. A
thought came to her. "Don't you go with me; I want to be alone," she said. "You
go and talk with your mother. You'd better do that now."
Seth hesitated and, as he stood waiting, the girl turned and ran away through
the hedge. A desire to run after her came to him, but he only stood staring,
perplexed and puzzled by her action as he had been perplexed and puzzled by
all of the life of the town out of which she had come. Walking slowly toward the
house, he stopped in the shadow of a large tree and looked at his mother sitting
by a lighted window busily sewing. The feeling of loneliness that had visited
him earlier in the evening returned and colored his thoughts of the adventure

Thesaurus
impatience: (n) annoyance, eagerness, loneliness: (n) desolation, aloneness,
feeling, persuasion, opinion,
anger, intolerance, restlessness,
isolation, solitariness, lonesomeness, judgment, sense, judgement, attitude,
fidget, nervousness, fidgetiness,
bleakness, forlornness, desolateness,
impression.
enthusiasm, edginess; (adj)
temperament, unhappiness; (adj, n)
striving: (n) nisus, pains, endeavor,
nonendurance. ANTONYMS: (n)
solitude. ANTONYMS: (n) inclusion, strife, try, strain, attempt, strive,
calmness, endurance, apathy.
cheerfulness, hopefulness.
ambition, struggle, exertion.
infinitely: (adv) greatly, vastly,
mechanic: (n) craftsman, mechanical,
ANTONYM: (adj) unmotivated.
upturned: (adj) retrousse, overturned,
immensely, immeasurably,
machinist, artisan, artificer,
boundlessly, enormously,
journeyman, grease monkey,
upside-down, broken, disordered,
unboundedly, hugely, ceaselessly,
automobile mechanic, Wright,
disquieted, distressed, disturbed,
unendingly; (adj, adv) incalculably.
worker, artist.
confused, topsy-turvy, shapely.
ANTONYM: (adv) finitely.
sentiment: (n) emotion, mind, notion,

Sherwood Anderson

127

through which he had just passed. "Huh!" he exclaimed, turning and staring in
the direction taken by Helen White. "That's how things'll turn out. She'll be like
the rest. I suppose she'll begin now to look at me in a funny way." He looked at
the %ground and pondered this thought. "She'll be embarrassed and feel strange
when I'm around," he whispered to himself. "That's how it'll be. That's how
everything'll turn out. When it comes to loving someone, it won't never be me.
It'll be someone else--some fool--someone who talks a lot--someone like that
George Willard."

Thesaurus
embarrassed: (adj) awkward, abashed, loving: (adj) fond, devoted, amorous,
irregular, odd, new, mysterious,
uncomfortable, disconcerted, bashful, kind, friendly, ardent, attached,
extraordinary, curious. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ordinary, normal, familiar,
sheepish, shy, shamefaced, mortified, admiring, gentle, fatherly; (adj, v)
tender. ANTONYMS: (adj) cold,
discomfited, chagrined.
typical, usual, conventional,
ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed,
uncaring, malicious, cruel, unloving, explicable, sensible, mainstream,
unabashed, natural, talkative.
rough, paternal, indifferent, distant,
known, human.
funny: (adj) amusing, strange,
talks: (n) parley, discussion, dialogue,
disapproving, callous.
staring: (adj) conspicuous, garish,
peculiar, facetious, droll, eccentric,
diplomacy, arbitration, mediation,
fishy, diverting, queer, suspicious,
agaze, vivid, noisy, showy, fixed,
conversation, discussions,
unusual. ANTONYMS: (adj) serious,
opened, glassy; (adv) staringly.
conference, meeting, dialog.
strange: (adj) foreign, peculiar,
grave, obvious, tragic, ordinary,
normal, easy, dull.
unusual, abnormal, outlandish,

Sherwood Anderson

129

TANDY

Until she was seven years old she lived in an old unpainted house on an
unused road that led off Trunion Pike. Her father gave her but little attention
and her mother was dead. The father spent his time talking and thinking of
religion. He proclaimed himself an agnostic and was so absorbed in destroying
the ideas of God that had crept into the minds of his neighbors that he never saw
God manifesting himself in the little child that, half forgotten, lived here and
there on the bounty of her dead mother's relatives.%
A stranger came to Winesburg and saw in the child what the father did not
see. He was a tall, red-haired young man who was almost always drunk.
Sometimes he sat in a chair before the New Willard House with Tom Hard, the
father. As Tom talked, declaring there could be no God, the stranger smiled and
winked at the bystanders. He and Tom became friends and were much together.
The stranger was the son of a rich merchant of Cleveland and had come to
Winesburg on a mission. He wanted to cure himself of the habit of drink, and
thought that by escaping from his city associates and living in a rural
community he would have a better chance in the struggle with the appetite that
was destroying him.

Thesaurus
agnostic: (n) freethinker, doubter,
atheist, nonbeliever, infidel,
unbeliever, sceptic; (adj, n) pagan;
(adj) theophobist, somatist,
unbelieving. ANTONYMS: (n)
believer, adherent; (adj) gnostic,
attached.
appetite: (n, v) desire; (n) appetence,
appetency, relish, inclination,
stomach, taste, thirst, passion, liking,
gusto. ANTONYMS: (n) dislike,
repulsion, revulsion, apathy, distaste.

associates: (n) staff, membership,
escaping: (n) evasion, getaway, break,
circle, entourage, intimates, people.
breakout, running away, running off,
bounty: (adj, n) largesse; (n)
run-around; (adj) fugitive.
proclaimed: (adj) announced,
abundance, bounteousness,
premium, blessing, prize,
indictive, declared publicly.
munificence, beneficence, generosity; unused: (adj, v) unaccustomed; (adj)
(v) benefaction; (n, v) gift.
idle, fresh, extra, uncommon,
ANTONYMS: (n) miserliness, fine,
unfamiliar, not used, surplus,
insufficiency, penalty, meanness.
leftover, clean, inactive.
declaring: (adj) affirming, predicant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) used,
destroying: (v) destroy; (adj) deadly,
knowledgeable, accustomed, busy,
deleterious, murderous; (n) disposal. active, working, main.

130

Winesburg, Ohio

His sojourn in Winesburg was not a success. The dullness of the passing
hours led to his drinking harder than ever. But he did succeed in doing
something. He gave a name rich with meaning to Tom Hard's daughter.%
One evening when he was recovering from a long debauch the stranger came
reeling along the main street of the town. Tom Hard sat in a chair before the
New Willard House with his daughter, then a child of five, on his knees. Beside
him on the board sidewalk sat young George Willard. The stranger dropped into
a chair beside them. His body shook and when he tried to talk his voice
trembled.
It was late evening and darkness lay over the town and over the railroad that
ran along the foot of a little incline before the hotel. Somewhere in the distance,
off to the west, there was a prolonged blast from the whistle of a passenger
engine. A dog that had been sleeping in the roadway arose and barked. The
stranger began to babble and made a prophecy concerning the child that lay in
the arms of the agnostic.
"I came here to quit drinking," he said, and tears began to run down his
cheeks. He did not look at Tom Hard, but leaned forward and stared into the
darkness as though seeing a vision. "I ran away to the country to be cured, but I
am not cured. There is a reason." He turned to look at the child who sat up very
straight on her father's knee and returned the look.
The stranger touched Tom Hard on the arm. "Drink is not the only thing to
which I am addicted," he said. "There is something else. I am a lover and have
not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize
what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who
understand that."
The stranger became silent and seemed overcome with sadness, but another
blast from the whistle of the passenger engine aroused him. "I have not lost
faith. I proclaim that. I have only been brought to the place where I know my
faith will not be realized," he declared hoarsely. He looked hard at the child and
began to address her, paying no more attention to the father. "There is a woman
coming," he said, and his voice was now sharp and earnest. "I have missed her,

Thesaurus
babble: (n, v) drivel, gossip, chat,
boredom, dreariness, flatness,
burble, prattle; (v) ripple, gab, talk,
tedium, obtuseness, torpor,
monotony, lethargy; (adj, n) phlegm.
blab, smatter, bubble. ANTONYMS:
(n, v) stillness, quietness; (n) sense.
ANTONYMS: (n) brightness,
cheeks: (n) Gemini, twins, couple,
intensity, brilliance, excitement,
posterior, pair, deuce, two, duet.
intelligence, shine, asperity,
debauch: (v) corrupt, debase, deprave, animation, gloss, clarity, variation.
hoarsely: (adv) roughly, huskily,
demoralize, vitiate, violate, whore,
pollute; (n) Saturnalia, orgy; (n, v)
raucously, gruffly, throatily,
riot. ANTONYMS: (v) upgrade,
gratingly, stridently, gutturally,
praise, laud, elevate, honor.
thickly, croakily, raggedly.
dullness: (n) apathy, bluntness,
ANTONYM: (adv) smoothly.

reeling: (adj) giddy, intoxicated, tipsy,
queer, lightheaded, groggy, fuddled,
bewildered; (n) titubation, rotary
straightening.
roadway: (n) carriageway, track,
pathway, path, highway, pavement,
roadbed, way, stairway, runway,
trail.
sojourn: (adj, v) reside, inhabit; (n)
residence, abode; (adj, n, v) stay; (v)
remain, lodge, abide, live; (n, v)
delay, domicile.

Sherwood Anderson

131

you see. She did not come in my time. You may be the woman. It would be like
fate to let me stand in her presence once, on such an evening as this, when I have
destroyed myself with drink and she is as yet only a child."%
The shoulders of the stranger shook violently, and when he tried to roll a
cigarette the paper fell from his trembling fingers. He grew angry and scolded.
"They think it's easy to be a woman, to be loved, but I know better," he declared.
Again he turned to the child. "I understand," he cried. "Perhaps of all men I
alone understand."
His glance again wandered away to the darkened street. "I know about her,
although she has never crossed my path," he said softly. "I know about her
struggles and her defeats. It is because of her defeats that she is to me the lovely
one. Out of her defeats has been born a new quality in woman. I have a name
for it. I call it Tandy. I made up the name when I was a true dreamer and before
my body became vile. It is the quality of being strong to be loved. It is
something men need from women and that they do not get. "
The stranger arose and stood before Tom Hard. His body rocked back and
forth and he seemed about to fall, but instead he dropped to his knees on the
sidewalk and raised the hands of the little girl to his drunken lips. He kissed
them ecstatically. "Be Tandy, little one," he pleaded. "Dare to be strong and
courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be
loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy."
The stranger arose and staggered off down the street. A day or two later he
got aboard a train and returned to his home in Cleveland. On the summer
evening, after the talk before the hotel, Tom Hard took the girl child to the house
of a relative where she had been invited to spend the night. As he went along in
the darkness under the trees he forgot the babbling voice of the stranger and his
mind returned to the making of arguments by which he might destroy men's
faith in God. He spoke his daughter's name and she began to weep.
"I don't want to be called that," she declared. "I want to be called Tandy-Tandy Hard." The child wept so bitterly that Tom Hard was touched and tried to
comfort her. He stopped beneath a tree and, taking her into his arms, began to

Thesaurus
aboard: (adv) afloat, afield, at home,
there, everywhere, here, on base,
onboard, where.
babbling: (adj) loquacious, telltale,
voluble, blatant, blathering,
blithering, gabbling, garrulous,
jabbering; (n) stultiloquy,
stultiloquence.
dreamer: (n) romancer, visionary,
daydreamer, woolgatherer, seer,
sleeper, slumberer, illusionist,
logician, philosopher, escapist.

drunken: (adj) boozy, sottish,
intoxicated, tipsy, tight, bibulous,
groggy, intemperate, blotto, canned,
pissed.
forth: (adv) away, along, onward,
ahead, before, on, off, on the high
road, on the road, on the way, under
way.
staggered: (adj) dumbfounded,
astonished, flabbergasted, astounded,
stunned, bewildered, surprised,
thunderstruck, angular, dizzy, taken

aback.
violently: (adj, adv) vehemently, hotly,
madly, ardently; (adv) wildly,
passionately, strongly, hard,
furiously, turbulently; (adv, n)
vigorously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
gently, nonviolently, feebly,
impassively, peacefully, tamely.
weep: (v) wail, bawl, lament, sob,
blubber, moan, howl, drip, greet,
whimper; (n) tear.

132

Winesburg, Ohio

caress %her. "Be good, now," he said sharply; but she would not be quieted.
With childish abandon she gave herself over to grief, her voice breaking the
evening stillness of the street. "I want to be Tandy. I want to be Tandy. I want
to be Tandy Hard," she cried, shaking her head and sobbing as though her
young strength were not enough to bear the vision the words of the drunkard
had brought to her.

Thesaurus
abandon: (v) relinquish, renounce,
babyish, immature, simple, puerile, quieted: (adj) composed.
shaking: (adj, n) quivering, tremor,
resign, vacate, waive, evacuate,
infantile, juvenile, silly, frivolous,
young. ANTONYMS: (adj) sensible,
jarring; (n) quiver, palpitation, quake;
desert, give up, leave, depart, throw
away. ANTONYMS: (v) keep,
(adj) quaking, shaky, flutter,
old, wise, adult, jaded.
gave: (v) deliver, allow, allot, provide, unsteady, shivering.
support, maintain, adopt, retain,
continue, defend; (n) restraint,
furnish, impart, administer; (n) gives. stillness: (n) hush, calmness,
grief: (adj, n, v) affliction; (n) dolor,
inhibition, deliberation, control.
immobility, serenity, silence,
breaking: (n) breakage, breach,
quietness, peacefulness; (adj, n) calm,
anguish, distress, agony, pain,
wound, chagrin, concern; (n, v)
quiet, peace, still. ANTONYMS: (n)
violation, infringement,
contravention, smash, rift, scutching, regret; (adj) sore. ANTONYMS: (n)
bustle, movement, uproar, motion,
shift, intermission; (v) deaden.
joy, happiness, comfort, content,
turbulence, turmoil, vigor,
childish: (adj) childlike, naive,
peace.
disturbance, chaos, agitation.

Sherwood Anderson

133

THE STRENGTH OF GOD

The reverend Curtis Hartman was pastor of the Presbyterian Church of
Winesburg, and had been in that position ten years. He was forty years old, and
by his nature very silent and reticent. To preach, standing in the pulpit before
the people, was always a hardship for him and from Wednesday morning until
Saturday evening he thought of nothing but the two sermons that must be
preached on Sunday. Early on Sunday morning he went into a little room called
a study in the bell tower of the church and prayed. In his prayers there was one
note that always predominated. "Give me strength and courage for Thy work, O
Lord!" he pleaded, kneeling on the bare floor and bowing his head in the
presence of the task that lay before him.%
The Reverend Hartman was a tall man with a brown beard. His wife, a stout,
nervous woman, was the daughter of a manufacturer of underwear at Cleveland,
Ohio. The minister himself was rather a favorite in the town. The elders of the
church liked him because he was quiet and unpretentious and Mrs. White, the
banker's wife, thought him scholarly and refined.
The Presbyterian Church held itself somewhat aloof from the other churches
of Winesburg. It was larger and more imposing and its minister was better paid.
He even had a carriage of his own and on summer evenings sometimes drove
about town with his wife. Through Main Street and up and down Buckeye Street

Thesaurus
aloof: (adj) distant, reserved, cool,
divine, priest, parson, curate,
standoffish, unconcerned, indifferent, herdsman, churchman, chaplain,
unfriendly, frigid, arrogant, cold;
celebrant.
(adv) afar. ANTONYMS: (adj)
preach: (v) lecture, exhort, moralize,
friendly, involved, approachable,
advocate, sermonize, urge, hold
sociable, outgoing, open,
forth, admonish, evangelize,
enthusiastic, relaxed, communicative, prophesy, moralise.
pulpit: (n) platform, dais, ambo,
affable, respectful.
carriage: (n) attitude, conveyance, cab, lectern, hustings, stump, rostrum,
air, walk, position, mien, shipping;
forum, desk, stand, state.
(n, v) transport, behavior, port.
reticent: (adj, v) reserved, close; (adj)
pastor: (n) minister, ecclesiastic, cleric, restrained, quiet, distant, modest,

uncommunicative, shy, taciturn,
retiring, bashful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
expansive, chatty, helpful, outgoing,
uninhibited, forthcoming, extrovert,
careless, affable, arrogant, open.
unpretentious: (adj) plain, humble,
unassuming, quiet, simple,
unpretending, unobtrusive,
unostentatious, understated, homely,
small. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pretentious, affected, arrogant,
ostentatious, fancy, flashy.

134

Winesburg, Ohio

he went, bowing gravely to the people, while his wife, afire with secret pride,
looked at him out of the corners of her eyes and worried lest the horse become
frightened and run away.%
For a good many years after he came to Winesburg things went well with
Curtis Hartman. He was not one to arouse keen enthusiasm among the
worshippers in his church but on the other hand he made no enemies. In reality
he was much in earnest and sometimes suffered prolonged periods of remorse
because he could not go crying the word of God in the highways and byways of
the town. He wondered if the flame of the spirit really burned in him and
dreamed of a day when a strong sweet new current of power would come like a
great wind into his voice and his soul and the people would tremble before the
spirit of God made manifest in him. "I am a poor stick and that will never really
happen to me," he mused dejectedly, and then a patient smile lit up his features.
"Oh well, I suppose I'm doing well enough," he added philosophically.
The room in the bell tower of the church, where on Sunday mornings the
minister prayed for an increase in him of the power of God, had but one
window. It was long and narrow and swung outward on a hinge like a door.
On the window, made of little leaded panes, was a design showing the Christ
laying his hand upon the head of a child. One Sunday morning in the summer as
he sat by his desk in the room with a large Bible opened before him, and the
sheets of his sermon scattered about, the minister was shocked to see, in the
upper room of the house next door, a woman lying in her bed and smoking a
cigarette while she read a book. Curtis Hartman went on tiptoe to the window
and closed it softly. He was horror stricken at the thought of a woman smoking
and trembled also to think that his eyes, just raised from the pages of the book of
God, had looked upon the bare shoulders and white throat of a woman. With his
brain in a whirl he went down into the pulpit and preached a long sermon
without once thinking of his gestures or his voice. The sermon attracted unusual
attention because of its power and clearness. "I wonder if she is listening, if my
voice is carrying a message into her soul," he thought and began to hope that on

Thesaurus
corners: (adj) cornered.
dejectedly: (adv) despondently,
dispiritedly, gloomily, glumly,
downcastly, dismally,
downheartedly, depressedly,
disheartenedly, melancholy, lowly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) cheerfully,
enthusiastically.
gravely: (adv) seriously, soberly,
severely, solemnly, badly, staidly,
momentously, heavily, earnestly,
weightily, grievously. ANTONYMS:

(adv) lightheartedly, mildly, slightly;
(adj) soft.
hinge: (n, v) joint; (n) axis, axle,
articulation, spindle, crux, fulcrum,
arbor, flexible joint; (v) depend,
juncture.
leaded: (adj) fixed.
panes: (n) Fauni.
philosophically: (adv) calmly,
rationally, reflectively, thoughtfully,
wisely.
remorse: (n) penitence, contrition,

repentance, regret, guilt, penance,
sorrow, grief, qualm, ruefulness,
compassion. ANTONYM: (n)
shamelessness.
sheets: (n) rain, bed linen.
stricken: (adj) smitten, struck, beaten,
laid low, affected, hurt, low,
impaired, dotty; (v) heavy laden,
victimized.
whirl: (n, v) spin, turn, eddy, roll,
wheel, twist, swirl; (v) reel, gyrate; (n)
go, fling.

Sherwood Anderson

135

future Sunday mornings he might be able to say words that would touch and
awaken the woman apparently far gone in secret sin.%
The house next door to the Presbyterian Church, through the windows of
which the minister had seen the sight that had so upset him, was occupied by
two women. Aunt Elizabeth Swift, a grey competent looking widow with
money in the Winesburg National Bank, lived there with her daughter Kate
Swift, a school teacher. The school teacher was thirty years old and had a neat
trim-looking figure. She had few friends and bore a reputation of having a sharp
tongue. When he began to think about her, Curtis Hartman remembered that
she had been to Europe and had lived for two years in New York City. "Perhaps
after all her smoking means nothing," he thought. He began to remember that
when he was a student in college and occasionally read novels, good although
somewhat worldly women, had smoked through the pages of a book that had
once fallen into his hands. With a rush of new determination he worked on his
sermons all through the week and forgot, in his zeal to reach the ears and the
soul of this new listener, both his embarrassment in the pulpit and the necessity
of prayer in the study on Sunday mornings.
Reverend Hartman's experience with women had been somewhat limited.
He was the son of a wagon maker from Muncie, Indiana, and had worked his
way through college. The daughter of the underwear manufacturer had boarded
in a house where he lived during his school days and he had married her after a
formal and prolonged courtship, carried on for the most part by the girl herself.
On his marriage day the underwear manufacturer had given his daughter five
thousand dollars and he promised to leave her at least twice that amount in his
will. The minister had thought himself fortunate in marriage and had never
permitted himself to think of other women. He did not want to think of other
women. What he wanted was to do the work of God quietly and earnestly.
In the soul of the minister a struggle awoke. From wanting to reach the ears
of Kate Swift, and through his sermons to delve into her soul, he began to want
also to look again at the figure lying white and quiet in the bed. On a Sunday
morning when he could not sleep because of his thoughts he arose and went to

Thesaurus
awaken: (v) arouse, wake, rouse, call,
profane; (adv) mundanely,
respectable, honourable.
underwear: (n) underclothing,
temporally. ANTONYMS: (adj)
stir, kindle, get up, raise, wake up,
waken, revive. ANTONYMS: (v)
undergarment, lingerie, skivvy,
spiritual, naive, cloistered, religious,
dampen, calm, retire, suppress, spoil, undies, long Johns, skivvies,
unsophisticated, unworldly,
quench, douse, stifle.
underthings, ladies' underwear.
unrefined, otherworldly, low,
delve: (v) burrow, investigate,
widow: (n) woman, relict, widower,
heavenly, immaterial.
zeal: (adj, n) eagerness; (n) fervor,
excavate, rummage, grub, mine, cut
adult female, widow woman, war
widow, nobbled line; (adj) widowed, enthusiasm, devotion, passion,
into, tunnel, root, unearth, lop and
top. ANTONYM: (v) fill.
additional; (v) leave behind.
vehemence, fire, fervency, heat,
reverend: (n) preacher, clergyman,
worldly: (adj, adv) earthly; (adj)
fervour, ardour. ANTONYMS: (n)
parson, rector, vicar, pastor, priest,
mundane, secular, terrestrial,
apathy, lethargy, patience.
minister, churchman; (adj)
temporal, carnal, sophisticated, lay,

136

Winesburg, Ohio

walk in the streets. When he had gone along Main Street almost to the old
Richmond place he stopped and picking up a stone rushed off to the room in the
bell tower. With the stone he broke out a corner of the window and then locked
the door and sat down at the desk before the open Bible to wait. When the shade
of the window to Kate Swift's room was raised he could see, through the hole,
directly into her bed, but she was not there. She also had arisen and had gone for
a walk and the hand that raised the shade was the hand of Aunt Elizabeth
Swift.%
The minister almost wept with joy at this deliverance from the carnal desire
to "peep" and went back to his own house praising God. In an ill moment he
forgot, however, to stop the hole in the window. The piece of glass broken out at
the corner of the window just nipped off the bare heel of the boy standing
motionless and looking with rapt eyes into the face of the Christ.
Curtis Hartman forgot his sermon on that Sunday morning. He talked to his
congregation and in his talk said that it was a mistake for people to think of their
minister as a man set aside and intended by nature to lead a blameless life. "Out
of my own experience I know that we, who are the ministers of God's word, are
beset by the same temptations that assail you," he declared. "I have been
tempted and have surrendered to temptation. It is only the hand of God, placed
beneath my head, that has raised me up. As he has raised me so also will he raise
you. Do not despair. In your hour of sin raise your eyes to the skies and you will
be again and again saved."
Resolutely the minister put the thoughts of the woman in the bed out of his
mind and began to be something like a lover in the presence of his wife. One
evening when they drove out together he turned the horse out of Buckeye Street
and in the darkness on Gospel Hill, above Waterworks Pond, put his arm about
Sarah Hartman's waist. When he had eaten breakfast in the morning and was
ready to retire to his study at the back of his house he went around the table and
kissed his wife on the cheek. When thoughts of Kate Swift came into his head, he
smiled and raised his eyes to the skies. "Intercede for me, Master," he muttered,
"keep me in the narrow path intent on Thy work."

Thesaurus
assail: (n, v) assault; (v) invade,
bombard, molest, raid, hit, beset,
besiege, strike, storm, impugn.
ANTONYMS: (v) withdraw,
champion, support, protect.
blameless: (adj) irreproachable,
perfect, faultless, unimpeachable,
pure, spotless, innocent, guiltless,
inculpable, not guilty, clean.
ANTONYMS: (adj) culpable,
blameworthy, responsible, wrong,
bad, sinful, shameful, flawed.

carnal: (adj, adv) fleshly; (adj) bodily,
earthly, sensual, brutal, sexual,
worldly, physical, erotic, fleshy,
brute. ANTONYMS: (adj) chaste,
godly, moral, pure, spiritual.
deliverance: (n) salvation, rescue,
release, freedom, escape,
emancipation, delivery, relief,
liberation, liberty, salvage.
ANTONYMS: (n) downfall,
suppression.
intercede: (v) arbitrate, interfere,

negotiate, referee, reconcile,
intermediate, intervene, interpose,
intrude, negociate, bring together to
an agreement. ANTONYM: (v)
provoke.
rapt: (adj) engrossed, intent, ecstatic,
preoccupied, spellbound, captive,
enthralled, attentive, fixed,
enwrapped; (v) engrossed in.
ANTONYMS: (adj) detached,
inattentive, uninterested, bored.
surrendered: (adj) given.

Sherwood Anderson

137

And now began the real struggle in the soul of the brown-bearded minister.
By chance he discovered that Kate Swift was in the habit of lying in her bed in
the evenings and reading a book. A lamp stood on a table by the side of the bed
and the light streamed down upon her white shoulders and bare throat. On the
evening when he made the discovery the minister sat at the desk in the dusty
room from nine until after eleven and when her light was put out stumbled out
of the church to spend two more hours walking and praying in the streets. He
did not want to kiss the shoulders and the throat of Kate Swift and had not
allowed his mind to dwell on such thoughts. He did not know what he wanted.
"I am God's child and he must save me from myself," he cried, in the darkness
under the trees as he wandered in the streets. By a tree he stood and looked at
the sky that was covered with hurrying clouds. He began to talk to God
intimately and closely. "Please, Father, do not forget me. Give me power to go
tomorrow and repair the hole in the window. Lift my eyes again to the skies.
Stay with me, Thy servant, in his hour of need."%
Up and down through the silent streets walked the minister and for days and
weeks his soul was troubled. He could not understand the temptation that had
come to him nor could he fathom the reason for its coming. In a way he began to
blame God, saying to himself that he had tried to keep his feet in the true path
and had not run about seeking sin. "Through my days as a young man and all
through my life here I have gone quietly about my work," he declared. "Why
now should I be tempted? What have I done that this burden should be laid on
me?"
Three times during the early fall and winter of that year Curtis Hartman
crept out of his house to the room in the bell tower to sit in the darkness looking
at the figure of Kate Swift lying in her bed and later went to walk and pray in the
streets. He could not understand himself. For weeks he would go along scarcely
thinking of the school teacher and telling himself that he had conquered the
carnal desire to look at her body. And then something would happen. As he sat
in the study of his own house, hard at work on a sermon, he would become
nervous and begin to walk up and down the room. "I will go out into the

Thesaurus
conquered: (adj) overcome,
live, stay, lodge, delay, occupy,
continue, be, settle. ANTONYM: (v)
vanquished, overwhelmed, crushed,
subdued, profligate, routed,
wander.
overthrown, done for, under enemy fathom: (n, v) plumb; (v) penetrate,
control, baffled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
discern, bottom, understand,
victorious, liberated.
comprehend, know, make out,
dusty: (adj) dirty, sandy, mealy, dry,
measure; (n) probe, gauge.
ANTONYMS: (v) confuse,
unclean, pulverulent, branny,
uninteresting, vague, psammous;
misunderstand, Miss.
(adj, v) sooty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
intimately: (adv) nearly, familiarly,
dusted, clean.
personally, secretly, internally,
dwell: (adj, v) inhabit; (v) reside, bide,
privately, narrowly, thoroughly,

near, well, thickly. ANTONYM: (adv)
superficially.
praying: (n) prayer.
sermon: (n) discourse, oration, speech,
address, homily, preachment,
harangue, preaching, exhortation,
predication; (n, v) lecture.
temptation: (n, v) lure, enticement,
bait; (n) attraction, allurement,
invitation, seduction, inducement,
allure, appeal, pull. ANTONYMS: (n)
dislike, discouragement.

138

Winesburg, Ohio

streets," he told himself and even as he let himself in at the church door he
persistently denied to himself the cause of his being there. "I will not repair the
hole in the window and I will train myself to come here at night and sit in the
presence of this woman without raising my eyes. I will not be defeated in this
thing. The Lord has devised this temptation as a test of my soul and I will grope
my way out of darkness into the light of righteousness."%
One night in January when it was bitter cold and snow lay deep on the streets
of Winesburg Curtis Hartman paid his last visit to the room in the bell tower of
the church. It was past nine o'clock when he left his own house and he set out so
hurriedly that he forgot to put on his overshoes. In Main Street no one was
abroad but Hop Higgins the night watchman and in the whole town no one was
awake but the watchman and young George Willard, who sat in the office of the
Winesburg Eagle trying to write a story. Along the street to the church went the
minister, plowing through the drifts and thinking that this time he would utterly
give way to sin. "I want to look at the woman and to think of kissing her
shoulders and I am going to let myself think what I choose," he declared bitterly
and tears came into his eyes. He began to think that he would get out of the
ministry and try some other way of life. "I shall go to some city and get into
business," he declared. "If my nature is such that I cannot resist sin, I shall give
myself over to sin. At least I shall not be a hypocrite, preaching the word of God
with my mind thinking of the shoulders and neck of a woman who does not
belong to me."
It was cold in the room of the bell tower of the church on that January night
and almost as soon as he came into the room Curtis Hartman knew that if he
stayed he would be ill. His feet were wet from tramping in the snow and there
was no fire. In the room in the house next door Kate Swift had not yet appeared.
With grim determination the man sat down to wait. Sitting in the chair and
gripping the edge of the desk on which lay the Bible he stared into the darkness
thinking the blackest thoughts of his life. He thought of his wife and for the
moment almost hated her. "She has always been ashamed of passion and has
cheated me," he thought. "Man has a right to expect living passion and beauty in

Thesaurus
appeared: (n) appearing.
(adv) gropingly.
spasmodically, halfheartedly.
devised: (adj) invented, trumped up, hypocrite: (n) impostor, pretender,
plowing: (v) tilling, sowing; (n) tillage,
formulated, fabulous.
trickster, fraud, deceiver, fake, cheat, aration, country, cultivation, earth,
gripping: (adj) fascinating, absorbing,
charmer, bigot, whited sepulcher,
land.
preaching: (n) sermon, lecture,
interesting, riveting, thrilling,
smoothie.
persistently: (adv) stubbornly,
enchanting, enthralling, exciting,
homily, preachment, baccalaureate,
captivating; (n) grip; (v) seize.
constantly, continually, firmly,
speech, pulpit, exhortation, kerygma;
ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
(v) preach; (adj) hence.
tenaciously, unremittingly,
unconvincing.
continuously, incessantly, insistently, watchman: (n) lookout, sentinel,
grope: (v) fumble, finger, grabble,
doggedly, pertinaciously.
sentry, warden, guard, watcher,
ANTONYMS: (adv) sporadically,
search, handle, scrabble, paw,
security guard, keeper, caretaker,
mishandle; (n, v) touch; (adj) groping; acutely, aimlessly, inconsistently,
custodian, watchdog.

Sherwood Anderson

139

a woman. He has no right to forget that he is an animal and in me there is
something that is Greek. I will throw off the woman of my bosom and seek
other women. I will besiege this school teacher. I will fly in the face of all men
and if I am a creature of carnal lusts I will live then for my lusts."
The distracted man trembled from head to foot, partly from cold, partly from
the struggle in which he was engaged. Hours passed and a fever assailed his
body. His throat began to hurt and his teeth chattered. His feet on the study
floor felt like two cakes of ice. Still he would not give up. "I will see this woman
and will think the thoughts I have never dared to think," he told himself,
gripping the edge of the desk and waiting.%
Curtis Hartman came near dying from the effects of that night of waiting in
the church, and also he found in the thing that happened what he took to be the
way of life for him. On other evenings when he had waited he had not been able
to see, through the little hole in the glass, any part of the school teacher's room
except that occupied by her bed. In the darkness he had waited until the woman
suddenly appeared sitting in the bed in her white night-robe. When the light
was turned up she propped herself up among the' pillows and read a book.
Sometimes she smoked one of the cigarettes. Only her bare shoulders and throat
were visible.
On the January night, after he had come near dying with cold and after his
mind had two or three times actually slipped away into an odd land of fantasy
so that he had by an exercise of will power to force himself back into
consciousness, Kate Swift appeared. In the room next door a lamp was lighted
and the waiting man stared into an empty bed. Then upon the bed before his
eyes a naked woman threw herself. Lying face downward she wept and beat
with her fists upon the pillow. With a final outburst of weeping she half arose,
and in the presence of the man who had waited to look and not to think thoughts
the woman of sin began to pray. In the lamplight her figure, slim and strong,
looked like the figure of the boy in the presence of the Christ on the leaded
window.

Thesaurus
besiege: (v) beset, beleaguer,
downward: (adv) underneath, under,
surround, blockade, attack, compass, below, downwards, downwardly,
beneath, down below; (adj) downcast,
hem in, press, importune, assail,
bombard. ANTONYMS: (v) help,
sloping, depressed, downright.
ANTONYMS: (adv) up; (adj) rising.
please.
bosom: (n) heart, interior, boob,
fantasy: (n) dream, illusion, delusion,
thorax, chest, bust, tit; (n, v) embrace; mirage, desire, invention, vision,
(v) cherish, hug; (adj) intimate.
maggot, fad, hallucination, fiction.
ANTONYMS: (n) outside, exteriority. ANTONYMS: (adj) real; (n) actuality,
creature: (n) being, brute, animal, tool, fact, existence.
feet: (v) legs, pegs, pins, trotters; (n)
individual, person, body, entity,
human, puppet, somebody.
foots, ft, fete, meter, rescue.

lamp: (n) light, lantern, beacon,
headlight, flashbulb, flashgun, table
lamp, oil lamp, storm lantern; (n, v)
look; (v) behold.
outburst: (n) explosion, spurt,
eruption, fit, burst, flash, effusion,
gush, ebullition, blast, rage.
pray: (v) beg, implore, entreat, crave,
invite, plead, beseech, appeal,
importune, adjure, invoke.
ANTONYM: (v) reject.
propped: (adj) fulcrate.

140

Winesburg, Ohio

Curtis Hartman never remembered how he got out of the church. With a cry
he arose, dragging the heavy desk along the floor. The Bible fell, making a great
clatter in the silence. When the light in the house next door went out he
stumbled down the stairway and into the street. Along the street he went and
ran in at the door of the Winesburg Eagle. To George Willard, who was tramping
up and down in the office undergoing a struggle of his own, he began to talk half
incoherently. "The ways of God are beyond human understanding," he cried,
running in quickly and closing the door. He began to advance upon the young
man, his eyes glowing and his voice ringing with fervor. "I have found the
light," he cried. "After ten years in this town, God has manifested himself to me
in the body of a woman." His voice dropped and he began to whisper. "I did not
understand," he said. "What I took to be a trial of my soul was only a
preparation for a new and more beautiful fervor of the spirit. God has appeared
to me in the person of Kate Swift, the school teacher, kneeling naked on a bed.
Do you know Kate Swift? Although she may not be aware of it, she is an
instrument of God, bearing the message of truth."%
Reverend Curtis Hartman turned and ran out of the office. At the door he
stopped, and after looking up and down the deserted street, turned again to
George Willard. "I am delivered. Have no fear." He held up a bleeding fist for
the young man to see. "I smashed the glass of the window," he cried. "Now it
will have to be wholly replaced. The strength of God was in me and I broke it
with my fist."

Thesaurus
dragging: (n) pulled wire, stemming,
haulage; (adj) slow, sickly, slack,
unfit, sluggish, tardy, tedious; (v)
involve. ANTONYMS: (adj) energetic,
energizing, exciting, prompt, short.
eyes: (n) sight, eye, vision, view, baby
blues, guard, propensity, eyen.
fist: (n, v) hand; (n) duke, clenched
fist, feist, manus, grip, index; (v)
finger, paw, neif, neaf.
glowing: (adj, n) enthusiastic, cordial,
passionate; (adj) burning, fervent,

blazing, flaming, fiery, dazzling; (adj,
v) warm; (adj, adv) aglow.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pale, wan,
unhappy, unenthusiastic, derogatory,
dispassionate, unwell.
incoherently: (adv) unconnectedly,
disconnectedly, disjointedly, loosely,
confusedly, ramblingly,
inarticulately, deliriously,
disorderedly, incongruously,
wanderingly. ANTONYM: (adv)
clearly.

ringing: (n) buzz, peal, resonance,
ring, sound; (adj) reverberant,
jingling, loud, resounding, tinkling,
hollow.
smashed: (adj) drunk, inebriated,
intoxicated, broken, sloshed,
plastered, crushed, tipsy, blotto,
besotted, tight.
whisper: (n, v) murmur, hum,
mumble, suggestion, hint, inkling; (v)
breathe, hiss; (n) rustle, trace, breath.
ANTONYM: (n) information.

Sherwood Anderson

141

THE TEACHER

Snow lay deep in the streets of Winesburg. It had begun to snow about ten
o'clock in the morning and a wind sprang up and blew the snow in clouds along
Main Street. The frozen mud roads that led into town were fairly smooth and in
places ice covered the mud. "There will be good sleighing," said Will
Henderson, standing by the bar in Ed Griffith's saloon. Out of the saloon he
went and met Sylvester West the druggist stumbling along in the kind of heavy
overshoes called arctics. "Snow will bring the people into town on Saturday,"
said the druggist. The two men stopped and discussed their affairs. Will
Henderson, who had on a light overcoat and no overshoes, kicked the heel of his
left foot with the toe of the right. "Snow will be good for the wheat," observed
the druggist sagely.%
Young George Willard, who had nothing to do, was glad because he did not
feel like working that day. The weekly paper had been printed and taken to the
post office Wednesday evening and the snow began to fall on Thursday. At
eight o'clock, after the morning train had passed, he put a pair of skates in his
pocket and went up to Waterworks Pond but did not go skating. Past the pond
and along a path that followed Wine Creek he went until he came to a grove of
beech trees. There he built a fire against the side of a log and sat down at the end
of the log to think. When the snow began to fall and the wind to blow he hurried
about getting fuel for the fire.

Thesaurus
beech: (n) Black beech, copper beech,
tree, common beech, wood, beech
tree, beech wood.
heel: (n) blackguard, dog, counter,
cad, villain, scoundrel, shoe, sole,
bounder, tree rest; (v) lean.
hurried: (adj) fast, sudden, speedy,
rapid, quick, swift, headlong, abrupt,
cursory, precipitate, prompt.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhurried,
leisurely, considered, patient,
meticulous, thorough.

overcoat: (n) greatcoat, coat, cloak,
Selachii, dogfishes, Batoidei,
robe, topcoat, surcoat, coating,
selachian, sawfishes, rays, order
overcoating, capote, chesterfield,
Batoidei, guitarfishes,
gown.
Elasmobranchii, elasmobranch.
places: (n) chairs, seating, spaces.
skating: (adj) sliding; (n) roller skating,
pond: (n) lake, mere, pool, plash, loch, athletics, skateboarding.
stumbling: (adj) lurching, astounding,
fishpond, sea, tank, reservoir,
millpond, broad.
hesitant, halting, awkward,
saloon: (n) pub, public house, salon,
astonishing, maladroit, clumsy,
parlour, pothouse, hall, barroom, gin weaving; (adv) stumblingly; (n)
hesitation. ANTONYM: (adj) firm.
mill, alehouse, tavern, taproom.
skates: (n) subclass Elasmobranchii,

142

Winesburg, Ohio

The young reporter was thinking of Kate Swift, who had once been his school
teacher. On the evening before he had gone to her house to get a book she
wanted him to read and had been alone with her for an hour. For the fourth or
fifth time the woman had talked to him with great earnestness and he could not
make out what she meant by her talk. He began to believe she must be in love
with him and the thought was both pleasing and annoying.%
Up from the log he sprang and began to pile sticks on the fire. Looking about
to be sure he was alone he talked aloud pretending he was in the presence of the
woman, "Oh,, you're just letting on, you know you are," he declared. "I am going
to find out about you. You wait and see."
The young man got up and went back along the path toward town leaving
the fire blazing in the wood. As he went through the streets the skates clanked
in his pocket. In his own room in the New Willard House he built a fire in the
stove and lay down on top of the bed. He began to have lustful thoughts and
pulling down the shade of the window closed his eyes and turned his face to the
wall. He took a pillow into his arms and embraced it thinking first of the school
teacher, who by her words had stirred something within him, and later of Helen
White, the slim daughter of the town banker, with whom he had been for a long
time half in love.
By nine o'clock of that evening snow lay deep in the streets and the weather
had become bitter cold. It was difficult to walk about. The stores were dark and
the people had crawled away to their houses. The evening train from Cleveland
was very late but nobody was interested in its arrival. By ten o'clock all but four
of the eighteen hundred citizens of the town were in bed.
Hop Higgins, the night watchman, was partially awake. He was lame and
carried a heavy stick. On dark nights he carried a lantern. Between nine and ten
o'clock he went his rounds. Up and down Main Street he stumbled through the
drifts trying the doors of the stores. Then he went into alleyways and tried the
back doors. Finding all tight he hurried around the corner to the New Willard
House and beat on the door. Through the rest of the night he intended to stay by

Thesaurus
blazing: (adj) flaming, afire, burning, lustful: (adj, v) lascivious, lewd,
disappointing, straight, hurtful,
libidinous, wanton; (adj) licentious,
ardent, aflame, glaring, bright,
maddening, displeasing, discordant,
blatant, alight, passionate; (n) blaze.
prurient, lickerish, concupiscent,
harsh, frustrating.
ANTONYMS: (adj) freezing, quiet.
passionate, lusty; (adj, n, v) lecherous. pretending: (n, v) pretense; (n)
lame: (adj) crippled, disabled, halting, ANTONYM: (adj) restrained.
affectation, appearance, acting,
feeble, halt, weak, paralytic; (adj, n)
nights: (adj) nightly; (n) night.
pretence, mannerism, dissembling,
game; (adj, v) paralyze, maim,
pleasing: (adj, n) acceptable; (adj)
pretension, deception, deceit; (adv)
becripple.
amiable, lovable, amusing, attractive, pretendingly.
lantern: (n) beacon, light, dormer,
stove: (n) cooker, hearth, heater,
gratifying, lovely, pleasant,
tube, lighting fitting, bedside light,
charming, delightful, inviting.
furnace, fireplace, kiln, oven, cooking
ANTONYMS: (adj) unpleasant,
street light, street lamp, oil lamp,
stove, cookstove, kitchen stove,
lime light, lanthorn.
unwelcome, infuriating,
kitchen range.

Sherwood Anderson

143

the stove. "You go to bed. I'll keep the stove going," he said to the boy who slept
on a cot in the hotel office.%
Hop Higgins sat down by the stove and took off his shoes. When the boy
had gone to sleep he began to think of his own affairs. He intended to paint his
house in the spring and sat by the stove calculating the cost of paint and labor.
That led him into other calculations. The night watchman was sixty years old
and wanted to retire. He had been a soldier in the Civil War and drew a small
pension. He hoped to find some new method of making a living and aspired to
become a professional breeder of ferrets. Already he had four of the strangely
shaped savage little creatures, that are used by sportsmen in the pursuit of
rabbits, in the cellar of his house. "Now I have one male and three females," he
mused. "If I am lucky by spring I shall have twelve or fifteen. In another year I
shall be able to begin advertising ferrets for sale in the sporting papers."
The night watchman settled into his chair and his mind became a blank. He
did not sleep. By years of practice he had trained himself to sit for hours through
the long nights neither asleep nor awake. In the morning he was almost as
refreshed as though he had slept.
With Hop Higgins safely stowed away in the chair behind the stove only
three people were awake in Winesburg. George Willard was in the office of the
Eagle pretending to be at work on the writing of a story but in reality continuing
the mood of the morning by the fire in the wood. In the bell tower of the
Presbyterian Church the Reverend Curtis Hartman was sitting in the darkness
preparing himself for a revelation from God, and Kate Swift, the school teacher,
was leaving her house for a walk in the storm.
It was past ten o'clock when Kate Swift set out and the walk was
unpremeditated. It was as though the man and the boy, by thinking of her, had
driven her forth into the wintry streets. Aunt Elizabeth Swift had gone to the
county seat concerning some business in connection with mortgages in which
she had money invested and would not be back until the next day. By a huge
stove, called a base burner, in the living room of the house sat the daughter

Thesaurus
breeder: (n) stockman, farmer,
livestock farmer, fast breeder reactor,
stock breeder, plant breeder; (v)
trainer.
burner: (n) blowlamp, setup, injector,
apparatus, wick, pilot light, burner
reactor, boiler burner, blowtorch.
calculating: (adj) scheming, sly,
shrewd, crafty, calculative, wily,
wary, discreet, devious; (n)
calculation; (adj, v) wise.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uncalculating,

unassuming, reckless, artless, rash,
guileless, candid, unconscious.
ferrets: (n) badgers, Mustelidae, family
Mustelidae.
rabbits: (n) order Lagomorpha, pikas,
Lagomorpha.
refreshed: (adj) invigorated,
rejuvenated, reinvigorated, new,
novel, revived, impudent, energizing,
overbold, energising, clean.
ANTONYM: (adj) tired.
unpremeditated: (adj) spontaneous,

unintentional, involuntary,
impromptu, casual, offhand,
impulsive, extemporaneous,
unintended, unguarded,
unconscious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
premeditated, intentional, prepared.
wintry: (adj, v) frosty, glacial, freezing,
icy; (adj) arctic, frigid, wintery,
frozen, chilly, chill, hibernal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) mild, summery,
hot, vernal, autumnal, balmy,
tropical, warm.

144

Winesburg, Ohio

reading a book. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and, snatching a cloak from a
rack by the front door, ran out of the house.%
At the age of thirty Kate Swift was not known in Winesburg as a pretty
woman. Her complexion was not good and her face was covered with blotches
that indicated ill health. Alone in the night in the winter streets she was lovely.
Her back was straight, her shoulders square, and her features were as the
features of a tiny goddess on a pedestal in a garden in the dim light of a summer
evening.
During the afternoon the school teacher had been to see Doctor Welling
concerning her health. The doctor had scolded her and had declared she was in
danger of losing her hearing. It was foolish for Kate Swift to be abroad in the
storm, foolish and perhaps dangerous.
The woman in the streets did not remember the words of the doctor and
would not have turned back had she remembered. She was very cold but after
walking for five minutes no longer minded the cold. First she went to the end of
her own street and then across a pair of hay scales set in the ground before a feed
barn and into Trunion Pike. Along Trunion Pike she went to Ned Winters' barn
and turning east followed a street of low frame houses that led over Gospel Hill
and into Sucker Road that ran down a shallow valley past Ike Smead's chicken
farm to Waterworks Pond. As she went along, the bold, excited mood that had
driven her out of doors passed and then returned again.
There was something biting and forbidding in the character of Kate Swift.
Everyone felt it. In the schoolroom she was silent, cold, and stern, and yet in an
odd way very close to her pupils. Once in a long while something seemed to
have come over her and she was happy. All of the children in the schoolroom
felt the effect of her happiness. For a time they did not work but sat back in their
chairs and looked at her.
With hands clasped behind her back the school teacher walked up and down
in the schoolroom and talked very rapidly. It did not seem to matter what
subject came into her mind. Once she talked to the children of Charles Lamb and
made up strange, intimate little stories concerning the life of the dead writer.

Thesaurus
cloak: (n, v) veil, mask, camouflage,
wrap, masquerade, screen, pall; (n)
cape; (v) conceal, dissemble, hide.
ANTONYMS: (v) reveal, uncloak,
unmask; (n, v) uncover.
complexion: (n, v) tint; (n) cast,
character, appearance, look, hue,
aspect, flush, glow, dye, fashion.
forbidding: (adj) grim, ominous,
dismal, dour, austere, abominable,
ugly, hard, repulsive, redoubtable;
(n) banning. ANTONYMS: (adj)

alluring, inviting, pleasant,
hospitable, friendly, favorable,
comforting.
goddess: (n) divinity, God, beauty,
nymph; (adj, n) idol; (adj) duck,
darling, angel, Dulcinea, ladylove,
inamorata.
minded: (prep) inclined; (adj, prep)
disposed; (adj) willing, apt, ready,
prone, orientated, favorable,
oriented, prepared, partial.
pedestal: (n) bottom, foot,

groundwork, plinth, footstall, basis,
bed, pillar, dais, stand, platform.
schoolroom: (n) nursery, class, lecture
room, room.
snatching: (n) capture.
stern: (adj) rigid, rigorous, austere,
hard, strict, grim, solemn, rough; (adj,
v) harsh; (n) back; (adj, n) rear.
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
approving, lenient, funny, genial,
gentle, kindly, lax, liberal, cheerful,
flexible.

Sherwood Anderson

145

The stories were told with the air of one who had lived in a house with Charles
Lamb and knew all the secrets of his private life. The children were somewhat
confused, thinking Charles Lamb must be someone who had once lived in
Winesburg.%
On another occasion the teacher talked to the children of Benvenuto Cellini.
That time they laughed. What a bragging, blustering, brave, lovable fellow she
made of the old artist! Concerning him also she invented anecdotes. There was
one of a German music teacher who had a room above Cellini's lodgings in the
city of Milan that made the boys guffaw. Sugars McNutts, a fat boy with red
cheeks, laughed so hard that he became dizzy and fell off his seat and Kate Swift
laughed with him. Then suddenly she became again cold and stern.
On the winter night when she walked through the deserted snow-covered
streets, a crisis had come into the life of the school teacher. Although no one in
Winesburg would have suspected it, her life had been very adventurous. It was
still adventurous. Day by day as she worked in the schoolroom or walked in the
streets, grief, hope, and desire fought within her. Behind a cold exterior the most
extraordinary events transpired in her mind. The people of the town thought of
her as a confirmed old maid and because she spoke sharply and went her own
way thought her lacking in all the human feeling that did so much to make and
mar their own lives. In reality she was the most eagerly passionate soul among
them, and more than once, in the five years since she had come back from her
travels to settle in Winesburg and become a school teacher, had been compelled
to go out of the house and walk half through the night fighting out some battle
raging within. Once on a night when it rained she had stayed out six hours and
when she came home had a quarrel with Aunt Elizabeth Swift. "I am glad you're
not a man," said the mother sharply. "More than once I've waited for your father
to come home, not knowing what new mess he had got into. I've had my share
of uncertainty and you cannot blame me if I do not want to see the worst side of
him reproduced in you."
Kate Swift's mind was ablaze with thoughts of George Willard. In something
he had written as a school boy she thought she had recognized the spark of

Thesaurus
ablaze: (adj, v) afire, alight, blazing;
arrogant, boastful, big, overweening, roar. ANTONYM: (v) cry.
(adj) flaming, burning, on fire,
braggy. ANTONYMS: (adj) modest; lodgings: (n) digs, accommodation,
passionate, bright, flushed, fiery; (v)
(n) timidity.
domiciliation, lodging, billet,
splendid. ANTONYMS: (adj) dark,
dizzy: (adj) giddy, silly, faint,
housing, quarters, residence, pad,
dispassionate, dull, dim, smothered,
frivolous, light, vertiginous,
living quarters, launchpad.
raging: (adj) hot, angry, fierce, irate,
unexcited, extinguished.
brainsick, featherbrained, flighty,
blustering: (adj, v) stormy; (adj)
muzzy; (v) daze. ANTONYMS: (adj)
wild, infuriated, enraged, vehement,
heated; (adj, n) mad, rabid.
raging, blusterous, blustery,
alert, balanced, intelligent, poised,
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm, mild,
turbulent, loud, vaporing, vociferous, rational, steady, sober, serious.
noisy, hectoring; (adv) blusteringly.
guffaw: (n, v) laugh, chuckle, snicker,
contained.
bragging: (n) brag, swagger, bluff,
hoot, giggle, cackle; (n) belly laugh,
reproduced: (adj) regenerate, born
bluster, conceit, arrogance; (adj)
horselaugh, laughter; (v) cachinnate,
anew.

146

Winesburg, Ohio

genius and wanted to blow on the spark. One day in the summer she had gone to
the Eagle office and finding the boy unoccupied had taken him out Main Street
to the Fair Ground, where the two sat on a grassy bank and talked. The school
teacher tried to bring home to the mind of the boy some conception of the
difficulties he would have to face as a writer. "You will have to know life," she
declared, and her voice trembled with earnestness. She took hold of George
Willard's shoulders and turned him about so that she could look into his eyes. A
passer-by might have thought them about to embrace. "If you are to become a
writer you'll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be
better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it's
time to be living. I don't want to frighten you, but I would like to make you
understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a
mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking
about, not what they say."%
On the evening before that stormy Thursday night when the Reverend Curtis
Hartman sat in the bell tower of the church waiting to look at her body, young
Willard had gone to visit the teacher and to borrow a book. It was then the thing
happened that confused and puzzled the boy. He had the book under his arm
and was preparing to depart. Again Kate Swift talked with great earnestness.
Night was coming on and the light in the room grew dim. As he turned to go
she spoke his name softly and with an impulsive movement took hold of his
hand. Because the reporter was rapidly becoming a man something of his man's
appeal, combined with the winsomeness of the boy, stirred the heart of the
lonely woman. A passionate desire to have him understand the import of life, to
learn to interpret it truly and honestly, swept over her. Leaning forward, her lips
brushed his cheek. At the same moment he for the first time became aware of the
marked beauty of her features. They were both embarrassed, and to relieve her
feeling she became harsh and domineering. "What's the use? It will be ten years
before you begin to understand what I mean when I talk to you," she cried
passionately.

Thesaurus
domineering: (adj) dictatorial,
overbearing, autocratic, arbitrary,
dominant, lordly, imperious,
commanding, masterful, bossy,
authoritative. ANTONYMS: (adj)
subservient, yielding, meek,
surrendering, weak, libertarian,
reasonable.
fooling: (n) farce, tomfoolery,
horseplay, joking, prank; (adj) casual,
accidental, everyday, effortless,
cursory.

grassy: (adj) verdant, gramineous,
weedy, herby, woody, fertile,
blossoming, abundant, leafy, lush,
flourishing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
grassless, urban, withering.
passer-by: (n) eyewitness.
peddler: (n) chapman, huckster,
vendor, packman, pedlar, pusher,
pitchman, dealer, drug peddler,
seller, drug trafficker. ANTONYM:
(n) user.
stormy: (adj, n) inclement, boisterous,

rough, severe; (adj) fierce, windy,
wild, dirty, foul, tempestuous,
blustering. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
still, pleasant, fair, mild, relaxed.
unoccupied: (adj) empty, vacant,
unemployed, free, desolate, void,
uninhabited, idle, inactive, deserted,
abandoned. ANTONYMS: (adj) full,
inhabited, overcrowded, solid,
working, busy.
winsomeness: (n) appeal,
appealingness, beauty.

Sherwood Anderson

147

On the night of the storm and while the minister sat in the church waiting for
her, Kate Swift went to the office of the Winesburg Eagle, intending to have
another talk with the boy. After the long walk in the snow she was cold, lonely,
and tired. As she came through Main Street she saw the fight from the printshop
window shining on the snow and on an impulse opened the door and went in.
For an hour she sat by the stove in the office talking of life. She talked with
passionate earnestness. The impulse that had driven her out into the snow
poured itself out into talk. She became inspired as she sometimes did in the
presence of the children in school. A great eagerness to open the door of life to
the boy, who had been her pupil and who she thought might possess a talent for
the understanding of life, had possession of her. So strong was her passion that
it became something physical. Again her hands took hold of his shoulders and
she turned him about. In the dim light her eyes blazed. She arose and laughed,
not sharply as was customary with her, but in a queer, hesitating way. "I must
be going," she said. "In a moment, if I stay, I'll be wanting to kiss you."
In the newspaper office a confusion arose. Kate Swift turned and walked to
the door. She was a teacher but she was also a woman. As she looked at George
Willard, the passionate desire to be loved by a man, that had a thousand times
before swept like a storm over her body, took possession of her. In the lamplight
George Willard looked no longer a boy, but a man ready to play the part of a
man.%
The school teacher let George Willard take her into his arms. In the warm
little office the air became suddenly heavy and the strength went out of her body.
Leaning against a low counter by the door she waited. When he came and put a
hand on her shoulder she turned and let her body fall heavily against him. For
George Willard the confusion was immediately increased. For a moment he held
the body of the woman tightly against his body and then it stiffened. Two sharp
little fists began to beat on his face. When the school teacher had run away and
left him alone, he walked up and down the office swearing furiously.
It was into this confusion that the Reverend Curtis Hartman protruded
himself. When he came in George Willard thought the town had gone mad.

Thesaurus
customary: (adj, n) accustomed, usual, impetuously, frantically.
habitual; (adj) conventional, ordinary, ANTONYM: (adv) sluggishly.
inspired: (adj) ingenious, adopted,
commonplace, traditional, average,
wonted, regular, standard.
elysian, creative, imaginative, elected,
ANTONYMS: (adj) unusual,
inventive, unearthly, brilliant,
abnormal, exceptional,
stimulated, enthusiastic.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bland,
unconventional, offbeat, irregular,
innovative, different, unfamiliar,
unimaginative, abysmal, mediocre.
passionate: (adj, v) ardent, impetuous;
extraordinary, rare.
furiously: (adv) irately, angrily,
(adj) hot, excited, burning, angry,
fiercely, wildly, violently, ragingly,
fervent, fierce, animated, earnest;
(adj, adv) fiery. ANTONYMS: (adj)
wrathfully, infuriatedly, rabidly,

indifferent, mild, passionless,
unenthusiastic, cold, calm,
halfhearted, cool, lukewarm, weak,
uninterested.
possess: (adj, v) own; (v) hold, wield,
occupy, bear, keep, enjoy, contain,
retain, to have, maintain.
ANTONYMS: (v) lack, remove.
poured: (adj) concrete.
shoulder: (v) carry, push, hold, jostle,
sustain, support, assume, accept; (n,
v) elbow; (n) back, flange.

148

Winesburg, Ohio

Shaking a bleeding fist in the air, the minister proclaimed the woman George
had only a moment before held in his arms an instrument of God bearing a
message of truth.%
George blew out the lamp by the window and locking the door of the
printshop went home. Through the hotel office, past Hop Higgins lost in his
dream of the raising of ferrets, he went and up into his own room. The fire in the
stove had gone out and he undressed in the cold. When he got into bed the
sheets were like blankets of dry snow.
George Willard rolled about in the bed on which had lain in the afternoon
hugging the pillow and thinking thoughts of Kate Swift. The words of the
minister, who he thought had gone suddenly insane, rang in his ears. His eyes
stared about the room. The resentment, natural to the baffled male, passed and
he tried to understand what had happened. He could not make it out. Over and
over he turned the matter in his mind. Hours passed and he began to think it
must be time for another day to come. At four o'clock he pulled the covers up
about his neck and tried to sleep. When he became drowsy and closed his eyes,
he raised a hand and with it groped about in the darkness. "I have missed
something. I have missed something Kate Swift was trying to tell me," he
muttered sleepily. Then he slept and in all Winesburg he was the last soul on
that winter night to go to sleep.

Thesaurus
baffled: (adj) bewildered, puzzled,
perplexed, confounded, at sea,
frustrated, befuddled, beaten,
bemused, preoccupied, helpless.
ANTONYM: (adj) clear.
bearing: (n, v) demeanor; (n) manner,
direction, deportment, conduct,
attitude, aspect, approach,
appearance, respect, air.
ANTONYMS: (n) insignificance,
irrelevance; (adj) nonbearing.
george: (n) Christian martyr, saint

passion. ANTONYMS: (n)
George, St George.
hugging: (n) caressing, fondling,
friendliness, happiness, contentment,
stimulation, embracing, kissing,
calm.
rolled: (adj) rolling, furled, involute,
foreplay, gorgerin, necking,
smooching, snuggling, arousal.
scroll, coiled, resonant, trilled,
locking: (n) lockup, bolting,
reverberative, reverberating,
interlocking, engagement, cordoning resounding, spiral.
sleepily: (adv) drowsily, slowly,
off, closing off, binding, guarding.
rang: (n) rung.
somnolently, lethargically, lazily,
resentment: (n) grudge, displeasure,
sluggishly, dreamily, tiredly,
indignation, anger, ill will, rancor,
indolently, torpidly, languorously.
ANTONYM: (adv) vigorously.
umbrage, rage, envy, grievance,

Sherwood Anderson

149

LONELINESS

He was the son of Mrs. Al Robinson who once owned a farm on a side road
leading off Trunion Pike, east of Winesburg and two miles beyond the town
limits. The farmhouse was painted brown and the blinds to all of the windows
facing the road were kept closed. In the road before the house a flock of
chickens, accompanied by two guinea hens, lay in the deep dust. Enoch lived in
the house with his mother in those days and when he was a young boy went to
school at the Winesburg High School. Old citizens remembered him as a quiet,
smiling youth inclined to silence. He walked in the middle of the road when he
came into town and sometimes read a book. Drivers of teams had to shout and
swear to make him realize where he was so that he would turn out of the beaten
track and let them pass.%
When he was twenty-one years old Enoch went to New York City and was a
city man for fifteen years. He studied French and went to an art school, hoping
to develop a faculty he had for drawing. In his own mind he planned to go to
Paris and to finish his art education among the masters there, but that never
turned out.
Nothing ever turned out for Enoch Robinson. He could draw well enough
and he had many odd delicate thoughts hidden away in his brain that might
have expressed themselves through the brush of a painter, but he was always a

Thesaurus
brush: (n, v) broom, touch, kiss; (v)
staff, facility; (adj, n, v) talent; (n, v)
unwilling, disinclined, horizontal,
sweep, polish, graze, clean; (n)
endowment, gift. ANTONYMS: (n)
unbiased, vertical, impervious.
masters: (n) Edgar lee Masters.
brushwood, conflict, copse,
students, pupils, ineptness,
painter: (n) artist, colorist, landscapist,
encounter.
incompetence, incapacity.
delicate: (adj) accurate, tender, dainty, guinea: (n) greaseball, Republic of
impressionist, miniaturist, dauber,
refined, breakable, fragile, beautiful,
Guinea, poultry, change, shilling,
halser, Felis concolor, guy, cable,
brittle, soft, nice, frail. ANTONYMS:
penny, doit, domestic fowl, farthing, hawser.
(adj) inelegant, robust, heavy, sturdy, fowl, French Guinea.
swear: (v) declare, assure, assert,
inclined: (adj, v) given; (adj) prone,
affirm, curse, pledge; (n, v) promise,
tough, careless, inaccurate, rough,
well, substantial, unscrupulous.
willing, oblique, apt, predisposed,
avow, depone, depose, aver.
faculty: (adj, n) capacity, cleverness;
ANTONYMS: (v) distrust, refute,
ready, minded, likely, liable, bowed.
(n) aptitude, capability, bent, power,
ANTONYMS: (adj) reluctant,
deny, compliment.

150

Winesburg, Ohio

child and that was a handicap to his worldly development. He never grew up
and of course he couldn't understand people and he couldn't make people
understand him. The child in him kept bumping against things, against
actualities like money and sex and opinions. Once he was hit by a street car and
thrown against an iron post. That made him lame. It was one of the many things
that kept things from turning out for Enoch Robinson
In New York City, when he first went there to live and before he became
confused and disconcerted by the facts of life, Enoch went about a good deal
with young men. He got into a group of other young artists, both men and
women, and in the evenings they sometimes came to visit him in his room. Once
he got drunk and was taken to a police station where a police magistrate
frightened him horribly, and once he tried to have an affair with a woman of the
town met on the sidewalk before his lodging house. The woman and Enoch
walked together three blocks and then the young man grew afraid and ran away.
The woman had been drinking and the incident amused her. She leaned against
the wall of a building and laughed so heartily that another man stopped and
laughed with her. The two went away together, still laughing, and Enoch crept
off to his room trembling and vexed.%
The room in which young Robinson lived in New York faced Washington
Square and was long and narrow like a hallway. It is important to get that fixed
in your mind. The story of Enoch is in fact the story of a room almost more than
it is the story of a man.
And so into the room in the evening came young Enoch's friends. There was
nothing particularly striking about them except that they were artists of the kind
that talk. Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known
history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art
and are passionately, almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters
much more than it does.
And so these people gathered and smoked cigarettes and talked and Enoch
Robinson, the boy from the farm near Winesburg, was there. He stayed in a
corner and for the most part said nothing. How his big blue childlike eyes stared

Thesaurus
affair: (n) occurrence, event, business, hysterically, passionately, frantically, appallingly; (adj, adv) frightfully,
terribly, fearfully, shockingly; (adj)
concern, occasion, job, topic, duty,
fanatically, heatedly, frenziedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) indifferently,
ghastly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
subject, amour, thing.
disconcerted: (adj) confused,
peacefully, sluggishly.
pleasantly, wonderfully, kindly,
heartily: (adv) cordially, sincerely,
confounded, bewildered, blank,
sweetly.
lodging: (n) abode, apartment,
embarrassed, disturbed, troubled,
enthusiastically, warmly, strongly,
worried, ashamed, discombobulated, earnestly, vigorously, ardently,
accommodation, housing, hostel,
bemused. ANTONYMS: (adj)
soundly, devoutly, eagerly.
residence, quarter, home, lodgement,
ANTONYMS: (adv) feebly,
composed, soothed, unabashed,
address, hospice.
magistrate: (n) judge, jurist, justiciary,
relaxed.
languorously.
feverishly: (adv) excitedly, hotly,
horribly: (adv) horrifically, awfully,
adjudicator, beak, official, provost,
febrilely, hecticly, feverously,
terrifically, hideously, atrociously,
recorder, archon, doge, chancellor.

Sherwood Anderson

151

about! On the walls were pictures he had made, crude things, half finished. His
friends talked of these. Leaning back in their chairs, they talked and talked with
their heads rocking from side to side. Words were said about line and values
and composition, lots of words, such as are always being said.%
Enoch wanted to talk too but he didn't know how. He was too excited to talk
coherently. When he tried he sputtered and stammered and his voice sounded
strange and squeaky to him. That made him stop talking. He knew what he
wanted to say, but he knew also that he could never by any possibility say it.
When a picture he had painted was under discussion, he wanted to burst out
with something like this: "You don't get the point," he wanted to explain; "the
picture you see doesn't consist of the things you see and say words about. There
is something else, something you don't see at all, something you aren't intended
to see. Look at this one over here, by the door here, where the light from the
window falls on it. The dark spot by the road that you might not notice at all is,
you see, the beginning of everything. There is a clump of elders there such as
used to grow beside the road before our house back in Winesburg, Ohio, and in
among the elders there is something hidden. It is a woman, that's what it is. She
has been thrown from a horse and the horse has run away out of sight. Do you
not see how the old man who drives a cart looks anxiously about? That is Thad
Grayback who has a farm up the road. He is taking corn to Winesburg to be
ground into meal at Comstock's mill. He knows there is something in the elders,
something hidden away, and yet he doesn't quite know.
"It's a woman you see, that's what it is! It's a woman and, oh, she is lovely!
She is hurt and is suffering but she makes no sound. Don't you see how it is? She
lies quite still, white and still, and the beauty comes out from her and spreads
over everything. It is in the sky back there and all around everywhere. I didn't
try to paint the woman, of course. She is too beautiful to be painted. How dull
to talk of composition and such things! Why do you not look at the sky and then
run away as I used to do when I was a boy back there in Winesburg, Ohio?"
That is the kind of thing young Enoch Robinson trembled to say to the guests
who came into his room when he was a young fellow in New York City, but he

Thesaurus
anxiously: (adv) uneasily, restlessly,
plainly, soundly, clearly, rationally,
carefully, worriedly, fearfully,
sanely, cogently, normally, forcefully,
convincingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
nervously, concernedly, solicitously,
timidly, keenly, enthusiastically.
irrationally, disjointedly,
ANTONYMS: (adv) calmly,
unconvincingly, illogically.
consist: (n, v) be; (adj, v) lie; (v) belong,
confidently, merrily, indifferently,
fearlessly, nonchalantly, patiently,
fit, comprise, lie in, reside, exist,
make up; (adj, n) abide; (n) agree.
unconcernedly.
cart: (n) car, carriage, handcart,
excited: (adj, v) animated, ardent; (adj)
barrow, applecart, wagon; (v) haul,
ablaze, enthusiastic, emotional,
drag, bear, take, transfer.
frantic, warm, heated, delirious,
coherently: (adv) lucidly, consistently, fervent, passionate. ANTONYMS:

(adj) cool, unexcited, bored, tranquil,
easygoing, disappointed, despairing,
comatose, apathetic, sedate,
composed.
rocking: (adj) vivacious, merry,
spirited, spry, festive; (n) metalling,
convulsion.
squeaky: (adj) creaky, strident,
grating, screaky, squeaking, creaking,
squealing, high, clean, higher.

152

Winesburg, Ohio

always ended by saying nothing. Then he began to doubt his own mind. He
was afraid the things he felt were not getting expressed in the pictures he
painted. In a half indignant mood he stopped inviting people into his room and
presently got into the habit of locking the door. He began to think that enough
people had visited him, that he did not need people any more. With quick
imagination he began to invent his own people to whom he could really talk and
to whom he explained the things he had been unable to explain to living people.
His room began to be inhabited by the spirits of men and women among whom
he went, in his turn saying words. It was as though everyone Enoch Robinson
had ever seen had left with him some essence of himself, something he could
mould and change to suit his own fancy, something that understood all about
such things as the wounded woman behind the elders in the pictures.%
The mild, blue-eyed young Ohio boy was a complete egotist, as all children
are egotists. He did not want friends for the quite simple reason that no child
wants friends. He wanted most of all the people of his own mind, people with
whom he could really talk, people he could harangue and scold by the hour,
servants, you see, to his fancy. Among these people he was always selfconfident and bold. They might talk, to be sure, and even have opinions of their
own, but always he talked last and best. He was like a writer busy among the
figures of his brain, a kind of tiny blue-eyed king he was, in a six-dollar room
facing Washington Square in the city of New York.
Then Enoch Robinson got married. He began to get lonely and to want to
touch actual flesh-and-bone people with his hands. Days passed when his room
seemed empty. Lust visited his body and desire grew in his mind. At night
strange fevers, burning within, kept him awake. He married a girl who sat in a
chair next to his own in the art school and went to live in an apartment house in
Brooklyn. Two children were born to the woman he married, and Enoch got a
job in a place where illustrations are made for advertisements.
That began another phase of Enoch's life. He began to play at a new game.
For a while he was very proud of himself in the role of producing citizen of the
world. He dismissed the essence of things and played with realities. In the fall

Thesaurus
blue-eyed: (adj) pet, favorite, precious, rage, provoked, hot, anger, irate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cool, content,
pure, dear.
egotist: (n) blowhard, cynic,
unaffected.
misanthrope, boaster, braggart, man inhabited: (v) populous, full of people,
hater, egocentric, introvert, bragger;
arrayed, clothed, dressed,
(adj) monopolist, nepotist.
accustomed, habited; (adj, v) peopled;
harangue: (v) declaim; (n) rant, screed, (adj) occupied, settled, housing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unoccupied,
address, tirade, oration, diatribe,
sermon; (n, v) lecture, discourse,
uninhabited, business.
invent: (v) devise, form, create,
stump.
indignant: (adj) angry, incensed,
excogitate, concoct, imagine,
contrive; (n, v) forge, fabricate,
furious, enraged, wrathful, hurt,

design, coin.
mould: (n, v) mildew, cast, form,
model; (v) make, frame, knead,
fashion, forge; (n) molding, matrix.
scold: (v) reprimand, chide, berate,
rebuke, abuse, lecture, reproach, rail,
grouch; (n, v) nag; (adj, n) shrew.
ANTONYMS: (v) praise, compliment,
approve.
self-confident: (adj) assured, cocky,
confident, assertive, jaunty, sanguine,
secure, self-sufficient, certain.

Sherwood Anderson

153

he voted at an election and he had a newspaper thrown on his porch each
morning. When in the evening he came home from work he got off a streetcar
and walked sedately along behind some business man, striving to look very
substantial and important. As a payer of taxes he thought he should post himself
on how things are run. "I'm getting to be of some moment, a real part of things,
of the state and the city and all that," he told himself with an amusing miniature
air of dignity. Once, coming home from Philadelphia, he had a discussion with a
man met on a train. Enoch talked about the advisability of the government's
owning and operating the railroads and the man gave him a cigar. It was
Enoch's notion that such a move on the part of the government would be a good
thing, and he grew quite excited as he talked. Later he remembered his own
words with pleasure. "I gave him something to think about, that fellow," he
muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs to his Brooklyn apartment.%
To be sure, Enoch's marriage did not turn out. He himself brought it to an
end. He began to feel choked and walled in by the life in the apartment, and to
feel toward his wife and even toward his children as he had felt concerning the
friends who once came to visit him. He began to tell little lies about business
engagements that would give him freedom to walk alone in the street at night
and, the chance offering, he secretly re-rented the room facing Washington
Square. Then Mrs. Al Robinson died on the farm near Winesburg, and he got
eight thousand dollars from the bank that acted as trustee of her estate. That
took Enoch out of the world of men altogether. He gave the money to his wife
and told her he could not live in the apartment any more. She cried and was
angry and threatened, but he only stared at her and went his own way. In reality
the wife did not care much. She thought Enoch slightly insane and was a little
afraid of him. When it was quite sure that he would never come back, she took
the two children and went to a village in Connecticut where she had lived as a
girl. In the end she married a man who bought and sold real estate and was
contented enough.
And so Enoch Robinson stayed in the New York room among the people of
his fancy, playing with them, talking to them, happy as a child is happy. They

Thesaurus
choked: (adj) clogged, smothered,
congested, annoyed, high-strung,
strained, neurotic, tense, angry,
anxious, insecure.
engagements: (n) arrangements,
actions, activities, schedule, travels,
movements.
miniature: (adj) tiny, diminutive,
slight, wee, small, minute, midget,
dwarf, teeny; (adj, n) model; (n) toy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) large, enormous,
giant, gigantic, big.

payer: (n) payor, liquidator, buyer,
remunerator, client, consumer,
customer, money dealer, money
handler, paymaster, person paying.
ANTONYM: (n) seller.
railroads: (n) railway.
secretly: (adv) privately, confidentially,
quietly, stealthily, surreptitiously,
furtively, in secret, darkly,
secretively, clandestinely, occultly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) publicly,
deliberately, brazenly.

sedately: (adv) seriously, soberly,
serenely, staidly, solemnly,
composedly, tranquilly, steadily,
stilly, quietly, decorously.
ANTONYM: (adv) boisterously.
streetcar: (n) tramcar, trolley car,
trolley, cable car, tramway, cable
tramway, aerial tramway, horsecar,
ropeway.
voted: (adj) elected, chosen,
designated, selected.

154

Winesburg, Ohio

were an odd lot, Enoch's people. They were made, I suppose, out of real people
he had seen and who had for some obscure reason made an appeal to him. There
was a woman with a sword in her hand, an old man with a long white beard
who went about followed by a dog, a young girl whose stockings were always
coming down and hanging over her shoe tops. There must have been two dozen
of the shadow people, invented by the child-mind of Enoch Robinson, who lived
in the room with him.%
And Enoch was happy. Into the room he went and locked the door. With an
absurd air of importance he talked aloud, giving instructions, making comments
on life. He was happy and satisfied to go on making his living in the advertising
place until something happened. Of course something did happen. That is why
he went back to live in Winesburg and why we know about him. The thing that
happened was a woman. It would be that way. He was too happy. Something
had to come into his world. Something had to drive him out of the New York
room to live out his life an obscure, jerky little figure, bobbing up and down on
the streets of an Ohio town at evening when the sun was going down behind the
roof of Wesley Moyer's livery barn.
About the thing that happened. Enoch told George Willard about it one
night. He wanted to talk to someone, and he chose the young newspaper
reporter because the two happened to be thrown together at a time when the
younger man was in a mood to understand.
Youthful sadness, young man's sadness, the sadness of a growing boy in a
village at the year's end, opened the lips of the old man. The sadness was in the
heart of George Willard and was without meaning, but it appealed to Enoch
Robinson.
It rained on the evening when the two met and talked, a drizzly wet October
rain. The fruition of the year had come and the night should have been fine with
a moon in the sky and the crisp sharp promise of frost in the air, but it wasn't
that way. It rained and little puddles of water shone under the street lamps on
Main Street. In the woods in the darkness beyond the Fair Ground water
dripped from the black trees. Beneath the trees wet leaves were pasted against

Thesaurus
bobbing: (n) faggot, firewood, peat,
frost: (n, v) freeze, chill; (n) cold,
turf.
hoarfrost, icing, hoar, Robert lee frost,
crisp: (adj) short, terse, fresh, crispy,
failure; (adj, n) rime; (v) ice; (adj)
sharp, crunchy, brisk; (adj, v) wrinkle; frozen. ANTONYMS: (n) hot, heat,
(v) crease, crinkle; (n) chip.
warmth.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soggy, soft, limp, fruition: (n) enjoyment, pleasure,
wilted, rumpled, stale, slovenly,
gratification, delight,
sloppy, wordy, long, lengthy.
accomplishment, realization,
drizzly: (adj) drippy, wet, damp,
realisation, consummation, success,
showery, rainy, raining, drizzling,
completion, achievement.
clammy, moist. ANTONYM: (adj)
jerky: (adj) uneven, abrupt, rough,
dry.
unsteady, jerking, arrhythmic,

spasmodic, shaky; (n) biltong, jerked
meat, meat. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, graceful.
pasted: (adj) affixed.
shoe: (n) horseshoe, sandal, shoes,
moccasin, footgear, footwear, skid,
flippers, anklet, flipper, track shoe.
youthful: (adj) immature, fresh, green,
juvenile, vernal, adolescent, childish,
new, tender, sappy, beardless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) adult, mature,
experienced, sophisticated, late.

Sherwood Anderson

155

tree roots that protruded from the ground. In gardens back of houses in
Winesburg dry shriveled potato vines lay sprawling on the ground. Men who
had finished the evening meal and who had planned to go uptown to talk the
evening away with other men at the back of some store changed their minds.
George Willard tramped about in the rain and was glad that it rained. He felt
that way. He was like Enoch Robinson on the evenings when the old man came
down out of his room and wandered alone in the streets. He was like that only
that George Willard had become a tall young man and did not think it manly to
weep and carry on. For a month his mother had been very ill and that had
something to do with his sadness, but not much. He thought about himself and
to the young that always brings sadness.%
Enoch Robinson and George Willard met beneath a wooden awning that
extended out over the sidewalk before Voight's wagon shop on Maumee Street
just off the main street of Winesburg. They went together from there through the
rain-washed streets to the older man's room on the third floor of the Heffner
Block. The young reporter went willingly enough. Enoch Robinson asked him
to go after the two had talked for ten minutes. The boy was a little afraid but had
never been more curious in his life. A hundred times he had heard the old man
spoken of as a little off his head and he thought himself rather brave and manly
to go at all. From the very beginning, in the street in the rain, the old man talked
in a queer way, trying to tell the story of the room in Washington Square and of
his life in the room. "You'll understand if you try hard enough," he said
conclusively. "I have looked at you when you went past me on the street and I
think you can understand. It isn't hard. All you have to do is to believe what I
say, just listen and believe, that's all there is to it."
It was past eleven o'clock that evening when old Enoch, talking to George
Willard in the room in the Heffner Block, came to the vital thing, the story of the
woman and of what drove him out of the city to live out his life alone and
defeated in Winesburg. He sat on a cot by the window with his head in his hand
and George Willard was in a chair by a table. A kerosene lamp sat on the table
and the room, although almost bare of furniture, was scrupulously clean. As the

Thesaurus
conclusively: (adv) decisively,
unmanfully.
convincingly, ultimately, definitively, scrupulously: (adv) carefully,
absolutely, lastly, concludingly,
painstakingly, strictly, meticulously,
determinately, categorically,
religiously, thoroughly, nicely,
cogently, decidedly. ANTONYMS:
exactly, fastidiously, particularly,
(adv) unconvincingly, questionably,
accurately. ANTONYM: (adv)
arguably.
negligently.
manly: (adj) manlike, masculine,
shriveled: (adj) wizened, shrivelled,
manful, virile, brave, gallant; (adv)
shrunken, parched, sere, dried, thin,
manfully, boldly, hardily, virilely;
withered, attenuated, sear, tabid.
(adj, adv) stately. ANTONYMS: (adj)
ANTONYM: (adj) smooth.
weak, unmanly, cowardly; (adv)
uptown: (adj) wealthy, thriving,

tasteful, suburban, stylish,
sophisticated, worldly, affluent,
moneyed; (n) community, residential
district. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv)
downtown; (adj) business.
willingly: (adv) readily, voluntarily,
cheerfully, spontaneously, helpfully,
disposedly, actively, openly,
obligingly, eagerly; (adj, adv) freely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) grudgingly,
reluctantly, uncooperatively,
unenthusiastically.

156

Winesburg, Ohio

man talked George Willard began to feel that he would like to get out of the chair
and sit on the cot also. He wanted to put his arms about the little old man. In
the half darkness the man talked and the boy listened, filled with sadness.%
"She got to coming in there after there hadn't been anyone in the room for
years," said Enoch Robinson. "She saw me in the hallway of the house and we
got acquainted. I don't know just what she did in her own room. I never went
there. I think she was a musician and played a violin. Every now and then she
came and knocked at the door and I opened it. In she came and sat down beside
me, just sat and looked about and said nothing. Anyway, she said nothing that
mattered."
The old man arose from the cot and moved about the room. The overcoat he
wore was wet from the rain and drops of water kept falling with a soft thump on
the floor. When he again sat upon the cot George Willard got out of the chair
and sat beside him.
"I had a feeling about her. She sat there in the room with me and she was too
big for the room. I felt that she was driving everything else away. We just
talked of little things, but I couldn't sit still. I wanted to touch her with my
fingers and to kiss her. Her hands were so strong and her face was so good and
she looked at me all the time."
The trembling voice of the old man became silent and his body shook as from
a chill. "I was afraid," he whispered. "I was terribly afraid. I didn't want to let
her come in when she knocked at the door but I couldn't sit still. 'No, no,' I said
to myself, but I got up and opened the door just the same. She was so grown up,
you see. She was a woman. I thought she would be bigger than I was there in
that room."
Enoch Robinson stared at George Willard, his childlike blue eyes shining in
the lamplight. Again he shivered. "I wanted her and all the time I didn't want
her," he explained. "Then I began to tell her about my people, about everything
that meant anything to me. I tried to keep quiet, to keep myself to myself, but I
couldn't. I felt just as I did about opening the door. Sometimes I ached to have
her go away and never come back any more."

Thesaurus
bigger: (adj) greater, larger, better,
major, largest, biggest, big, large,
great, vast, wide. ANTONYM: (adj)
lesser.
darkness: (n) dark, shade, shadow,
blindness, gloom, blackness,
duskiness, murk, cloud, blackout,
dimness. ANTONYMS: (n)
brightness, lightness, glow,
comprehension, knowledge, day,
clearness.
driving: (adj) energetic, impulsive,

enterprising, pushing, vigorous; (n)
of peace, kiss hands; (v) osculate,
drive, travel, drove, direction,
love.
motoring, push. ANTONYMS: (adj) musician: (n) singer, composer,
lethargic, weak, light.
instrumentalist, minstrel, clarinettist,
drops: (n) tear.
lutenist, director, choirmaster,
filled: (adj) replete, packed, fraught,
accompanist, harpsichordist, harpist.
teeming, laden, abundant, congested, shook: (adj) shake, vibrate, addled,
charged, stuffed; (adj, adv) crowded;
barrel, cask, confused, distressed,
(n) fuller. ANTONYMS: (adj) lacking, hurt, passionate, puzzled.
violin: (n) viol, bowed stringed
clear.
kiss: (n, v) caress, brush, embrace,
instrument, fiddle dock, kit, string.
touch; (n) osculation, salute, lip, Kiss

Sherwood Anderson

157

The old man sprang to his feet and his voice shook with excitement. "One
night something happened. I became mad to make her understand me and to
know what a big thing I was in that room. I wanted her to see how important I
was. I told her over and over. When she tried to go away, I ran and locked the
door. I followed her about. I talked and talked and then all of a sudden things
went to smash. A look came into her eyes and I knew she did understand.
Maybe she had understood all the time. I was furious. I couldn't stand it. I
wanted her to understand but, don't you see, I couldn't let her understand. I felt
that then she would know everything, that I would be submerged, drowned out,
you see. That's how it is. I don't know why."%
The old man dropped into a chair by the lamp and the boy listened, filled
with awe. "Go away, boy," said the man. "Don't stay here with me any more. I
thought it might be a good thing to tell you but it isn't. I don't want to talk any
more. Go away."
George Willard shook his head and a note of command came into his voice.
"Don't stop now. Tell me the rest of it," he commanded sharply. "What
happened? Tell me the rest of the story."
Enoch Robinson sprang to his feet and ran to the window that looked down
into the deserted main street of Winesburg. George Willard followed. By the
window the two stood, the tall awkward boyman and the little wrinkled manboy. The childish, eager voice carried forward the tale. "I swore at her," he
explained. "I said vile words. I ordered her to go away and not to come back.
Oh, I said terrible things. At first she pretended not to understand but I kept at
it. I screamed and stamped on the floor. I made the house ring with my curses.
I didn't want ever to see her again and I knew, after some of the things I said,
that I never would see her again."
The old man's voice broke and he shook his head. "Things went to smash," he
said quietly and sadly. "Out she went through the door and all the life there had
been in the room followed her out. She took all of my people away. They all
went out through the door after her. That's the way it was."

Thesaurus
awkward: (adj) inconvenient, clumsy,
ambitious, industrious, studious; (adj,
n) earnest. ANTONYMS: (adj)
embarrassing, uncomfortable,
ungainly, untoward, crude, inept,
indifferent, unconcerned, apathetic,
sticky, left-handed, heavy.
disinterested, unwilling,
ANTONYMS: (adj) graceful, easy,
unenthusiastic, lukewarm, patient,
adroit, manageable, straightforward, reluctant, listless, bored.
furious: (adj, v) fierce, violent,
simple, dexterous, rotund,
vehement, wild, rampant; (adj)
convenient, helpful, skillful.
drowned: (adj) prostrate, sunken; (v)
frantic, enraged, ferocious,
drenched, drent.
boisterous, raging, frenzied.
eager: (adj) avid, ardent, agog, acute,
ANTONYMS: (adj) happy, mild,
zealous, enthusiastic, keen,
gentle, pleased, mellow, quiet, slow.

smash: (n, v) crash, hit, bang, clash,
knock; (v) shatter, crush, mash, break,
defeat, ruin. ANTONYMS: (v) mend,
preserve; (n) flop.
tale: (n) account, narrative, narration,
recital, fib, fable, report, fiction, lie,
relation, yarn. ANTONYM: (n) fact.
wrinkled: (adj, n) rough, rugged; (adj)
puckered, creased, wrinkly, wizened,
crumpled, lined, gnarled, unironed,
crinkled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unwrinkled, ironed, straight.

158

Winesburg, Ohio

George %Willard turned and went out of Enoch Robinson's room. In the
darkness by the window, as he went through the door, he could hear the thin
old voice whimpering and complaining. "I'm alone, all alone here," said the
voice. "It was warm and friendly in my room but now I'm all alone."

Thesaurus
complaining: (adj) irritable, peevish,
petulant, whining, moaning,
complaintive, repining; (adj, v)
querulous; (n, v) lamenting; (adv)
complainingly; (n) plaintive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
uncomplaining, cheerful, willing.
friendly: (adj, n) favorable; (adj)
amiable, affectionate, decent, goodnatured, kind, convivial,
companionable, benevolent,
amicable; (adj, adv) comradely.

ANTONYMS: (adj) unfriendly,
plump, wide, heavy, broad, strong,
resonant, solid; (v) thicken.
distant, disagreeable, aggressive,
aloof, formal, frosty, belligerent, curt, warm: (adj) hot, affectionate, tender,
reserved, impersonal.
ardent, cordial, fervent, lively, fond,
hear: (int, v) attend; (v) find out,
loving, earnest, tepid. ANTONYMS:
(adj) cold, unfriendly, aloof, reserved,
discover, understand, apprehend,
hark, learn, try, examine, listen; (adj)
hostile, uncaring, unenthusiastic,
unwelcoming, stale, offhand; (v) chill.
heard.
thin: (adj) tenuous, flimsy, light, fine, window: (n) casement, pane, skylight,
emaciated; (adj, v) lean, gaunt, slight, gap, Ventian window, clearstory,
sheer, meager, dilute. ANTONYMS:
transom, windowpane, rosette,
(adj) fat, concentrated, chubby,
clerestory, embrasure.

Sherwood Anderson

159

AN AWAKENING

Belle Carpenter had a dark skin, grey eyes, and thick lips. She was tall and
strong. When black thoughts visited her she grew angry and wished she were a
man and could fight someone with her fists. She worked in the millinery shop
kept by Mrs. Kate McHugh and during the day sat trimming hats by a window
at the rear of the store. She was the daughter of Henry Carpenter, bookkeeper in
the First National Bank of Winesburg, and lived with him in a gloomy old house
far out at the end of Buckeye Street. The house was surrounded by pine trees
and there was no grass beneath the trees. A rusty tin eaves-trough had slipped
from its fastenings at the back of the house and when the wind blew it beat
against the roof of a small shed, making a dismal drumming noise that
sometimes persisted all through the night.%
When she was a young girl Henry Carpenter made life almost unbearable for
Belle, but as she emerged from girlhood into womanhood he lost his power over
her. The bookkeeper's life was made up of innumerable little pettinesses. When
he went to the bank in the morning he stepped into a closet and put on a black
alpaca coat that had become shabby with age. At night when he returned to his
home he donned another black alpaca coat. Every evening he pressed the clothes
worn in the streets. He had invented an arrangement of boards for the purpose.
The trousers to his street suit were placed between the boards and the boards
were clamped together with heavy screws. In the morning he wiped the boards

Thesaurus
alpaca: (n) textile, material, cloth,
thump, pulse, barrelling, percussion, shabby: (adj) poor, abject, mean,
fabric, llama, wool.
buzzing, stress, tapping, throb.
mangy, low, sorry, decrepit, worn,
bookkeeper: (n) book-keeper, babu,
innumerable: (adj) countless,
sordid, ragged; (adj, v) frayed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pristine, elegant,
auditor, amanuensis, actuary, clerk,
numberless, incalculable,
comptroller, controller, custos
multitudinous, infinite, innumerous, opulent, honorable, decent, new,
rotulorum, booker, bean counter.
unnumbered, uncounted, myriad,
neat, comfortable, tasteful, strong,
closet: (n) cupboard, cubicle, cell,
immeasurable, untold. ANTONYM:
respectful.
(adj) finite.
stepped: (v) advanced, gone, stopen.
latrine, bathroom, wardrobe, water
closet; (adj) clandestine, confidential, rusty: (adj) ancient, out of practice,
trimming: (n) decoration, dressing,
secret, private. ANTONYM: (adj)
intractable, old, corroded, deaf to
adornment, ornament, fringe, border,
reason, exceptious, cantankerous; (v) clipping, cutting, frill, edging, lace.
open.
drumming: (n) roll, drums, sound,
moldy, raw, mildewed.

160

Winesburg, Ohio

with a damp cloth and stood them upright behind the dining room door. If they
were moved during the day he was speechless with anger and did not recover
his equilibrium for a week.%
The bank cashier was a little bully and was afraid of his daughter. She, he
realized, knew the story of his brutal treatment of her mother and hated him for
it. One day she went home at noon and carried a handful of soft mud, taken
from the road, into the house. With the mud she smeared the face of the boards
used for the pressing of trousers and then went back to her work feeling relieved
and happy.
Belle Carpenter occasionally walked out in the evening with George Willard.
Secretly she loved another man, but her love affair, about which no one knew,
caused her much anxiety. She was in love with Ed Handby, bartender in Ed
Griffith's Saloon, and went about with the young reporter as a kind of relief to
her feelings. She did not think that her station in life would permit her to be seen
in the company of the bartender and walked about under the trees with George
Willard and let him kiss her to relieve a longing that was very insistent in her
nature. She felt that she could keep the younger man within bounds. About Ed
Handby she was somewhat uncertain.
Handby, the bartender, was a tall, broad-shouldered man of thirty who lived
in a room upstairs above Griffith's saloon. His fists were large and his eyes
unusually small, but his voice, as though striving to conceal the power back of
his fists, was soft and quiet.
At twenty-five the bartender had inherited a large farm from an uncle in
Indiana. When sold, the farm brought in eight thousand dollars, which Ed spent
in six months. Going to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, he began an orgy of
dissipation, the story of which afterward filled his home town with awe. Here
and there he went throwing the money about, driving carriages through the
streets, giving wine parties to crowds of men and women, playing cards for high
stakes and keeping mistresses whose wardrobes cost him hundreds of dollars.
One night at a resort called Cedar Point, he got into a fight and ran amuck like a
wild thing. With his fist he broke a large mirror in the wash room of a hotel and

Thesaurus
afterward: (adv, conj) then, after that;
paymaster, almoner; (v) discard,
orgy: (n) debauchery, binge, debauch,
(adv) thereafter, afterwards, later,
reject, discharge, shed, dismiss,
Saturnalia, bacchanal, drunken
displace. ANTONYMS: (v) designate, revelry, riot, Bacchanalia, pampering,
subsequently, later on, next, soon;
(adj) following; (n) future.
hire, name.
rite, splurge.
ANTONYMS: (adv) now, previously, dissipation: (n) waste, dissolution,
smeared: (adj) smudged, unclean,
before.
licentiousness, extravagance, excess,
soiled, grubby, smirched, muddy,
amuck: (adj) berserk, possessed,
profligacy, consumption,
messy, smudgy, grimy, greasy.
demoniacal, demoniac; (adv) wildly,
decomposition, disintegration; (n, v) speechless: (adj) silent, mute, dumb,
murderously.
diffusion, dissemination.
dumbfounded, voiceless, quiet,
belle: (n) beauty, fille, girl, miss,
ANTONYMS: (n) appearance,
tongueless, tacit, noiseless, mum,
wordless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
missy.
growth, restraint, moderation,
cashier: (n) accountant, receiver, teller, decency, uprightness.
loquacious, eloquent, talkative.

Sherwood Anderson

161

later went about smashing windows and breaking chairs in dance halls for the
joy of hearing the glass rattle on the floor and seeing the terror in the eyes of
clerks who had come from Sandusky to spend the evening at the resort with their
sweethearts.%
The affair between Ed Handby and Belle Carpenter on the surface amounted
to nothing. He had succeeded in spending but one evening in her company. On
that evening he hired a horse and buggy at Wesley Moyer's livery barn and took
her for a drive. The conviction that she was the woman his nature demanded and
that he must get her settled upon him and he told her of his desires. The
bartender was ready to marry and to begin trying to earn money for the support
of his wife, but so simple was his nature that he found it difficult to explain his
intentions. His body ached with physical longing and with his body he
expressed himself. Taking the milliner into his arms and holding her tightly in
spite of her struggles, he kissed her until she became helpless. Then he brought
her back to town and let her out of the buggy. "When I get hold of you again I'll
not let you go. You can't play with me," he declared as he turned to drive away.
Then, jumping out of the buggy, he gripped her shoulders with his strong hands.
"I'll keep you for good the next time," he said. "You might as well make up your
mind to that. It's you and me for it and I'm going to have you before I get
through."
One night in January when there was a new moon George Willard, who was
in Ed Handby's mind the only obstacle to his getting Belle Carpenter, went for a
walk. Early that evening George went into Ransom Surbeck's pool room with
Seth Richmond and Art Wilson, son of the town butcher. Seth Richmond stood
with his back against the wall and remained silent, but George Willard talked.
The pool room was filled with Winesburg boys and they talked of women. The
young reporter got into that vein. He said that women should look out for
themselves, that the fellow who went out with a girl was not responsible for
what happened. As he talked he looked about, eager for attention. He held the
floor for five minutes and then Art Wilson began to talk. Art was learning the
barber's trade in Cal Prouse's shop and already began to consider himself an

Thesaurus
barn: (n) outhouse, shed, cowshed,
cowhouse, stable, bawn, grange,
byre, godown, granary, storehouse.
butcher: (v) slaughter, kill, murder,
slay; (n, v) massacre, botch; (n)
assassin, bungler, slaughterer,
meatman, murderer. ANTONYMS:
(v) develop, create, grow, build.
helpless: (adj, v) forlorn, destitute,
abandoned; (adj) powerless, weak,
defenseless, disabled, impotent,
feeble, hopeless, unable.

ANTONYMS: (adj) strong,
independent, capable, invulnerable,
armed, powerful, impervious.
longing: (n, v) desire, aspiration; (adj)
eager, wistful, nostalgic; (n) nostalgia,
wish, hankering, urge, appetite; (adj,
n) yearning. ANTONYMS: (n)
apathy, disinclination; (adj) satisfied,
unconcerned.
milliner: (n) sempstress, clothier,
fribble, hatmaker, snip, shaper,
merchandiser, tailor, costumier,

merchant, maker.
obstacle: (n, v) hindrance, difficulty,
block, check, interruption, delay; (n)
drawback, barrier, hitch, obstruction,
bar. ANTONYMS: (n) asset, aid,
advantage, boost, incentive.
smashing: (n) crash; (adj) corking,
swell, terrific, great, nifty, groovy,
neat, cracking, dandy, bully.
vein: (n) vena, strain, nervure, mine,
temper, blood vessel, tone; (adj, n)
mood, humor, strip, frame of mind.

162

Winesburg, Ohio

authority in such matters as baseball, horse racing, drinking, and going about
with women. He began to tell of a night when he with two men from Winesburg
went into a house of prostitution at the county seat. The butcher's son held a
cigar in the side of his mouth and as he talked spat on the floor. "The women in
the place couldn't embarrass me although they tried hard enough," he boasted.
"One of the girls in the house tried to get fresh, but I fooled her. As soon as she
began to talk I went and sat in her lap. Everyone in the room laughed when I
kissed her. I taught her to let me alone."
George Willard went out of the pool room and into Main Street. For days the
weather had been bitter cold with a high wind blowing down on the town from
Lake Erie, eighteen miles to the north, but on that night the wind had died away
and a new moon made the night unusually lovely. Without thinking where he
was going or what he wanted to do, George went out of Main Street and began
walking in dimly lighted streets filled with frame houses.%
Out of doors under the black sky filled with stars he forgot his companions of
the pool room. Because it was dark and he was alone he began to talk aloud. In a
spirit of play he reeled along the street imitating a drunken man and then
imagined himself a soldier clad in shining boots that reached to the knees and
wearing a sword that jingled as he walked. As a soldier he pictured himself as
an inspector, passing before a long line of men who stood at attention. He began
to examine the accoutrements of the men. Before a tree he stopped and began to
scold. "Your pack is not in order," he said sharply. "How many times will I have
to speak of this matter? Everything must be in order here. We have a difficult
task before us and no difficult task can be done without order."
Hypnotized by his own words, the young man stumbled along the board
sidewalk saying more words. "There is a law for armies and for men too," he
muttered, lost in reflection. "The law begins with little things and spreads out
until it covers everything. In every little thing there must be order, in the place
where men work, in their clothes, in their thoughts. I myself must be orderly. I
must learn that law. I must get myself into touch with something orderly and

Thesaurus
accoutrements: (n) accouterments,
trappings, paraphernalia, equipment,
gear, dress, clothes, apparel, attire.
dimly: (adv) obscurely, darkly, faintly,
dully, duskily, vaguely, shadowily,
hazily, gloomily, somberly; (adj, adv)
palely. ANTONYMS: (adv) clearly,
strongly, distinctly.
embarrass: (v) baffle, bother,
confound, hinder, disconcert, block,
complicate, impede, discomfit; (adj, v)
bewilder, encumber. ANTONYMS:

(v) comfort, please, soothe, relieve.
hypnotized: (adj, v) mesmerized, rapt,
transfixed; (adj) fascinated,
mesmerised, captive, enchanted,
spellbound; (v) engrossed in, riveted,
absorbed.
imitating: (adj) imitative; (n)
emulation, mimicry, forgery, acting.
orderly: (adj) neat, tidy, exact, regular,
ordered, systematic, logical, coherent,
businesslike; (adv) systematically; (n)
attendant. ANTONYMS: (adj)

unmanageable, rowdy, wild,
disorganized, untidy, disorderly,
confused, lawless, messy, defiant,
haphazard.
prostitution: (n) abuse, whoredom,
profanation, perversion, corruption,
pollution, desecration, misuse.
spat: (n, v) squabble, altercation, tiff,
bicker, dispute, wrangle, row; (n)
gaiter, argument, bickering, fuss.
ANTONYM: (n) agreement.
stars: (n) heavenly bodies, fate.

Sherwood Anderson

163

big that swings through the night like a star. In my little way I must begin to
learn something, to give and swing and work with life, with the law."
George Willard stopped by a picket fence near a street lamp and his body
began to tremble. He had never before thought such thoughts as had just come
into his head and he wondered where they had come from. For the moment it
seemed to him that some voice outside of himself had been talking as he walked.
He was amazed and delighted with his own mind and when he walked on again
spoke of the matter with fervor. "To come out of Ransom Surbeck's pool room
and think things like that," he whispered. "It is better to be alone. If I talked like
Art Wilson the boys would understand me but they wouldn't understand what
I've been thinking down here."
In Winesburg, as in all Ohio towns of twenty years ago, there was a section in
which lived day laborers. As the time of factories had not yet come, the laborers
worked in the fields or were section hands on the railroads. They worked twelve
hours a day and received one dollar for the long day of toil. The houses in which
they lived were small cheaply constructed wooden affairs with a garden at the
back. The more comfortable among them kept cows and perhaps a pig, housed
in a little shed at the rear of the garden.%
With his head filled with resounding thoughts, George Willard walked into
such a street on the clear January night. The street was dimly lighted and in
places there was no sidewalk. In the scene that lay about him there was
something that excited his already aroused fancy. For a year he had been
devoting all of his odd moments to the reading of books and now some tale he
had read concerning fife in old world towns of the middle ages came sharply
back to his mind so that he stumbled forward with the curious feeling of one
revisiting a place that had been a part of some former existence. On an impulse
he turned out of the street and went into a little dark alleyway behind the sheds
in which lived the cows and pigs.
For a half hour he stayed in the alleyway, smelling the strong smell of
animals too closely housed and letting his mind play with the strange new
thoughts that came to him. The very rankness of the smell of manure in the

Thesaurus
aroused: (adj) ablaze, aflame,
passionate, hot, agitated, inflamed,
susceptible, tense, fascinated,
emotional, elated.
cheaply: (adv) commonly, shoddily,
tawdrily, stingily, meanly, trashily,
flashily, economically, tackily,
vulgarly, chintzily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) extravagantly, luxuriously,
tastefully.
cows: (n) cattle, cow, bull, ox, oxen,
Bos Taurus, bullock, beef, Cowes,

steer, milker.
odor, plenty, profusion.
manure: (n) compost, fertiliser,
resounding: (adj) booming, ringing,
fertilizer; (n, v) muck, soil; (v)
reverberating, loud, rolling, vibrant,
emphatic, resonating, reverberant; (v)
fertilize, cultivate, plough, weed,
plow; (adj) guano.
resound; (adv) resoundingly.
pigs: (n) stock, hogs, Suidae, livestock, ANTONYMS: (adj) qualified,
litter, family Suidae, domestic
marginal.
smelling: (n) smell, flavor, scent,
animals, cattle, boars, sheep, farm
animals.
olfactory modality, sensing, sense of
rankness: (n) foulness,
smell; (adj) redolent, scented,
malodourousness, overgrowth, scent, odorous, stinking, rotten.
smell, exuberance, odour, odor, body

164

Winesburg, Ohio

clear sweet air awoke something heady in his brain. The poor little houses
lighted by kerosene lamps, the smoke from the chimneys mounting straight up
into the clear air, the grunting of pigs, the women clad in cheap calico dresses
and washing dishes in the kitchens, the footsteps of men coming out of the
houses and going off to the stores and saloons of Main Street, the dogs barking
and the children crying--all of these things made him seem, as he lurked in the
darkness, oddly detached and apart from all life.%
The excited young man, unable to bear the weight of his own thoughts, began
to move cautiously along the alleyway. A dog attacked him and had to be driven
away with stones, and a man appeared at the door of one of the houses and
swore at the dog. George went into a vacant lot and throwing back his head
looked up at the sky. He felt unutterably big and remade by the simple
experience through which he had been passing and in a kind of fervor of
emotion put up his hands, thrusting them into the darkness above his head and
muttering words. The desire to say words overcame him and he said words
without meaning, rolling them over on his tongue and saying them because they
were brave words, full of meaning. "Death," he muttered, night, the sea, fear,
loveliness."
George Willard came out of the vacant lot and stood again on the sidewalk
facing the houses. He felt that all of the people in the little street must be
brothers and sisters to him and he wished he had the courage to call them out of
their houses and to shake their hands. "If there were only a woman here I would
take hold of her hand and we would run until we were both tired out," he
thought. "That would make me feel better." With the thought of a woman in his
mind he walked out of the street and went toward the house where Belle
Carpenter lived. He thought she would understand his mood and that he could
achieve in her presence a position he had long been wanting to achieve. In the
past when he had been with her and had kissed her lips he had come away filled
with anger at himself. He had felt like one being used for some obscure purpose
and had not enjoyed the feeling. Now he thought he had suddenly become too
big to be used.

Thesaurus
barking: (adj) latrant; (n) abay,
latration.
calico: (n) cambric, fabric, cashmere,
chintz, cloth; (adj) motley,
varicoloured, pied, assorted.
chimneys: (n) chimney.
detached: (adj) separate, cool, aloof,
distinct, impartial, neutral,
dispassionate, objective,
unconnected, remote, unconcerned.
ANTONYMS: (adj) involved, warm,
engrossed, partial, connected, biased,

ANTONYMS: (adj) bored, cautious,
linked, united, impassioned,
interested, personal.
dull, mild, weak, bland.
dishes: (n) food, meal, crockery,
mounting: (n, v) mount; (adj, n)
climbing; (n) ascent, setting, climb,
dinner service, dishware, menu,
plates.
frame, assembly, chassis, framework,
footsteps: (n) road, footprints, way,
ascension; (adj, adv) rising.
thrusting: (n) thrust, push, jab, poke,
trail, path, track, footpath.
grunting: (n) inarticulate, grunting
jabbing, stab, driving force, scoke,
respiration, growl, grunt.
sack, punch, Phytolacca Americana.
heady: (adj) hot, intoxicating, exciting, unutterably: (adv) ineffably,
keen, headstrong, strong, acute,
inexpressibly, indescribably, beyond
quick, rude, vehement, brash.
words, deeply, overwhelmingly.

Sherwood Anderson

165

When George got to Belle Carpenter's house there had already been a visitor
there before him. Ed Handby had come to the door and calling Belle out of the
house had tried to talk to her. He had wanted to ask the woman to come away
with him and to be his wife, but when she came and stood by the door he lost his
self-assurance and became sullen. "You stay away from that kid," he growled,
thinking of George Willard, and then, not knowing what else to say, turned to go
away. "If I catch you together I will break your bones and his too," he added.
The bartender had come to woo, not to threaten, and was angry with himself
because of his failure.%
When her lover had departed Belle went indoors and ran hurriedly upstairs.
From a window at the upper part of the house she saw Ed Handby cross the
street and sit down on a horse block before the house of a neighbor. In the dim
light the man sat motionless holding his head in his hands. She was made
happy by the sight, and when George Willard came to the door she greeted him
effusively and hurriedly put on her hat. She thought that, as she walked through
the streets with young Willard, Ed Handby would follow and she wanted to
make him suffer.
For an hour Belle Carpenter and the young reporter walked about under the
trees in the sweet night air. George Willard was full of big words. The sense of
power that had come to him during the hour in the darkness in the alleyway
remained with him and he talked boldly, swaggering along and swinging his
arms about. He wanted to make Belle Carpenter realize that he was aware of his
former weakness and that he had changed. "You'll find me different," he
declared, thrusting his hands into his pockets and looking boldly into her eyes.
"I don't know why but it is so. You've got to take me for a man or let me alone.
That's how it is."
Up and down the quiet streets under the new moon went the woman and the
boy. When George had finished talking they turned down a side street and went
across a bridge into a path that ran up the side of a hill. The hill began at
Waterworks Pond and climbed upward to the Winesburg Fair Grounds. On the

Thesaurus
departed: (adj) dead, bygone, late,
former, bypast, defunct, past, left;
(adj, v) gone, extinct; (n) decedent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) remaining, alive.
indoors: (adv) at home, inwards,
within, inwardly, internally, deep
down, at heart, at bottom, in reality,
arrived, here. ANTONYMS: (adv)
out, outdoors.
lover: (n) dear, darling, fan, devotee,
beau, buff, love, admirer, beloved,
amorist, man.

motionless: (adj) inactive, inert,
ANTONYM: (adj) insecure.
swinging: (adj) swaying, excessive,
immobile, stationary, fixed,
unmoving, quiescent, dead, torpid;
lilting, inordinate, hanging,
(adj, adv) calm, at rest. ANTONYMS:
exorbitant, pendulous, outrageous,
(adj) mobile, active, alive, flowing.
preposterous, extravagant; (n)
self-assurance: (n) self-confidence,
slewing.
upward: (adv) upwards, upwardly,
self-esteem, poise, aplomb,
aloft; (adj) overhead, rising, upper,
composure, effrontery, presence.
swaggering: (adj) hectoring,
increasing, open, vertical, mounting,
upright. ANTONYMS: (adj)
swashbuckling, supercilious, sniffy,
boastful, lordly, disdainful, prideful; descending, downward; (adv) down.
(v) swagger; (n) boasting, bravado.

166

Winesburg, Ohio

hillside grew dense bushes and small trees and among the bushes were little
open spaces carpeted with long grass, now stiff and frozen.%
As he walked behind the woman up the hill George Willard's heart began to
beat rapidly and his shoulders straightened. Suddenly he decided that Belle
Carpenter was about to surrender herself to him. The new force that had
manifested itself in him had, he felt, been at work upon her and had led to her
conquest. The thought made him half drunk with the sense of masculine power.
Although he had been annoyed that as they walked about she had not seemed to
be listening to his words, the fact that she had accompanied him to this place
took all his doubts away. "It is different. Everything has become different," he
thought and taking hold of her shoulder turned her about and stood looking at
her, his eyes shining with pride.
Belle Carpenter did not resist. When he kissed her upon the lips she leaned
heavily against him and looked over his shoulder into the darkness. In her
whole attitude there was a suggestion of waiting. Again, as in the alleyway,
George Willard's mind ran off into words and, holding the woman tightly he
whispered the words into the still night. "Lust," he whispered, "lust and night
and women."
George Willard did not understand what happened to him that night on the
hillside. Later, when he got to his own room, he wanted to weep and then grew
half insane with anger and hate. He hated Belle Carpenter and was sure that all
his life he would continue to hate her. On the hillside he had led the woman to
one of the little open spaces among the bushes and had dropped to his knees
beside her. As in the vacant lot, by the laborers' houses, he had put up his hands
in gratitude for the new power in himself and was waiting for the woman to
speak when Ed Handby appeared.
The bartender did not want to beat the boy, who he thought had tried to take
his woman away. He knew that beating was unnecessary, that he had power
within himself to accomplish his purpose without using his fists. Gripping
George by the shoulder and pulling him to his feet, he held him with one hand
while he looked at Belle Carpenter seated on the grass. Then with a quick wide

Thesaurus
accomplish: (v) perform, reach, do,
conquering, achievement, reduction, (adj) manly, manlike, virile, mannish,
mankind, bold, manful; (n) gender,
compass, perfect, attain, make, fulfill, coup, rout, overthrow, subjection,
mastery, success. ANTONYMS: (n)
he. ANTONYMS: (adj) female,
realize, execute, carry out.
ANTONYMS: (v) abandon, neglect,
failure, defeat, loss, victory.
neuter.
gratitude: (n) appreciation, thanks,
seated: (adj) sat, sedentary.
choke, blow, lose.
annoyed: (adj) irritated, vexed, irate,
vacant: (adj) blank, hollow, unfilled,
thank, acknowledgement,
aggravated, angered, cross,
acknowledgment, appreciativeness,
void, free, unoccupied, bare, idle,
expressionless, open; (adj, v) devoid.
disgruntled, exasperated, infuriated,
feeling, appreciate, grateful,
ANTONYMS: (adj) full, cognizant,
displeased, resentful. ANTONYMS:
thanksgiving, kindness.
(adj) pleased, unprovoked, smiling,
ANTONYMS: (n) ingratitude,
overflowing, inhabited, aware,
patient, unconcerned, contented.
ungratefulness.
comprehending, animated, solid,
conquest: (n) defeat, triumph,
masculine: (adj, v) male, not female;
expressive, knowing.

Sherwood Anderson

167

movement of his arm he sent the younger man sprawling away into the bushes
and began to bully the woman, who had risen to her feet. "You're no good," he
said roughly. "I've half a mind not to bother with you. I'd let you alone if I
didn't want you so much."
On his hands and knees in the bushes George Willard stared at the scene
before him and tried hard to think. He prepared to spring at the man who had
humiliated him. To be beaten seemed to be infinitely better than to be thus
hurled ignominiously aside.%
Three times the young reporter sprang at Ed Handby and each time the
bartender, catching him by the shoulder, hurled him back into the bushes. The
older man seemed prepared to keep the exercise going indefinitely but George
Willard's head struck the root of a tree and he lay still. Then Ed Handby took
Belle Carpenter by the arm and marched her away.
George heard the man and woman making their way through the bushes. As
he crept down the hillside his heart was sick within him. He hated himself and
he hated the fate that had brought about his humiliation. When his mind went
back to the hour alone in the alleyway he was puzzled and stopping in the
darkness listened, hoping to hear again the voice outside himself that had so
short a time before put new courage into his heart. When his way homeward led
him again into the street of frame houses he could not bear the sight and began
to run, wanting to get quickly out of the neighborhood that now seemed to him
utterly squalid and commonplace.

Thesaurus
bully: (n, v) hector; (v) bluster,
neighborhood: (n) vicinity, district,
unusual, exceptional, infrequent,
bulldoze, threaten, ballyrag; (n)
rare, romantic, uncommon, weird; (n) area, community, locality, place,
tough, rowdy, hooligan, ruffian,
deepness, profundity, profoundness. quarter, environs, section; (adj)
bravo; (adj, v) domineer.
humiliated: (adj) humbled, mortified,
neighboring, local.
ANTONYMS: (n) urge, flatter, cajole; embarrassed, humble, broken,
risen: (v) uprise.
(v) help, encourage, assist, obey,
squalid: (adj) sordid, nasty, foul,
abashed, crushed, miserable,
protect, reassure.
shamefaced, abject, feeling guilty.
seedy, filthy, grimy, abject, dingy,
commonplace: (adj, v) trite,
ignominiously: (adv) disgracefully,
grubby, seamy, sleazy. ANTONYMS:
hackneyed; (adj) banal, ordinary,
(adj) clean, reputable, smart,
shamefully, discreditably,
humdrum, common, average, plain,
dishonorably, scandalously,
respectable, fresh, comfortable,
mundane, dull; (n) platitude.
dishonourably, opprobriously,
wholesome, habitable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) extraordinary,
infamously, basely, vilely, foully.

Sherwood Anderson

169

"QUEER"

From his seat on a box in the rough board shed that stuck like a burr on the
rear of Cowley & Son's store in Winesburg, Elmer Cowley, the junior member of
the firm, could see through a dirty window into the printshop of the Winesburg
Eagle. Elmer was putting new shoelaces in his shoes. They did not go in readily
and he had to take the shoes off. With the shoes in his hand he sat looking at a
large hole in the heel of one of his stockings. Then looking quickly up he saw
George Willard, the only newspaper reporter in Winesburg, standing at the back
door of the Eagle printshop and staring absentmindedly about. "Well, well,
what next!" exclaimed the young man with the shoes in his hand, jumping to his
feet and creeping away from the window.%
A flush crept into Elmer Cowley's face and his hands began to tremble. In
Cowley & Son's store a Jewish traveling salesman stood by the counter talking to
his father. He imagined the reporter could hear what was being said and the
thought made him furious. With one of the shoes still held in his hand he stood
in a corner of the shed and stamped with a stockinged foot upon the board floor.
Cowley & Son's store did not face the main street of Winesburg. The front
was on Maumee Street and beyond it was Voight's wagon shop and a shed for
the sheltering of farmers' horses. Beside the store an alleyway ran behind the
main street stores and all day drays and delivery wagons, intent on bringing in

Thesaurus
absentmindedly: (adv) absently,
affluent, rich; (adj, v) even, smooth,
level; (n) bloom; (n, v) color; (v)
inattentively, distractedly, distantly,
redden. ANTONYMS: (n) pallor; (v)
dreamily, forgetfully, vaguely,
blanch, blench; (adj) empty, low,
pensively, scattily, anxiously,
thoughtlessly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
poor.
imagined: (adj) fanciful, notional,
calmly, carefully.
bringing: (n) delivery, consignment,
unreal, fancied, fictitious,
serving, service, passage, post.
nonexistent, unseen, hypothetical,
burr: (n) bit, birrus, bureau, burrel,
feigned, dubious, doubtful.
borel, flash, pericarp; (v) pipe, jangle, intent: (n) idea, intention, design,
clink, clank.
spirit, meaning, import, goal,
flush: (adj, n, v) blush, glow; (adj) flat,
purpose; (adj, n) attentive; (adj)

absorbed, engrossed.
jumping: (n) saltation, leaping,
header, start, propulsion; (adj)
moving, festive; (v) bounding, salient,
dancing; (adv) leapingly.
salesman: (n) dealer, monger, bagman,
agent, representative, shopman,
vender, seller, trader, traveler,
chandler.
sheltering: (adj) defensive, affording
protection, motherly; (n) housing.
stockinged: (adj) unshod.

170

Winesburg, Ohio

and taking out goods, passed up and down. The store itself was indescribable.
Will Henderson once said of it that it sold everything and nothing. In the
window facing Maumee Street stood a chunk of coal as large as an apple barrel,
to indicate that orders for coal were taken, and beside the black mass of the coal
stood three combs of honey grown brown and dirty in their wooden frames.%
The honey had stood in the store window for six months. It was for sale as
were also the coat hangers, patent suspender buttons, cans of roof paint, bottles
of rheumatism cure, and a substitute for coffee that companioned the honey in
its patient willingness to serve the public.
Ebenezer Cowley, the man who stood in the store listening to the eager
patter of words that fell from the lips of the traveling man, was tall and lean and
looked unwashed. On his scrawny neck was a large wen partially covered by a
grey beard. He wore a long Prince Albert coat. The coat had been purchased to
serve as a wedding garment. Before he became a merchant Ebenezer was a
farmer and after his marriage he wore the Prince Albert coat to church on
Sundays and on Saturday afternoons when he came into town to trade. When he
sold the farm to become a merchant he wore the coat constantly. It had become
brown with age and was covered with grease spots, but in it Ebenezer always felt
dressed up and ready for the day in town.
As a merchant Ebenezer was not happily placed in life and he had not been
happily placed as a farmer. Still he existed. His family, consisting of a daughter
named Mabel and the son, lived with him in rooms above the store and it did not
cost them much to live. His troubles were not financial. His unhappiness as a
merchant lay in the fact that when a traveling man with wares to be sold came in
at the front door he was afraid. Behind the counter he stood shaking his head.
He was afraid, first that he would stubbornly refuse to buy and thus lose the
opportunity to sell again; second that he would not be stubborn enough and
would in a moment of weakness buy what could not be sold.
In the store on the morning when Elmer Cowley saw George Willard
standing and apparently listening at the back door of the Eagle printshop, a
situation had arisen that always stirred the son's wrath. The traveling man

Thesaurus
chunk: (n, v) lump; (n) clump, bit,
cephalalgia, odontalgia, sciatica.
fragment, section, mass, portion, ball, scrawny: (adj) skinny, emaciated, thin,
block, piece, cut. ANTONYMS: (n)
gaunt, scraggy, meager, lanky, bony,
particle, scrap, whole.
angular, weedy, underweight.
ebenezer: (n) virginal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fat, strong, robust.
patter: (v) clatter, rumble, roll, rattle,
stubbornly: (adv) obdurately,
drum, scuttle, skip, tiptoe; (n) line of
mulishly, persistently, doggedly,
gab, vernacular, jargon.
tenaciously, unyieldingly, firmly,
rheumatism: (n) arthritis, atrophic
waywardly, contrarily,
arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid
pertinaciously, insistently.
arthritis; (v) lumbago, podagra,
ANTONYMS: (adv) feebly, helpfully,
otalgia, neuralgia, earache,
openly, hesitantly.

suspender: (n) brace, Gallus, vesture,
wear, braces, hanger, couplet,
doubleton, distich, couple, duad.
unwashed: (adj) dirty, grubby,
unclean, filthy, common, mean,
unstrained, unpurified; (v) unswept,
unscoured, unwiped. ANTONYM:
(adj) clean.
wares: (n) merchandise, goods,
commodities, stock, product,
commodity, freight, cargo, ware,
refill, shipment.

Sherwood Anderson

171

talked and Ebenezer listened, his whole figure expressing uncertainty. "You see
how quickly it is done," said the traveling man, who had for sale a small flat
metal substitute for collar buttons. With one hand he quickly unfastened a
collar from his shirt and then fastened it on again. He assumed a flattering
wheedling tone. "I tell you what, men have come to the end of all this fooling
with collar buttons and you are the man to make money out of the change that is
coming. I am offering you the exclusive agency for this town. Take twenty
dozen of these fasteners and I'll not visit any other store. I'll leave the field to
you."%
The traveling man leaned over the counter and tapped with his finger on
Ebenezer's breast. "It's an opportunity and I want you to take it," he urged. "A
friend of mine told me about you. 'See that man Cowley,' he said. 'He's a live
one.'"
The traveling man paused and waited. Taking a book from his pocket he
began writing out the order. Still holding the shoe in his hand Elmer Cowley
went through the store, past the two absorbed men, to a glass showcase near the
front door. He took a cheap revolver from the case and began to wave it about.
"You get out of here!" he shrieked. "We don't want any collar fasteners here." An
idea came to him. "Mind, I'm not making any threat," he added. "I don't say I'll
shoot. Maybe I just took this gun out of the case to look at it. But you better get
out. Yes sir, I'll say that. You better grab up your things and get out."
The young storekeeper's voice rose to a scream and going behind the counter
he began to advance upon the two men. "We're through being fools here!" he
cried. "We ain't going to buy any more stuff until we begin to sell. We ain't
going to keep on being queer and have folks staring and listening. You get out of
here!"
The traveling man left. Raking the samples of collar fasteners off the counter
into a black leather bag, he ran. He was a small man and very bow-legged and
he ran awkwardly. The black bag caught against the door and he stumbled and
fell. "Crazy, that's what he is--crazy!" he sputtered as he arose from the sidewalk
and hurried away.

Thesaurus
buttons: (n) bellboy, peyote.
kindred, lineage, kin.
fasteners: (n) bolting.
grab: (n, v) catch, arrest, snatch,
flattering: (adj) ingratiating,
capture; (v) get, grapple, clutch,
complimentary, courtly, obsequious, clasp, seize, fascinate, appropriate.
ANTONYMS: (v) surrender, baulk,
adulatory, fulsome, bland, candied,
smooth, encouraging; (n) flattery.
repel.
ANTONYMS: (adj) assertive, critical, revolver: (n) gun, pistol, colt,
unflattering, unattractive, wounding, handgun, firearm, shooter, rod,
uncomplimentary, negative; (adv)
Saturday night special, revolving
partially.
door, repeater.
folks: (n) people, folk, tribe, relations, showcase: (n, v) show, display; (n)
household, house, relatives, relative,
show window, case, shopwindow,

fair, grammatical case, guinea pig,
instance; (v) exhibit, flaunt.
unfastened: (adj) open, movable,
loose, unbuttoned, overt, opened,
opened out, slack, undecided,
undetermined, assailable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) buttoned, fixed,
shut, tied.
wheedling: (n) blandishment, palaver,
charlatanry, empiricism, enticement,
flattery, quackery, persuasion; (v)
fawning; (adj) fulsome, persuasive.

172

Winesburg, Ohio

In the store Elmer Cowley and his father stared at each other. Now that the
immediate object of his wrath had fled, the younger man was embarrassed.
"Well, I meant it. I think we've been queer long enough," he declared, going to
the showcase and replacing the revolver. Sitting on a barrel he pulled on and
fastened the shoe he had been holding in his hand. He was waiting for some
word of understanding from his father but when Ebenezer spoke his words only
served to reawaken the wrath in the son and the young man ran out of the store
without replying. Scratching his grey beard with his long dirty fingers, the
merchant looked at his son with the same wavering uncertain stare with which
he had confronted the traveling man. "I'll be starched," he said softly. "Well,
well, I'll be washed and ironed and starched!"%
Elmer Cowley went out of Winesburg and along a country road that
paralleled the railroad track. He did not know where he was going or what he
was going to do. In the shelter of a deep cut where the road, after turning
sharply to the right, dipped under the tracks he stopped and the passion that had
been the cause of his outburst in the store began to again find expression. "I will
not be queer--one to be looked at and listened to," he declared aloud. "I'll be like
other people. I'll show that George Willard. He'll find out. I'll show him!"
The distraught young man stood in the middle of the road and glared back at
the town. He did not know the reporter George Willard and had no special
feeling concerning the tall boy who ran about town gathering the town news.
The reporter had merely come, by his presence in the office and in the printshop
of the Winesburg Eagle, to stand for something in the young merchant's mind.
He thought the boy who passed and repassed Cowley & Son's store and who
stopped to talk to people in the street must be thinking of him and perhaps
laughing at him. George Willard, he felt, belonged to the town, typified the
town, represented in his person the spirit of the town. Elmer Cowley could not
have believed that George Willard had also his days of unhappiness, that vague
hungers and secret unnamable desires visited also his mind. Did he not
represent public opinion and had not the public opinion of Winesburg
condemned the Cowleys to queerness? Did he not walk whistling and laughing

Thesaurus
aloud: (adv) loud, out loud, strong,
congregation, assemblage, crowd,
out, audibly, hard, forte.
compilation, meeting, crew, gather,
ANTONYMS: (adv) softly, inaudibly, throng. ANTONYMS: (n)
quietly.
dismantling, scattering.
distraught: (adj) distressed, crazy,
queerness: (n) peculiarity, crotchet,
demented, frantic, upset, wild,
quirkiness, quirk, eccentricity,
frenzied, mad, anxious, frenetic,
oddness, unfamiliarity, strangeness,
delirious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
singularity, mannerism, hook.
reawaken: (v) revive, rejuvenate,
composed, calm, tranquil, relaxed,
serene, untroubled, sane, content.
reproduce, arouse, restart, stimulate,
gathering: (n) collection,
breathe life into, awaken, bring back,
reanimate, revitalize. ANTONYM: (v)
accumulation, concourse,

calm.
replying: (adj) respondent, responsive.
unhappiness: (n) sadness, misery,
melancholy, distress, grief, regret,
infelicity, woe, sorrowfulness,
depression, displeasure.
ANTONYMS: (n) cheerfulness,
pleasure, joy, elation, contentment,
satisfaction, cheer.
unnamable: (adj) nameless,
indescribable, anonymous,
inexpressible.

Sherwood Anderson

173

through Main Street? Might not one by striking his person strike also the greater
enemy--the thing that smiled and went its own way--the judgment of
Winesburg?
Elmer Cowley was extraordinarily tall and his arms were long and powerful.
His hair, his eyebrows, and the downy beard that had begun to grow upon his
chin, were pale almost to whiteness. His teeth protruded from between his lips
and his eyes were blue with the colorless blueness of the marbles called "aggies"
that the boys of Winesburg carried in their pockets. Elmer had lived in
Winesburg for a year and had made no friends. He was, he felt, one condemned
to go through life without friends and he hated the thought.%
Sullenly the tall young man tramped along the road with his hands stuffed
into his trouser pockets. The day was cold with a raw wind, but presently the
sun began to shine and the road became soft and muddy. The tops of the ridges
of frozen mud that formed the road began to melt and the mud clung to Elmer's
shoes. His feet became cold. When he had gone several miles he turned off the
road, crossed a field and entered a wood. In the wood he gathered sticks to build
a fire, by which he sat trying to warm himself, miserable in body and in mind.
For two hours he sat on the log by the fire and then, arising and creeping
cautiously through a mass of underbrush, he went to a fence and looked across
fields to a small farmhouse surrounded by low sheds. A smile came to his lips
and he began making motions with his long arms to a man who was husking
corn in one of the fields.
In his hour of misery the young merchant had returned to the farm where he
had lived through boyhood and where there was another human being to whom
he felt he could explain himself. The man on the farm was a half-witted old
fellow named Mook. He had once been employed by Ebenezer Cowley and had
stayed on the farm when it was sold. The old man lived in one of the unpainted
sheds back of the farmhouse and puttered about all day in the fields.
Mook the half-wit lived happily. With childlike faith he believed in the
intelligence of the animals that lived in the sheds with him, and when he was
lonely held long conversations with the cows, the pigs, and even with the

Thesaurus
blueness: (n) blue, aqua, aquamarine,
navy, obscenity, turquoise, blueing,
Amytal, blue air, blue angel; (adj)
bluishness.
downy: (adj) flossy, fuzzy, soft, hairy,
fleecy, silken, nappy, furry,
downlike; (v) flocculent, flaccid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) coarse, hard.
extraordinarily: (adv) singularly,
rarely, unusually, exceptionally,
extremely, peculiarly, remarkably,
phenomenally, uncommonly,

(adj, v) run, liquefy; (n, v) thaw.
exceedingly, especially.
ANTONYMS: (adv) slightly,
ANTONYMS: (v) freeze, solidify,
unremarkably, ordinarily.
cool, set.
half-wit: (n) dunce.
muddy: (adj) turbid, filthy, boggy,
husking: (n) stripping, baring,
cloudy, dark, unclean, dingy, grimy,
denudation, disforestation, remotion, miry; (adj, v) foul, sloppy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, dry; (v)
removal, cornhusking, find,
discovery, uncovering, deforestation. clarify, cleanse.
marbles: (n) wit, sanity, mind, reason, whiteness: (n) paleness, ivory, chalk,
jackstones, jacks, cods.
pearl, bone, bleach, alabaster,
melt: (v) dissolve, deliquesce, vanish,
frostiness, hoariness, pallor,
innocence. ANTONYM: (n) black.
coalesce, relent, meld, fade, defrost;

174

Winesburg, Ohio

chickens that ran about the barnyard. He it was who had put the expression
regarding being "laundered" into the mouth of his former employer. When
excited or surprised by anything he smiled vaguely and muttered: "I'll be washed
and ironed. Well, well, I'll be washed and ironed and starched."
When the half-witted old man left his husking of corn and came into the
wood to meet Elmer Cowley, he was neither surprised nor especially interested
in the sudden appearance of the young man. His feet also were cold and he sat
on the log by the fire, grateful for the warmth and apparently indifferent to what
Elmer had to say.%
Elmer talked earnestly and with great freedom, walking up and down and
waving his arms about. "You don't understand what's the matter with me so of
course you don't care," he declared. "With me it's different. Look how it has
always been with me. Father is queer and mother was queer, too. Even the
clothes mother used to wear were not like other people's clothes, and look at that
coat in which father goes about there in town, thinking he's dressed up, too.
Why don't he get a new one? It wouldn't cost much. I'll tell you why. Father
doesn't know and when mother was alive she didn't know either. Mabel is
different. She knows but she won't say anything. I will, though. I'm not going
to be stared at any longer. Why look here, Mook, father doesn't know that his
store there in town is just a queer jumble, that he'll never sell the stuff he buys.
He knows nothing about it. Sometimes he's a little worried that trade doesn't
come and then he goes and buys something else. In the evenings he sits by the
fire upstairs and says trade will come after a while. He isn't worried. He's queer.
He doesn't know enough to be worried."
The excited young man became more excited. "He don't know but I know,"
he shouted, stopping to gaze down into the dumb, unresponsive face of the halfwit. "I know too well. I can't stand it. When we lived out here it was different. I
worked and at night I went to bed and slept. I wasn't always seeing people and
thinking as I am now. In the evening, there in town, I go to the post office or to
the depot to see the train come in, and no one says anything to me. Everyone

Thesaurus
depot: (n) store, depository, arsenal,
sits: (n) sat.
cold, cool, callous, fair, insensible,
warehouse, station, storehouse,
unconcerned, careless, dull, average. unresponsive: (adj) cold, apathetic,
ANTONYMS: (adj) enthusiastic,
godown, storeroom, stop, cache,
insensitive, unaffected, cool, dull,
entrepot.
fervent, keen, obsessive, energetic,
unreactive, chill, dead, unemotional,
dumb: (adj) mute, speechless, dense,
undemonstrative. ANTONYMS: (adj)
eager, involved, surprised,
dim, silent, dull, slow, stupid,
exceptional, concerned, shocked.
enthusiastic, sympathetic, spirited,
jumble: (n, v) clutter, disorder, mix
inarticulate, foolish, obtuse.
alive, sensitive, expressive,
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright,
up, mix; (v) confuse, embroil, disturb, concerned, emotional.
tumble; (n) hodgepodge, confusion; waving: (adj) flying, aflare, fluttering,
communicative, intelligent,
(adj, n) disarray. ANTONYMS: (n)
loquacious, sharp, smart, speaking,
flaring, flared, curly, burning,
neatness; (v) organize, separate, tidy, blazing, billowy, palpitating; (n)
brilliant, talkative.
indifferent: (adj) apathetic, impassive, disentangle.
wafture.

Sherwood Anderson

175

stands around and laughs and they talk but they say nothing to me. Then I feel
so queer that I can't talk either. I go away. I don't say anything. I can't."%
The fury of the young man became uncontrollable. "I won't stand it," he
yelled, looking up at the bare branches of the trees. "I'm not made to stand it."
Maddened by the dull face of the man on the log by the fire, Elmer turned
and glared at him as he had glared back along the road at the town of
Winesburg. "Go on back to work," he screamed. "What good does it do me to
talk to you?" A thought came to him and his voice dropped. "I'm a coward too,
eh?" he muttered. "Do you know why I came clear out here afoot? I had to tell
someone and you were the only one I could tell. I hunted out another queer one,
you see. I ran away, that's what I did. I couldn't stand up to someone like that
George Willard. I had to come to you. I ought to tell him and I will."
Again his voice arose to a shout and his arms flew about. "I will tell him. I
won't be queer. I don't care what they think. I won't stand it."
Elmer Cowley ran out of the woods leaving the half-wit sitting on the log
before the fire. Presently the old man arose and climbing over the fence went
back to his work in the corn. "I'll be washed and ironed and starched," he
declared. "Well, well, I'll be washed and ironed." Mook was interested. He went
along a lane to a field where two cows stood nibbling at a straw stack. "Elmer
was here," he said to the cows. "Elmer is crazy. You better get behind the stack
where he don't see you. He'll hurt someone yet, Elmer will."
At eight o'clock that evening Elmer Cowley put his head in at the front door
of the office of the Winesburg Eagle where George Willard sat writing. His cap
was pulled down over his eyes and a sullen determined look was on his face.
"You come on outside with me," he said, stepping in and closing the door. He
kept his hand on the knob as though prepared to resist anyone else coming in.
"You just come along outside. I want to see you."
George Willard and Elmer Cowley walked through the main street of
Winesburg. The night was cold and George Willard had on a new overcoat and
looked very spruce and dressed up. He thrust his hands into the overcoat

Thesaurus
branches: (n) branch, brushwood.
coward: (n) cur, pantywaist, sneak,
dastard, milksop, weakling,
milquetoast; (adj) gutless,
chickenhearted, pusillanimous,
chicken-hearted. ANTONYMS: (n)
daredevil, stalwart; (adj) brave.
fury: (n) anger, exasperation, force,
resentment, delirium, furor, frenzy,
indignation, craze; (adj, n) wrath,
ferocity. ANTONYMS: (n)
composure, calmness, mildness,

calm, pleasure, serenity.
hunted: (adj) coursed, afraid, wanted,
required, sought, sought after; (n)
victim.
laughs: (n) diversion, comedy,
amusement, sport, recreation,
merriment, entertainment, levity.
nibbling: (n) rate cutting, feeding,
eating.
spruce: (adj) dapper, neat, natty,
jaunty, trim, rakish, stylish, dashing,
snappy; (adj, v) tidy; (adj, n) bright.

ANTONYMS: (adj) untidy, messy,
unkempt.
stack: (n, v) pile, heap, mound, load,
lot, store; (n) accumulation, rick,
mass, bunch; (v) pack. ANTONYMS:
(v) unstack, empty, unload.
straw: (n) rush, stalk, drinking straw,
chaff, fig, bran; (adj) feather, cobweb,
mote, gossamer; (v) strew.
washed: (adj) wash, cleaner, colored,
refined, wet, watery.
yelled: (adj) loud.

176

Winesburg, Ohio

pockets and looked inquiringly at his companion. He had long been wanting to
make friends with the young merchant and find out what was in his mind. Now
he thought he saw a chance and was delighted. "I wonder what he's up to?
Perhaps he thinks he has a piece of news for the paper. It can't be a fire because I
haven't heard the fire bell and there isn't anyone running," he thought.%
In the main street of Winesburg, on the cold November evening, but few
citizens appeared and these hurried along bent on getting to the stove at the back
of some store. The windows of the stores were frosted and the wind rattled the
tin sign that hung over the entrance to the stairway leading to Doctor Welling's
office. Before Hern's Grocery a basket of apples and a rack filled with new
brooms stood on the sidewalk. Elmer Cowley stopped and stood facing George
Willard. He tried to talk and his arms began to pump up and down. His face
worked spasmodically. He seemed about to shout. "Oh, you go on back," he
cried. "Don't stay out here with me. I ain't got anything to tell you. I don't want
to see you at all."
For three hours the distracted young merchant wandered through the
resident streets of Winesburg blind with anger, brought on by his failure to
declare his determination not to be queer. Bitterly the sense of defeat settled
upon him and he wanted to weep. After the hours of futile sputtering at
nothingness that had occupied the afternoon and his failure in the presence of
the young reporter, he thought he could see no hope of a future for himself.
And then a new idea dawned for him. In the darkness that surrounded him
he began to see a light. Going to the now darkened store, where Cowley & Son
had for over a year waited vainly for trade to come, he crept stealthily in and felt
about in a barrel that stood by the stove at the rear. In the barrel beneath
shavings lay a tin box containing Cowley & Son's cash. Every evening Ebenezer
Cowley put the box in the barrel when he closed the store and went upstairs to
bed. "They wouldn't never think of a careless place like that," he told himself,
thinking of robbers.
Elmer took twenty dollars, two ten-dollar bills, from the little roll containing
perhaps four hundred dollars, the cash left from the sale of the farm. Then

Thesaurus
containing: (adj) including,
rattled: (adj) hot and bothered,
stealthily: (adv) furtively, sneakily,
comprehensive.
perturbed, upset, unsettled, puzzled, surreptitiously, covertly,
inquiringly: (adv) enquiringly,
disconcerted, discomposed,
clandestinely, underhandly,
inquisitively, nosily, curiously,
bewildered, beside oneself, abashed,
underhandedly, in secret, privately,
addled. ANTONYM: (adj) calm.
sneakingly; (adj, adv) noiselessly.
pryingly, interestedly, searchingly,
shavings: (n) residue, pencil shavings, ANTONYM: (adv) brazenly.
inquiring, quizzically, intrusively.
nothingness: (n) nothing, void,
vainly: (adv) uselessly, futilely,
chips, trash.
spasmodically: (adv) convulsively,
nullity, nihility, emptiness,
fruitlessly, conceitedly, in vain,
insignificance, nonentity, blankness,
fitfully, intermittently, irregularly,
worthlessly, abortively, bootlessly,
vacuum, cipher; (adj) nonbeing.
arrogantly, unproductively; (adj, adv)
desultorily, brokenly, frequently,
ANTONYMS: (n) being, importance, spastically, startingly. ANTONYM:
foolishly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
(adv) recurrently.
significance.
fruitfully, successfully, effectively.

Sherwood Anderson

177

replacing the box beneath the shavings he went quietly out at the front door and
walked again in the streets.%
The idea that he thought might put an end to all of his unhappiness was very
simple. "I will get out of here, run away from home," he told himself. He knew
that a local freight train passed through Winesburg at midnight and went on to
Cleveland, where it arrived at dawn. He would steal a ride on the local and
when he got to Cleveland would lose himself in the crowds there. He would get
work in some shop and become friends with the other workmen and would be
indistinguishable. Then he could talk and laugh. He would no longer be queer
and would make friends. Life would begin to have warmth and meaning for
him as it had for others.
The tall awkward young man, striding through the streets, laughed at himself
because he had been angry and had been half afraid of George Willard. He
decided he would have his talk with the young reporter before he left town, that
he would tell him about things, perhaps challenge him, challenge all of
Winesburg through him.
Aglow with new confidence Elmer went to the office of the New Willard
House and pounded on the door. A sleep-eyed boy slept on a cot in the office.
He received no salary but was fed at the hotel table and bore with pride the title
of "night clerk." Before the boy Elmer was bold, insistent. "You 'wake him up,"
he commanded. "You tell him to come down by the depot. I got to see him and
I'm going away on the local. Tell him to dress and come on down. I ain't got
much time."
The midnight local had finished its work in Winesburg and the trainsmen
were coupling cars, swinging lanterns and preparing to resume their flight east.
George Willard, rubbing his eyes and again wearing the new overcoat, ran down
to the station platform afire with curiosity. "Well, here I am. What do you want?
You've got something to tell me, eh?" he said.
Elmer tried to explain. He wet his lips with his tongue and looked at the
train that had begun to groan and get under way. "Well, you see," he began, and

Thesaurus
aglow: (adj) glowing, radiant, brilliant, marvel; (adj, n) prodigy.
different, clear, discernible, distinct,
ANTONYMS: (n) emotionlessness,
ablaze, bright, lambent, lucent,
visible, certain.
luminous, light; (v) alight.
midnight: (n) dark, noon, hour.
indifference, disinterest.
arrived: (adv) here, at home; (adj)
freight: (n) cargo, lading, burden,
resume: (v) restart, regain, summarize,
accepted.
portage, consignment, freightage,
continue, revert, adopt, recapitulate;
coupling: (n) coupler, clutch,
carriage; (n, v) load, shipment; (v)
(n, v) outline; (n) digest, synopsis,
summary. ANTONYMS: (v)
connection, yoke, conjugation, link,
carry, convey.
indistinguishable: (adj) identical,
combination, junction, mating,
abandon, suspend, die, discontinue,
pairing, marriage.
alike, imperceptible, obscure,
expand.
curiosity: (n) curiousness, rarity,
undistinguishable, same, equivalent, steal: (v) purloin, abstract, sneak, filch,
interest, curio, oddity, prying,
equal, twin, like, indiscernible.
pinch, creep, misappropriate, rob,
ANTONYMS: (adj) distinguishable,
pilfer; (n) bargain; (n, v) snatch.
nosiness, peculiarity, novelty,

178

Winesburg, Ohio

then lost control of his tongue. "I'll be washed and ironed. I'll be washed and
ironed and starched," he muttered half incoherently.%
Elmer Cowley danced with fury beside the groaning train in the darkness on
the station platform. Lights leaped into the air and bobbed up and down before
his eyes. Taking the two ten-dollar bills from his pocket he thrust them into
George Willard's hand. "Take them," he cried. "I don't want them. Give them to
father. I stole them." With a snarl of rage he turned and his long arms began to
flay the air. Like one struggling for release from hands that held him he struck
out, hitting George Willard blow after blow on the breast, the neck, the mouth.
The young reporter rolled over on the platform half unconscious, stunned by the
terrific force of the blows. Springing aboard the passing train and running over
the tops of cars, Elmer sprang down to a flat car and lying on his face looked
back, trying to see the fallen man in the darkness. Pride surged up in him. "I
showed him," he cried. "I guess I showed him. I ain't so queer. I guess I showed
him I ain't so queer."

Thesaurus
cars: (n) train.
snap; (v) entangle; (n) kink, maze.
flay: (v) excoriate, peel, skin,
ANTONYMS: (v) facilitate, undo.
decorticate, pare, lash, flog, castigate, springing: (v) jumping, climbing,
scalp, shell, batter.
bounding, furious, conspicuous,
groaning: (adj) moaning, groaningly,
prominent, ascending, projecting
outwardly; (n) growth, suspension,
inarticulate.
hitting: (n) striking, collision, header,
emanation.
grounder, smash, beating, thrashing, stole: (n) wrap, stolen, scarf, stolon,
contact, contusion, drumming; (adj)
stealing, robe, alb, tunicle, surplice,
convincing. ANTONYM: (n) victory. alba, cassock.
snarl: (n, v) tangle, growl, knot,
stunned: (adj) dumbfounded,
muddle, yap, howl, bark; (adj, v)
astonished, astounded, amazed,

flabbergasted, dazed, stupefied,
staggered, bewildered, confused; (adj,
v) astonied. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indifferent, unimpressed.
terrific: (adj) tremendous, fantastic,
great, wonderful, dreadful,
formidable, splendid, brilliant,
marvellous; (adj, v) terrible, shocking.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tiny, abysmal,
bad, calm, moderate, nasty, dreadful,
insignificant, ordinary,
unremarkable.

Sherwood Anderson

179

THE UNTOLD LIE

Ray Pearson and Hal Winters were farm hands employed on a farm three
miles north of Winesburg. On Saturday afternoons they came into town and
wandered about through the streets with other fellows from the country.%
Ray was a quiet, rather nervous man of perhaps fifty with a brown beard and
shoulders rounded by too much and too hard labor. In his nature he was as
unlike Hal Winters as two men can be unlike.
Ray was an altogether serious man and had a little sharp-featured wife who
had also a sharp voice. The two, with half a dozen thin-legged children, lived in
a tumble-down frame house beside a creek at the back end of the Wills farm
where Ray was employed.
Hal Winters, his fellow employee, was a young fellow. He was not of the
Ned Winters family, who were very respectable people in Winesburg, but was
one of the three sons of the old man called Windpeter Winters who had a
sawmill near Unionville, six miles away, and who was looked upon by everyone
in Winesburg as a confirmed old reprobate.
People from the part of Northern Ohio in which Winesburg lies will
remember old Windpeter by his unusual and tragic death. He got drunk one
evening in town and started to drive home to Unionville along the railroad
tracks. Henry Brattenburg, the butcher, who lived out that way, stopped him at

Thesaurus
drunk: (adj) tipsy, wet, tight, blotto,
drunken, inebriated; (adj, n) inebriate;
(n) boozer, dipsomaniac, drunkard,
drinker. ANTONYMS: (adj) straight,
clearheaded; (n) teetotaler.
reprobate: (adj, n) profligate,
miscreant; (adj) depraved, immoral,
corrupt, dissolute; (v) censure,
condemn, reproach; (adj, v)
perverted; (n) scoundrel.
respectable: (adj) considerable,
decorous, fair, estimable, decent,

honorable, good, proper, creditable,
factory, sawing machine,
passable, honest. ANTONYMS: (adj)
manufacturing plant, power saw.
tragic: (adj) calamitous, disastrous,
bad, small, sordid, scruffy,
inadequate, unrespectable, paltry,
dreadful, grievous, catastrophic,
discourteous, inappropriate, sinful,
unlucky, unfortunate, woeful,
unacceptable.
tragical, comic, heartbreaking.
rounded: (adj) round, curved, circular, ANTONYMS: (adj) humorous,
orbicular, full, globular, rotund,
heartwarming, blessed,
spherical, blunt, fat, obtuse.
advantageous, lucky, fortunate,
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight, sharp,
joyous.
tumble-down: (adj) run-down, shaky,
bony, concave, angular, thin.
sawmill: (n) saw, mill, manufactory,
rickety, decrepit.

180

Winesburg, Ohio

the edge of the town and told him he was sure to meet the down train but
Windpeter slashed at him with his whip and drove on. When the train struck
and killed him and his two horses a farmer and his wife who were driving home
along a nearby road saw the accident. They said that old Windpeter stood up on
the seat of his wagon, raving and swearing at the onrushing locomotive, and that
he fairly screamed with delight when the team, maddened by his incessant
slashing at them, rushed straight ahead to certain death. Boys like young
George Willard and Seth Richmond will remember the incident quite vividly
because, although everyone in our town said that the old man would go straight
to hell and that the community was better off without him, they had a secret
conviction that he knew what he was doing and admired his foolish courage.
Most boys have seasons of wishing they could die gloriously instead of just
being grocery clerks and going on with their humdrum lives.%
But this is not the story of Windpeter Winters nor yet of his son Hal who
worked on the Wills farm with Ray Pearson. It is Ray's story. It will, however,
be necessary to talk a little of young Hal so that you will get into the spirit of it.
Hal was a bad one. Everyone said that. There were three of the Winters boys
in that family, John, Hal, and Edward, all broad-shouldered big fellows like old
Windpeter himself and all fighters and woman-chasers and generally all-around
bad ones.
Hal was the worst of the lot and always up to some devilment. He once stole
a load of boards from his father's mill and sold them in Winesburg. With the
money he bought himself a suit of cheap, flashy clothes. Then he got drunk and
when his father came raving into town to find him, they met and fought with
their fists on Main Street and were arrested and put into jail together.
Hal went to work on the Wills farm because there was a country school
teacher out that way who had taken his fancy. He was only twenty-two then but
had already been in two or three of what were spoken of in Winesburg as
"women scrapes." Everyone who heard of his infatuation for the school teacher
was sure it would turn out badly. "He'll only get her into trouble, you'll see,"
was the word that went around.

Thesaurus
all-around: (adj) general, versatile,
understated, dull, modest,
stunning, romantic, exotic,
finished, global, inclusive, sweeping, inconspicuous, muted.
extraordinary, interesting.
gloriously: (adv) brilliantly, grandly,
infatuation: (adj) devotion,
accommodating.
devilment: (n) deviltry, devilry,
magnificently, illustriously,
fascination, enchantment, gross
rascality, roguery, blaze,
marvelously, superbly, wonderfully, credulity; (adj, n) passion, fervor,
fanaticism; (n) crush, idolatry, love,
misbehavior, misbehaviour, misdeed, gorgeously, radiantly, greatly,
hobby. ANTONYM: (n) indifference.
balefulness, badness, shenanigan.
renownedly.
flashy: (adj) flamboyant, cheap, loud, humdrum: (adj, v) dull, monotonous, killed: (n) casualty; (adj) fallen.
uninteresting, tedious, stupid; (adj)
slashing: (adj) severe, vehement,
gaudy, brassy, glaring, flash,
tasteless, tawdry, garish; (adj, v)
banal, commonplace, flat, prosaic,
violent, superb, tremendous, racy,
showy. ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteful,
dreary, everyday. ANTONYMS: (adj) spirited, stunning, bold, lively; (n)
restrained, drab, unexceptional,
exciting, surprising, remarkable,
ground clearance.

Sherwood Anderson

181

And so these two men, Ray and Hal, were at work in a field on a day in the
late October. They were husking corn and occasionally something was said and
they laughed. Then came silence. Ray, who was the more sensitive and always
minded things more, had chapped hands and they hurt. He put them into his
coat pockets and looked away across the fields. He was in a sad, distracted mood
and was affected by the beauty of the country. If you knew the Winesburg
country in the fall and how the low hills are all splashed with yellows and reds
you would understand his feeling. He began to think of the time, long ago when
he was a young fellow living with his father, then a baker in Winesburg, and
how on such days he had wandered away into the woods to gather nuts, hunt
rabbits, or just to loaf about and smoke his pipe. His marriage had come about
through one of his days of wandering. He had induced a girl who waited on
trade in his father's shop to go with him and something had happened. He was
thinking of that afternoon and how it had affected his whole life when a spirit of
protest awoke in him. He had forgotten about Hal and muttered words.
"Tricked by Gad, that's what I was, tricked by life and made a fool of," he said in
a low voice.%
As though understanding his thoughts, Hal Winters spoke up. "Well, has it
been worth while? What about it, eh? What about marriage and all that?" he
asked and then laughed. Hal tried to keep on laughing but he too was in an
earnest mood. He began to talk earnestly. "Has a fellow got to do it?" he asked.
"Has he got to be harnessed up and driven through life like a horse?"
Hal didn't wait for an answer but sprang to his feet and began to walk back
and forth between the corn shocks. He was getting more and more excited.
Bending down suddenly he picked up an ear of the yellow corn and threw it at
the fence. "I've got Nell Gunther in trouble," he said. "I'm telling you, but you
keep your mouth shut."
Ray Pearson arose and stood staring. He was almost a foot shorter than Hal,
and when the younger man came and put his two hands on the older man's
shoulders they made a picture. There they stood in the big empty field with the
quiet corn shocks standing in rows behind them and the red and yellow hills in

Thesaurus
bending: (n) bow, bend, deflection,
flippant, halfhearted, uncertain,
deflexion, refraction, flexure, crook;
insincere, unimportant, nonchalant,
(adj) flexible, supple, winding, pliant. lethargic, apathetic, unenthusiastic,
ANTONYM: (adj) stiff.
indifferent, frivolous.
chapped: (adj) cracked, balmy,
fence: (n, v) hedge, wall, bar; (n)
barrier, hurdle, pale, boundary; (v)
unsmooth, barmy, bats, batty,
bonkers, buggy, roughened, coarse,
quibble, enclose, parry, contend.
ANTONYMS: (v) challenge, face,
alligatored.
earnest: (adj, v) devout; (adj) eager,
confront.
solemn, heartfelt, diligent, studious, gather: (n, v) fold, tuck; (v) convene,
sincere, intense, ardent, staid; (n)
garner, congregate, compile,
guarantee. ANTONYMS: (adj)
assemble, accumulate, collect, meet,

flock. ANTONYMS: (v) disperse,
scatter, spread, distribute, disband,
decrease, part, smooth.
loaf: (adj, v) lounge; (v) hang around,
loiter, loll, linger, laze, mess about, be
idle; (adj, n) block; (adj) lump, poke.
ANTONYM: (v) work.
wandering: (adj) itinerant, nomadic,
erratic, rambling, errant, migratory;
(adj, v) stray, vagrant, vagabond,
unsettled; (n) peregrination.
ANTONYM: (adj) resident.

182

Winesburg, Ohio

the distance, and from being just two indifferent workmen they had become all
alive to each other. Hal sensed it and because that was his way he laughed.
"Well, old daddy," he said awkwardly, "come on, advise me. I've got Nell in
trouble. Perhaps you've been in the same fix yourself. I know what everyone
would say is the right thing to do, but what do you say? Shall I marry and settle
down? Shall I put myself into the harness to be worn out like an old horse? You
know me, Ray. There can't anyone break me but I can break myself. Shall I do it
or shall I tell Nell to go to the devil? Come on, you tell me. Whatever you say,
Ray, I'll do."
Ray couldn't answer. He shook Hal's hands loose and turning walked
straight away toward the barn. He was a sensitive man and there were tears in
his eyes. He knew there was only one thing to say to Hal Winters, son of old
Windpeter Winters, only one thing that all his own training and all the beliefs of
the people he knew would approve, but for his life he couldn't say what he knew
he should say.%
At half-past four that afternoon Ray was puttering about the barnyard when
his wife came up the lane along the creek and called him. After the talk with Hal
he hadn't returned to the cornfield but worked about the barn. He had already
done the evening chores and had seen Hal, dressed and ready for a roistering
night in town, come out of the farmhouse and go into the road. Along the path
to his own house he trudged behind his wife, looking at the ground and
thinking. He couldn't make out what was wrong. Every time he raised his eyes
and saw the beauty of the country in the failing light he wanted to do something
he had never done before, shout or scream or hit his wife with his fists or
something equally unexpected and terrifying. Along the path he went scratching
his head and trying to make it out. He looked hard at his wife's back but she
seemed all right.
She only wanted him to go into town for groceries and as soon as she had
told him what she wanted began to scold. "You're always puttering," she said.
"Now I want you to hustle. There isn't anything in the house for supper and
you've got to get to town and back in a hurry."

Thesaurus
advise: (v) recommend, propose,
warn, inform, acquaint, suggest,
notify, announce, tell, offer,
forewarn. ANTONYMS: (v) betray,
deceive, delude, fool, trick.
beliefs: (n) philosophy, persuasion,
creed, thinking, values, principles,
way of life, morals, viewpoint,
attitude, ideas.
cornfield: (n) corn field.
devil: (n) fiend, demon, ghost,
monster, Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub,

deuce, daemon; (v) torment, rag.
reception, mealtime, siesta, social
ANTONYM: (n) angel.
affair; (v) dejeuner, bever, whet.
hustle: (n, v) bustle, hurry, elbow,
toward: (prep) to, towards,
flurry; (v) hasten, shove; (n) haste,
approaching, headed for, just before,
of, in the direction of; (adv, prep) on;
ado, con, commotion, cheat.
ANTONYMS: (n) slowness, lethargy; (adv) about, around, by.
(v) dawdle, delay, crawl.
ANTONYMS: (prep) from, away.
roistering: (adj) swaggering.
worn: (adj) haggard, tired, tattered,
sensed: (adj) felt.
threadbare, ragged, drawn, jaded,
shall: (n) must, necessity; (v) require,
fatigued, exhausted, faded, wasted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) new, smart,
bequeath, leave.
supper: (n) meal, tea, lunch, repast,
unused, unworn, pristine, original.

Sherwood Anderson

183

Ray went into his own house and took an overcoat from a hook back of the
door. It was torn about the pockets and the collar was shiny. His wife went into
the bedroom and presently came out with a soiled cloth in one hand and three
silver dollars in the other. Somewhere in the house a child wept bitterly and a
dog that had been sleeping by the stove arose and yawned. Again the wife
scolded. "The children will cry and cry. Why are you always puttering?" she
asked.%
Ray went out of the house and climbed the fence into a field. It was just
growing dark and the scene that lay before him was lovely. All the low hills
were washed with color and even the little clusters of bushes in the corners of the
fences were alive with beauty. The whole world seemed to Ray Pearson to have
become alive with something just as he and Hal had suddenly become alive
when they stood in the corn field stating into each other's eyes.
The beauty of the country about Winesburg was too much for Ray on that fall
evening. That is all there was to it. He could not stand it. Of a sudden he forgot
all about being a quiet old farm hand and throwing off the torn overcoat began
to run across the field. As he ran he shouted a protest against his life, against all
life, against everything that makes life ugly. "There was no promise made," he
cried into the empty spaces that lay about him. "I didn't promise my Minnie
anything and Hal hasn't made any promise to Nell. I know he hasn't. She went
into the woods with him because she wanted to go. What he wanted she wanted.
Why should I pay? Why should Hal pay? Why should anyone pay? I don't want
Hal to become old and worn out. I'll tell him. I won't let it go on. I'll catch Hal
before he gets to town and I'll tell him."
Ray ran clumsily and once he stumbled and fell down. "I must catch Hal and
tell him," he kept thinking, and although his breath came in gasps he kept
running harder and harder. As he ran he thought of things that hadn't come into
his mind for years--how at the time he married he had planned to go west to his
uncle in Portland, Oregon--how he hadn't wanted to be a farm hand, but had
thought when he got out West he would go to sea and be a sailor or get a job on
a ranch and ride a horse into Western towns, shouting and laughing and waking

Thesaurus
bitterly: (adv) bitingly, sourly, fiercely,
cruelly, caustically, harshly,
poignantly, piercingly, cuttingly,
rancorously, acrimoniously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) harmoniously,
sweetly, warmly, gladly, agreeably,
kindly, friendly.
clumsily: (adv) awkwardly, ineptly,
crudely, ungracefully, maladroitly,
gawkily, inelegantly, gauchely,
inexpertly, unwieldily, roughly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) skillfully,

cleverly, coherently, deftly, elegantly,
gracefully, carefully, expertly,
competently, tactfully, urbanely.
gets: (n) getting.
ranch: (n) estate, property, spread,
cattle ranch, cattle farm, Arado,
merestead, plantation, paste; (v) farm,
raunch.
sailor: (n) seaman, seafarer, tar,
bluejacket, gob, boatman, navigator,
navy man, lascar, Panama, leghorn.
shiny: (adj, v) lustrous; (adj) glossy,

smooth, sleek, slick, brilliant,
glistening, clear, shining, sheeny,
polished. ANTONYMS: (adj) rough,
unglazed, matt, coarse.
sleeping: (adj) asleep, inactive, latent,
sleepy, vegetive, vegetative; (n)
dormancy, noctambulism,
quiescence, quiescency, short sleep.
ANTONYMS: (adj) active; (n)
waking.
spaces: (n) seats, seating.
stating: (n) reference.

184

Winesburg, Ohio

the people in the houses with his wild cries. Then as he ran he remembered his
children and in fancy felt their hands clutching at him. All of his thoughts of
himself were involved with the thoughts of Hal and he thought the children
were clutching at the younger man also. "They are the accidents of life, Hal," he
cried. "They are not mine or yours. I had nothing to do with them."
Darkness began to spread over the fields as Ray Pearson ran on and on. His
breath came in little sobs. When he came to the fence at the edge of the road and
confronted Hal Winters, all dressed up and smoking a pipe as he walked
jauntily along, he could not have told what he thought or what he wanted.%
Ray Pearson lost his nerve and this is really the end of the story of what
happened to him. It was almost dark when he got to the fence and he put his
hands on the top bar and stood staring. Hal Winters jumped a ditch and coming
up close to Ray put his hands into his pockets and laughed. He seemed to have
lost his own sense of what had happened in the corn field and when he put up a
strong hand and took hold of the lapel of Ray's coat he shook the old man as he
might have shaken a dog that had misbehaved.
"You came to tell me, eh?" he said. "Well, never mind telling me anything.
I'm not a coward and I've already made up my mind." He laughed again and
jumped back across the ditch. "Nell ain't no fool," he said. "She didn't ask me to
marry her. I want to marry her. I want to settle down and have kids."
Ray Pearson also laughed. He felt like laughing at himself and all the world.
As the form of Hal Winters disappeared in the dusk that lay over the road
that led to Winesburg, he turned and walked slowly back across the fields to
where he had left his torn overcoat. As he went some memory of pleasant
evenings spent with the thin-legged children in the tumble-down house by the
creek must have come into his mind, for he muttered words. "It's just as well.
Whatever I told him would have been a lie," he said softly, and then his form also
disappeared into the darkness of the fields.

Thesaurus
ditch: (n) canal, channel, dike; (v)
desert, dump, chuck, abandon,
discard, cut, leave; (n, v) moat.
ANTONYMS: (v) accept, take, adopt,
maintain; (n) ridge.
jauntily: (adv) cheerfully, airily,
brightly, sprucely, smartly, merrily,
dashingly, nattily, buoyantly,
breezily, lightly.
lapel: (n) flap, collar, overlap, cuff,
neck, revers, lap, revere, rimple, rivel,
ruffle.

misbehaved: (adj) disrespectful.
nerve: (n) cheek, audacity, boldness,
brass, impudence, heart, mettle,
daring, courage, face, fortitude.
ANTONYMS: (n) cowardice,
timidity, reticence, respect.
pipe: (n) conduit, duct, flue, passage,
pipage; (n, v) channel, cry; (v) squeak,
sing, peep, screech.
shaken: (adj) jolted, agitated,
dilapidated, frayed; (v) passe, lame,
broken, threadbare, wilted, shaky,

vibrate.
smoking: (n) fume, marijuana,
respiration, roll of tobacco, sens; (v)
candent, ebullient, glowing; (adj)
smoky, rabid; (adv) on a roll.
torn: (adj, prep) lacerated, rent,
mangled; (adj) ripped, tattered,
blasted, lacerate, shabby,
goddamned, infernal, made
uninhabitable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pristine, sure, resolute, healed,
decided, mended.

Sherwood Anderson

185

DRINK

Tom Foster came to Winesburg from Cincinnati when he was still young and
could get many new impressions. His grandmother had been raised on a farm
near the town and as a young girl had gone to school there when Winesburg was
a village of twelve or fifteen houses clustered about a general store on the
Trunion Pike.%
What a life the old woman had led since she went away from the frontier
settlement and what a strong, capable little old thing she was! She had been in
Kansas, in Canada, and in New York City, traveling about with her husband, a
mechanic, before he died. Later she went to stay with her daughter, who had
also married a mechanic and lived in Covington, Kentucky, across the river from
Cincinnati.
Then began the hard years for Tom Foster's grandmother. First her son-inlaw was killed by a policeman during a strike and then Tom's mother became an
invalid and died also. The grandmother had saved a little money, but it was
swept away by the illness of the daughter and by the cost of the two funerals.
She became a half worn-out old woman worker and lived with the grandson
above a junk shop on a side street in Cincinnati. For five years she scrubbed the
floors in an office building and then got a place as dish washer in a restaurant.
Her hands were all twisted out of shape. When she took hold of a mop or a

Thesaurus
clustered: (adj) agglomerated,
agglomerative, bunched, bunchy,
gregarious, concentrated,
conglomerate, collective.
dish: (n) basin, disk, plate, meal,
platter, food, saucer, beauty, meat,
repast; (n, v) hollow.
floors: (adj) floored.
frontier: (n) border, edge, line,
boundary, limit, brink, barrier,
bound, bourn, borderland; (v)
confine.

grandmother: (n) grandma, granny,
crone, grannie, grandam, mother,
dam, grandmamma, father's mother,
paternal grandmother, hag.
impressions: (n) impersonation,
imitation.
invalid: (adj) false, illogical,
unreasonable, null, weak, void,
unhealthy, sick, flawed; (n) infirm; (v)
disable. ANTONYMS: (adj) valid,
legitimate, current, healthy, true,
watertight, correct.

junk: (adj, n) rubbish, litter; (n, v)
trash, scrap, dump; (n) stuff, waste,
heroin, horse, refuse; (v) discard.
scrubbed: (adj) deferred, clean,
cleaner.
washer: (n) washerwoman, washing
machine, seal, automatic washer,
laundryman, potcher, worker,
laundrywoman, gasket, strike, slice.
worn-out: (adj) stale, trite, threadbare,
worn, hackneyed, jaded, old, rundown, dilapidated, disabled, beat.

186

Winesburg, Ohio

broom handle the hands looked like the dried stems of an old creeping vine
clinging to a tree.%
The old woman came back to Winesburg as soon as she got the chance. One
evening as she was coming home from work she found a pocket-book containing
thirty-seven dollars, and that opened the way. The trip was a great adventure
for the boy. It was past seven o'clock at night when the grandmother came home
with the pocket-book held tightly in her old hands and she was so excited she
could scarcely speak. She insisted on leaving Cincinnati that night, saying that if
they stayed until morning the owner of the money would be sure to find them
out and make trouble. Tom, who was then sixteen years old, had to go trudging
off to the station with the old woman, bearing all of their earthly belongings
done up in a worn-out blanket and slung across his back. By his side walked the
grandmother urging him forward. Her toothless old mouth twitched nervously,
and when Tom grew weary and wanted to put the pack down at a street
crossing, she snatched it up and if he had not prevented would have slung it
across her own back. When they got into the train and it had run out of the city
she was as delighted as a girl and talked as the boy had never heard her talk
before.
All through the night as the train rattled along, the grandmother told Tom
tales of Winesburg and of how he would enjoy his life working in the fields and
shooting wild things in the woods there. She could not believe that the tiny
village of fifty years before had grown into a thriving town in her absence, and
in the morning when the train came to Winesburg did not want to get off. "It
isn't what I thought. It may be hard for you here," she said, and then the train
went on its way and the two stood confused, not knowing where to turn, in the
presence of Albert Longworth, the Winesburg baggage master.
But Tom Foster did get along all right. He was one to get along anywhere.
Mrs. White, the banker's wife, employed his grandmother to work in the kitchen
and he got a place as stable boy in the banker's new brick barn.
In Winesburg servants were hard to get. The woman who wanted help in
her housework employed a "hired girl" who insisted on sitting at the table with

Thesaurus
baggage: (n) bag, bags, trunk, pack,
adherent, devoted, adhering closely,
prospering, booming, rich, affluent,
gear, equipment, stuff, effects,
affectionate, dependent, tenacious,
growing, lush, lucky, healthy,
osculant; (n) coherence.
luxuriant. ANTONYMS: (adj)
suitcases, woman, thing.
belongings: (n) property, luggage,
earthly: (adj, n) terrestrial; (adj) carnal, declining, languishing, arid,
baggage, wealth, assets, gear,
worldly, conceivable, human, geotic, moribund, dying, disappearing,
chattels, personal property,
secular, terrene, temporal, telluric,
poor, unwell.
sublunary. ANTONYMS: (adj)
toothless: (adj) powerless,
possessions, possession, equipment.
broom: (v) sweep, to sweep, bream,
spiritual, divine, ethereal, immortal,
immobilized, edentulous, dull.
shovel, rake, screen, sieve; (n) brush,
ANTONYM: (adj) effective.
impossible, improbable,
vine: (n) grapevine, grape, creeper,
Scots heather, Calluna vulgaris,
inconceivable, celestial.
servants: (n) staff, suite.
heath.
vignette, vignoble, potato, gourd,
clinging: (adj) adhering, sticky,
thriving: (adj) successful, prosperous,
groundnut, haoma, horsebrier, hoya.

Sherwood Anderson

187

the family. Mrs. White was sick of hired girls and snatched at the chance to get
hold of the old city woman. She furnished a room for the boy Tom upstairs in
the barn. "He can mow the lawn and run errands when the horses do not need
attention," she explained to her husband.%
Tom Foster was rather small for his age and had a large head covered with
stiff black hair that stood straight up. The hair emphasized the bigness of his
head. His voice was the softest thing imaginable, and he was himself so gentle
and quiet that he slipped into the life of the town without attracting the least bit
of attention.
One could not help wondering where Tom Foster got his gentleness. In
Cincinnati he had lived in a neighborhood where gangs of tough boys prowled
through the streets, and all through his early formative years he ran about with
tough boys. For a while he was a messenger for a telegraph company and
delivered messages in a neighborhood sprinkled with houses of prostitution.
The women in the houses knew and loved Tom Foster and the tough boys in the
gangs loved him also.
He never asserted himself. That was one thing that helped him escape. In an
odd way he stood in the shadow of the wall of life, was meant to stand in the
shadow. He saw the men and women in the houses of lust, sensed their casual
and horrible love affairs, saw boys fighting and listened to their tales of thieving
and drunkenness, unmoved and strangely unaffected.
Once Tom did steal. That was while he still lived in the city. The
grandmother was ill at the time and he himself was out of work. There was
nothing to eat in the house, and so he went into a harness shop on a side street
and stole a dollar and seventy-five cents out of the cash drawer.
The harness shop was run by an old man with a long mustache. He saw the
boy lurking about and thought nothing of it. When he went out into the street to
talk to a teamster Tom opened the cash drawer and taking the money walked
away. Later he was caught and his grandmother settled the matter by offering to
come twice a week for a month and scrub the shop. The boy was ashamed, but
he was rather glad, too. "It is all right to be ashamed and makes me understand

Thesaurus
bigness: (n) bulk, size, largeness,
vastness, roominess, magnitude,
grandness, bulkiness, ampleness,
dimensions, volume.
drunkenness: (n) alcoholism,
inebriety, ebriety, drinking, drink,
intoxication, crapulence, grogginess,
insobriety, tipsiness, alcohol
addiction.
errands: (n) everyday Jobs, farm
duties.
gangs: (n) Ganges.

imaginable: (adj) conceivable,
possible, thinkable, plausible, earthly,
believable, credible, feasible,
immediate, likely, near.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unimaginable,
implausible.
teamster: (n) carter, driver, muleteer,
postilion, arriero, cartman, carrier,
porter, vetturino, truck driver, lorry
driver.
thieving: (n) larceny, stealing, robbery,
embezzlement, misapplication,

misappropriation, peculation,
defalcation, burglary, thievery; (adj)
thievish. ANTONYMS: (adj)
philanthropic, benevolent.
unmoved: (adj) apathetic, unaffected,
indifferent, unconcerned,
unimpressed, uninspired,
dispassionate, imperturbable, calm,
undisturbed, fixed. ANTONYMS:
(adj) affected, compliant, uptight,
concerned, enthusiastic, tolerant,
sensitive.

188

Winesburg, Ohio

new things," he said to the grandmother, who didn't know what the boy was
talking about but loved him so much that it didn't matter whether she
understood or not.%
For a year Tom Foster lived in the banker's stable and then lost his place
there. He didn't take very good care of the horses and he was a constant source
of irritation to the banker's wife. She told him to mow the lawn and he forgot.
Then she sent him to the store or to the post office and he did not come back but
joined a group of men and boys and spent the whole afternoon with them,
standing about, listening and occasionally, when addressed, saying a few words.
As in the city in the houses of prostitution and with the rowdy boys running
through the streets at night, so in Winesburg among its citizens he had always
the power to be a part of and yet distinctly apart from the life about him.
After Tom lost his place at Banker White's he did not live with his
grandmother, although often in the evening she came to visit him. He rented a
room at the rear of a little frame building belonging to old Rufus Whiting. The
building was on Duane Street, just off Main Street, and had been used for years
as a law office by the old man, who had become too feeble and forgetful for the
practice of his profession but did not realize his inefficiency. He liked Tom and
let him have the room for a dollar a month. In the late afternoon when the
lawyer had gone home the boy had the place to himself and spent hours lying on
the floor by the stove and thinking of things. In the evening the grandmother
came and sat in the lawyer's chair to smoke a pipe while Tom remained silent, as
he always, did in the presence of everyone.
Often the old woman talked with great vigor. Sometimes she was angry
about some happening at the banker's house and scolded away for hours. Out of
her own earnings she bought a mop and regularly scrubbed the lawyer's office.
Then when the place was spotlessly clean and smelled clean she lighted her clay
pipe and she and Tom had a smoke together. "When you get ready to die then I
will die also," she said to the boy lying on the floor beside her chair.
Tom Foster enjoyed life in Winesburg. He did odd jobs, such as cutting wood
for kitchen stoves and mowing the grass before houses. In late May and early

Thesaurus
forgetful: (adj) oblivious, inattentive,
negligent, lax, absent-minded, casual,
unmindful, neglectful, heedless,
unaware; (adj, v) remiss.
ANTONYMS: (adj) mindful,
watchful, alert, remembering,
retentive.
inefficiency: (n) futility, inability,
incompetence, inefficacy, uselessness,
fruitlessness, penetration, disability,
failure, ineptitude, impotence.
ANTONYMS: (n) efficiency,

spotlessly: (adv) faultlessly,
competence, effectiveness.
lawn: (n) grassplot, field, green, park,
blamelessly, unblemishedly,
meadow, grassplat, plot, lea, turfs,
stainlessly, purely, flawlessly,
turves, turf.
perfectly, innocently, unsulliedly,
liked: (adj) popular, loved, favorite,
clearly, undefiledly.
preferred. ANTONYM: (adj) disliked. vigor: (n, v) energy; (adj, n) intensity;
rowdy: (adj, n) boisterous; (adj)
(n) spirit, vitality, force, life, strength,
disorderly, noisy, loud, unruly,
power, might, vim, stamina.
uproarious, wild, raucous; (n) bully,
ANTONYMS: (n) weakness, apathy,
tough, hooligan. ANTONYMS: (adj)
frailty, laziness, enervation,
restrained, peaceful, quiet, tranquil,
inactivity, indifference, illness,
gentle, placid.
lifelessness, sluggishness, tardiness.

Sherwood Anderson

189

June he picked strawberries in the fields. He had time to loaf and he enjoyed
loafing. Banker White had given him a cast-off coat which was too large for him,
but his grandmother cut it down, and he had also an overcoat, got at the same
place, that was lined with fur. The fur was worn away in spots, but the coat was
warm and in the winter Tom slept in it. He thought his method of getting along
good enough and was happy and satisfied with the way fife in Winesburg had
turned out for him.%
The most absurd little things made Tom Foster happy. That, I suppose, was
why people loved him. In Hern's Grocery they would be roasting coffee on
Friday afternoon, preparatory to the Saturday rush of trade, and the rich odor
invaded lower Main Street. Tom Foster appeared and sat on a box at the rear of
the store. For an hour he did not move but sat perfectly still, filling his being
with the spicy odor that made him half drunk with happiness. "I like it," he said
gently. "It makes me think of things far away, places and things like that."
One night Tom Foster got drunk. That came about in a curious way. He
never had been drunk before, and indeed in all his fife had never taken a drink of
anything intoxicating, but he felt he needed to be drunk that one time and so
went and did it.
In Cincinnati, when he lived there, Tom had found out many things, things
about ugliness and crime and lust. Indeed, he knew more of these things than
anyone else in Winesburg. The matter of sex in particular had presented itself to
him in a quite horrible way and had made a deep impression on his mind. He
thought, after what he had seen of the women standing before the squalid houses
on cold nights and the look he had seen in the eyes of the men who stopped to
talk to them, that he would put sex altogether out of his own life. One of the
women of the neighborhood tempted him once and he went into a room with
her. He never forgot the smell of the room nor the greedy look that came into the
eyes of the woman. It sickened him and in a very terrible way left a scar on his
soul. He had always before thought of women as quite innocent things, much
like his grandmother, but after that one experience in the room he dismissed

Thesaurus
intoxicating: (adj) intoxicant, strong,
alcoholic, effective, exciting,
impetuous, inebriant, inebrious,
powerful, provocative, forcible.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soft, weak.
loafing: (n) idleness, dalliance, dolce
far niente, faineance, inaction,
inactivity; (adj) lazy, unemployed.
odor: (n) aroma, scent, odour,
bouquet, flavour, perfume, flavor,
savor, stink; (n, v) smell, stench.
preparatory: (adj, v) preparative; (adj)

scratch, injury; (v) disfigure.
introductory, preceding,
ANTONYM: (v) enhance.
propaedeutic, prefatory, initial,
precedent, opening, antecedent; (n)
spicy: (adj) piquant, racy, fragrant,
preparation, prior. ANTONYM: (adj) pungent, salty, blue, savory, hot,
final.
juicy, peppery, redolent.
roasting: (n) barbecuing, cookery,
ANTONYMS: (adj) bland, mild, dull,
cooking; (adj) broiling, baking,
insipid, tasteless, uninteresting, faint,
burning, boiling, airless, blazing,
sweet.
close; (adj, n) scorching.
spots: (n) damp, drifter, floater,
ANTONYMS: (adj) airy, fresh.
floating policy, muscae volitantes,
scar: (n, v) mark, blemish, seam, stain, Musca volitans.
brand; (n) cicatrix, cicatrice, defect,

190

Winesburg, Ohio

women from his mind. So gentle was his nature that he could not hate anything
and not being able to understand he decided to forget.%
And Tom did forget until he came to Winesburg. After he had lived there for
two years something began to stir in him. On all sides he saw youth making love
and he was himself a youth. Before he knew what had happened he was in love
also. He fell in love with Helen White, daughter of the man for whom he had
worked, and found himself thinking of her at night.
That was a problem for Tom and he settled it in his own way. He let himself
think of Helen White whenever her figure came into his mind and only
concerned himself with the manner of his thoughts. He had a fight, a quiet
determined little fight of his own, to keep his desires in the channel where he
thought they belonged, but on the whole he was victorious.
And then came the spring night when he got drunk. Tom was wild on that
night. He was like an innocent young buck of the forest that has eaten of some
maddening weed. The thing began, ran its course, and was ended in one night,
and you may be sure that no one in Winesburg was any the worse for Tom's
outbreak.
In the first place, the night was one to make a sensitive nature drunk. The
trees along the residence streets of the town were all newly clothed in soft green
leaves, in the gardens behind the houses men were puttering about in vegetable
gardens, and in the air there was a hush, a waiting kind of silence very stirring to
the blood.
Tom left his room on Duane Street just as the young night began to make
itself felt. First he walked through the streets, going softly and quietly along,
thinking thoughts that he tried to put into words. He said that Helen White was
a flame dancing in the air and that he was a little tree without leaves standing
out sharply against the sky. Then he said that she was a wind, a strong terrible
wind, coming out of the darkness of a stormy sea and that he was a boat left on
the shore of the sea by a fisherman.

Thesaurus
buck: (n) dollar, stag, beau, boar,
Peterman; (v) sportsman, huntsman.
greenback, exquisite, fop, clam, hart; hush: (adj, n, v) calm, silence, quiet,
(v) charge; (n, v) buck jump.
still, lull; (n) peace; (v) shut up, gag,
ANTONYMS: (v) conform,
quieten, muffle; (adj, v) soothe.
surrender; (n) female, girl.
ANTONYMS: (n) noise, turmoil; (v)
clothed: (adj) dressed, wrapped,
Louden.
leaves: (n) departure, leaving, plants,
cloaked, robed, covered, attired,
vested, absorbed, decent; (v)
trees, vegetation.
maddening: (adj) exasperating,
accustomed, arrayed. ANTONYM:
(adj) unclothed.
annoying, aggravating, irritating,
fisherman: (n) fisher, trawler, black
galling, trying, vexing, madden,
cat, fisher cat, piscator, troller,
bothersome, crazy, vexatious.

ANTONYMS: (adj) pleasing,
soothing, satisfying.
victorious: (adj) triumphant,
successful, winning, jubilant, victor,
fortunate, lifted up; (adj, v)
triumphal, exultant, triumphing, on
top. ANTONYMS: (adj) beaten,
unsuccessful, failing, losing,
sorrowful.
weed: (n) grass, marijuana, pot, plant,
fireweed, smoke, ganja; (v) eliminate,
hoe, plow; (adj) pick.

Sherwood Anderson

191

That idea pleased the boy and he sauntered along playing with it. He went
into Main Street and sat on the curbing before Wacker's tobacco store. For an
hour he lingered about listening to the talk of men, but it did not interest him
much and he slipped away. Then he decided to get drunk and went into Willy's
saloon and bought a bottle of whiskey. Putting the bottle into his pocket, he
walked out of town, wanting to be alone to think more thoughts and to drink the
whiskey.%
Tom got drunk sitting on a bank of new grass beside the road about a mile
north of town. Before him was a white road and at his back an apple orchard in
full bloom. He took a drink out of the bottle and then lay down on the grass. He
thought of mornings in Winesburg and of how the stones in the graveled
driveway by Banker White's house were wet with dew and glistened in the
morning light. He thought of the nights in the barn when it rained and he lay
awake hearing the drumming of the raindrops and smelling the warm smell of
horses and of hay. Then he thought of a storm that had gone roaring through
Winesburg several days before and, his mind going back, he relived the night he
had spent on the train with his grandmother when the two were coming from
Cincinnati. Sharply he remembered how strange it had seemed to sit quietly in
the coach and to feel the power of the engine hurling the train along through the
night.
Tom got drunk in a very short time. He kept taking drinks from the bottle as
the thoughts visited him and when his head began to reel got up and walked
along the road going away from Winesburg. There was a bridge on the road that
ran out of Winesburg north to Lake Erie and the drunken boy made his way
along the road to the bridge. There he sat down. He tried to drink again, but
when he had taken the cork out of the bottle he became ill and put it quickly
back. His head was rocking back and forth and so he sat on the stone approach
to the bridge and sighed. His head seemed to be flying about like a pinwheel
and then projecting itself off into space and his arms and legs flopped helplessly
about.

Thesaurus
bloom: (adj, n, v) flower; (v) prosper,
flourish, thrive, burgeon; (adj, v)
blow, fructify; (n) prime, blush, flush,
bud. ANTONYMS: (v) shrivel,
struggle, wane, die, deteriorate,
decrease; (n) pallor, withering.
curbing: (n) limitation, restriction,
bridle, check, Amex, curb bit,
frustration, American Stock
Exchange. ANTONYM: (n) extension.
driveway: (n) doorway, cellarway,
gangway, gateway, hatchway, route,

access road, road, access, campaign,
cause.
graveled: (adj) dirt, graded, unpaved,
improved, grating; (n) stranded,
nonplussed; (adv) aground.
helplessly: (adv) weakly, powerlessly,
lostly, destitutely, shiftlessly,
defenselessly, unprotectedly,
ineffectively, wretchedly,
incompetently, disabledly.
ANTONYM: (adv) powerfully.
pinwheel: (n) wheel, sparkler, roulette

wheel, rocket, pulley wheel, firework,
firecracker, explosive, Catherine
wheel.
projecting: (adj) projected, protruding,
jutting, protrusive, pendent; (adj, v)
overhanging, jutting over, salient; (v)
beetling, protuberant, convex.
raindrops: (n) rain, raindrop.
reel: (n, v) coil, roll; (v) waver, rock,
stagger, totter, spin, teeter, falter; (n)
bobbin, spool.
stones: (n) shingle, grit.

192

Winesburg, Ohio

At eleven o'clock Tom got back into town. George Willard found him
wandering about and took him into the Eagle printshop. Then he became afraid
that the drunken boy would make a mess on the floor and helped him into the
alleyway.%
The reporter was confused by Tom Foster. The drunken boy talked of Helen
White and said he had been with her on the shore of a sea and had made love to
her. George had seen Helen White walking in the street with her father during
the evening and decided that Tom was out of his head. A sentiment concerning
Helen White that lurked in his own heart flamed up and he became angry. "Now
you quit that," he said. "I won't let Helen White's name be dragged into this. I
won't let that happen." He began shaking Tom's shoulder, trying to make him
understand. "You quit it," he said again.
For three hours the two young men, thus strangely thrown together, stayed
in the printshop. When he had a little recovered George took Tom for a walk.
They went into the country and sat on a log near the edge of a wood. Something
in the still night drew them together and when the drunken boy's head began to
clear they talked.
"It was good to be drunk," Tom Foster said. "It taught me something. I won't
have to do it again. I will think more dearly after this. You see how it is."
George Willard did not see, but his anger concerning Helen White passed
and he felt drawn toward the pale, shaken boy as he had never before been
drawn toward anyone. With motherly solicitude, he insisted that Tom get to his
feet and walk about. Again they went back to the printshop and sat in silence in
the darkness.
The reporter could not get the purpose of Tom Foster's action straightened
out in his mind. When Tom spoke again of Helen White he again grew angry
and began to scold. "You quit that," he said sharply. "You haven't been with her.
What makes you say you have? What makes you keep saying such things? Now
you quit it, do you hear?"

Thesaurus
confused: (adj) abashed, baffled,
motherly: (adj) tender, fatherly, warm, ANTONYM: (adj) worse.
sisterly, loving, affectionate; (adv)
solicitude: (n) care, consideration,
befuddled, bemused, dizzy, chaotic,
maternally; (v) ardent, fond, devoted, anxiety, thought, apprehension,
confounded, deranged, incoherent,
erotic. ANTONYM: (adj) paternal.
disjointed, indistinct. ANTONYMS:
regard, attention, fear, disquietude,
(adj) enlightened, orderly, alert,
quit: (adj, n, v) leave; (v) go, drop,
heed, fret. ANTONYMS: (n)
clearheaded, organized, oriented,
break, cease, give up, depart, end,
negligence, serenity, thoughtlessness.
discontinue; (adj, v) discharge; (n, v) strangely: (adv) curiously, queerly,
precise, systematic, ordered,
part. ANTONYMS: (v) stay, occupy,
unimpressed, methodical.
unusually, funnily, peculiarly,
dragged: (adj) depressed, dejected,
enter, maintain, start, come, arrive.
weirdly, marvelously, uncommonly,
recovered: (adj) cured, retrieved, well, extraordinarily, singularly, bizarrely.
upset, unhappy, spent, dispirited,
ANTONYMS: (adv) typically,
somber, melancholy, gloomy, joyless, well again, healthier, aged,
low.
improved, whole, better, corned.
ordinarily, harmoniously.

Sherwood Anderson

193

Tom was hurt. He couldn't quarrel with George Willard because he was
incapable of quarreling, so he got up to go away. When George Willard was
insistent he put out his hand, laying it on the older boy's arm, and tried to
explain.%
"Well," he said softly, "I don't know how it was. I was happy. You see how
that was. Helen White made me happy and the night did too. I wanted to
suffer, to be hurt somehow. I thought that was what I should do. I wanted to
suffer, you see, because everyone suffers and does wrong. I thought of a lot of
things to do, but they wouldn't work. They all hurt someone else."
Tom Foster's voice arose, and for once in his life he became almost excited.
"It was like making love, that's what I mean," he explained. "Don't you see how
it is? It hurt me to do what I did and made everything strange. That's why I did
it. I'm glad, too. It taught me something, that's it, that's what I wanted. Don't
you understand? I wanted to learn things, you see. That's why I did it."

Thesaurus
glad: (adj) jubilant, cheerful, gay,
laying: (n) egg laying, placing,
blithe, delighted, festive, content,
parturition, place, repose, setting,
delightful, genial, bright, willing.
put, position, lay, oyster park,
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhappy,
oviposition.
quarreling: (adj) brawling, noisy,
apologetic, dismayed, unwilling,
discordant; (n) disagreement; (v)
disappointed, sorry.
incapable: (adj) impotent, inadequate, argue.
softly: (adv) quietly, mildly, lightly,
unable, helpless, powerless,
unqualified, inept, insufficient, inapt, tenderly, delicately, gently, soft,
ineffectual, unfit. ANTONYMS: (adj) quiet, silently, kindly, slowly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) hoarsely,
able, competent, strong, powerful,
effective.
roughly, loudly, clearly, harshly,

forte, severely, strongly, heavily,
convincingly, brightly.
suffer: (v) encounter, stand, accept,
undergo, brook, experience, have,
endure, abide, sustain; (adj, v) allow.
ANTONYMS: (v) enjoy, rejoice,
flourish.
taught: (adj) instructed, educated,
schooled, instruct, well-bred,
scholarly, provided; (v) firm, fast,
close, taut.

Sherwood Anderson

195

DEATH

The stairway leading up to Doctor Reefy's office, in the Heffner Block above
the Paris Dry Goods store, was but dimly lighted. At the head of the stairway
hung a lamp with a dirty chimney that was fastened by a bracket to the wall.
The lamp had a tin reflector, brown with rust and covered with dust. The people
who went up the stairway followed with their feet the feet of many who had
gone before. The soft boards of the stairs had yielded under the pressure of feet
and deep hollows marked the way.%
At the top of the stairway a turn to the right brought you to the doctor's door.
To the left was a dark hallway filled with rubbish. Old chairs, carpenter's horses,
step ladders and empty boxes lay in the darkness waiting for shins to be barked.
The pile of rubbish belonged to the Paris Dry Goods Company. When a counter
or a row of shelves in the store became useless, clerks carried it up the stairway
and threw it on the pile.
Doctor Reefy's office was as large as a barn. A stove with a round paunch sat
in the middle of the room. Around its base was piled sawdust, held in place by
heavy planks nailed to the floor. By the door stood a huge table that had once
been a part of the furniture of Herrick's Clothing Store and that had been used
for displaying custom-made clothes. It was covered with books, bottles, and
surgical instruments. Near the edge of the table lay three or four apples left by

Thesaurus
books: (n) notebook, account, ledger,
literature, accountancy.
bracket: (n) prop, rack, stand,
parentheses, support, knee,
parenthesis, holder; (adj, v) link,
couple; (adj) hook.
chimney: (n) fireplace, smokestack,
shaft, flue, hearth, vent, lamp
chimney, chimneys, nostril, throat,
weasand.
custom-made: (adj) tailor-made,
custom-built.

displaying: (n) advertising.
ladders: (n) washboard.
nailed: (adj) fixed, tight, stationary,
stable, secure, decided, firm,
immobile.
paunch: (n) belly, abdomen, stomach,
corporation, pot, breadbasket, maw,
fat, gut, ventricle, potbelly.
piled: (adj) heaped, dense, aggregate,
collective, concentrated, cumulous.
reflector: (n) reflecting telescope,
repeller, reverberator, speculum,

paraboloid reflector, astronomical
telescope, catoptric telescope, coude
system, coude telescope, device,
reflecting surface.
rust: (v) corrode, eat, oxidise, tarnish,
oxidize, gnaw; (n) decay, corrosion,
fungus, oxidation; (adj) rusty.
shelves: (n) shelf, rack, shelving.
surgical: (adj) postoperative, key,
functional, chirurgical, effective.
ANTONYM: (adj) medical.
yielded: (v) yold, yolden.

196

Winesburg, Ohio

John Spaniard, a tree nurseryman who was Doctor Reefy's friend, and who had
slipped the apples out of his pocket as he came in at the door.%
At middle age Doctor Reefy was tall and awkward. The grey beard he later
wore had not yet appeared, but on the upper lip grew a brown mustache. He
was not a graceful man, as when he grew older, and was much occupied with the
problem of disposing of his hands and feet.
On summer afternoons, when she had been married many years and when
her son George was a boy of twelve or fourteen, Elizabeth Willard sometimes
went up the worn steps to Doctor Reefy's office. Already the woman's naturally
tall figure had begun to droop and to drag itself listlessly about. Ostensibly she
went to see the doctor because of her health, but on the half dozen occasions
when she had been to see him the outcome of the visits did not primarily concern
her health. She and the doctor talked of that but they talked most of her life, of
their two lives and of the ideas that had come to them as they lived their lives in
Winesburg.
In the big empty office the man and the woman sat looking at each other and
they were a good deal alike. Their bodies were different, as were also the color
of their eyes, the length of their noses, and the circumstances of their existence,
but something inside them meant the same thing, wanted the same release,
would have left the same impression on the memory of an onlooker. Later, and
when he grew older and married a young wife, the doctor often talked to her of
the hours spent with the sick woman and expressed a good many things he had
been unable to express to Elizabeth. He was almost a poet in his old age and his
notion of what happened took a poetic turn. "I had come to the time in my life
when prayer became necessary and so I invented gods and prayed to them," he
said. "I did not say my prayers in words nor did I kneel down but sat perfectly
still in my chair. In the late afternoon when it was hot and quiet on Main Street
or in the winter when the days were gloomy, the gods came into the office and I
thought no one knew about them. Then I found that this woman Elizabeth
knew, that she worshipped also the same gods. I have a notion that she came to
the office because she thought the gods would be there but she was happy to

Thesaurus
disposing: (adv) disposingly; (v)
listlessly: (adv) sluggishly, spiritlessly, ostensibly: (adv) seemingly, on the
dispose; (adj) decretive, dispositive;
indifferently, languidly, slowly,
face of it, outwardly, evidently,
(n) distribution.
weakly, indolently, supinely, lazily,
prima facie, allegedly, supposedly,
droop: (adj, v) decline; (v) dangle, wilt, inanimately, slackly. ANTONYMS:
professedly, superficially, manifestly;
(adj) doubtless. ANTONYMS: (adv)
hang, flag, sink, slump, loll, collapse; (adv) brightly, nimbly.
(n, v) sag, pine. ANTONYMS: (v) rise, nurseryman: (n) gardener,
genuinely, truly, underneath,
bloom.
transplanter, grower, horticulturist.
actually.
fourteen: (adj, n) XIV.
onlooker: (n) beholder, bystander,
prayer: (n) invocation, plea, entreaty,
kneel: (v) genuflect, cringe, stoop, bob, spectator, witness, looker-on,
appeal, orison, request, suit, litany,
cry for quarter, dip, duck, humble
eyewitness, viewer, watcher, passer
devotion, supplication, asking.
oneself; (n) kneeling, knee,
worshipped: (adj) adored, idolized,
by, sightseer, curious person.
ANTONYM: (n) participant.
movement.
venerable.

Sherwood Anderson

197

find herself not alone just the same. It was an experience that cannot be
explained, although I suppose it is always happening to men and women in all
sorts of places."
On the summer afternoons when Elizabeth and the doctor sat in the office
and talked of their two lives they talked of other lives also. Sometimes the doctor
made philosophic epigrams. Then he chuckled with amusement. Now and
then after a period of silence, a word was said or a hint given that strangely
illuminated the fife of the speaker, a wish became a desire, or a dream, half
dead, flared suddenly into life. For the most part the words came from the
woman and she said them without looking at the man.%
Each time she came to see the doctor the hotel keeper's wife talked a little
more freely and after an hour or two in his presence went down the stairway into
Main Street feeling renewed and strengthened against the dullness of her days.
With something approaching a girlhood swing to her body she walked along,
but when she had got back to her chair by the window of her room and when
darkness had come on and a girl from the hotel dining room brought her dinner
on a tray, she let it grow cold. Her thoughts ran away to her girlhood with its
passionate longing for adventure and she remembered the arms of men that had
held her when adventure was a possible thing for her. Particularly she
remembered one who had for a time been her lover and who in the moment of
his passion had cried out to her more than a hundred times, saying the same
words madly over and over: "You dear! You dear! You lovely dear!" The words,
she thought, expressed something she would have liked to have achieved in life.
In her room in the shabby old hotel the sick wife of the hotel keeper began to
weep and, putting her hands to her face, rocked back and forth. The words of
her one friend, Doctor Reefy, rang in her ears. "Love is like a wind stirring the
grass beneath trees on a black night," he had said. "You must not try to make
love definite. It is the divine accident of life. If you try to be definite and sure
about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot
day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons
gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses."

Thesaurus
achieved: (adj) finished, fulfilled.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, cowardly,
amusement: (n) pleasure, recreation,
fainthearted, irresolute, romantic.
entertainment, distraction, diversion, illuminated: (adj) lit, lighted,
sport, pastime, laughter, enjoyment,
luminous, enlightened, clear, light,
joy, hobby. ANTONYMS: (n)
shining, irradiated, lighter, Lighty,
sadness, boredom, work, tedium,
irradiate.
business, despondency, discomfort, keeper: (n) curator, guardian, guard,
displeasure.
warden, janitor, jailer, gaoler, warder,
flared: (adj) aflare, increasing.
caretaker, sentry, conservator.
gritty: (adj) spirited, game, grainy,
philosophic: (v) platonic, staid, stayed,
courageous, granular, fearless, brave, stoical; (adj) thoughtful, rational,
mettlesome, resolute, rough, sandy.
patient, learned, ideologic,

ideological. ANTONYM: (adj)
nonphilosophical.
stirring: (adj) lively, exciting, alive,
rousing, spirited, touching, thrilling,
active; (n) agitation; (v) eventful,
brisk. ANTONYMS: (adj) depressing,
boring, inactive, dull, conciliatory,
asleep, uninspiring, unimpressive; (n)
suppression.
strengthened: (adj) consolidated,
sinewed, made firm, comfortable,
built, strong, equipped.

198

Winesburg, Ohio

Elizabeth Willard could not remember her mother who had died when she
was but five years old. Her girlhood had been lived in the most haphazard
manner imaginable. Her father was a man who had wanted to be let alone and
the affairs of the hotel would not let him alone. He also had lived and died a sick
man. Every day he arose with a cheerful face, but by ten o'clock in the morning
all the joy had gone out of his heart. When a guest complained of the fare in the
hotel dining room or one of the girls who made up the beds got married and
went away, he stamped on the floor and swore. At night when he went to bed
he thought of his daughter growing up among the stream of people that drifted
in and out of the hotel and was overcome with sadness. As the girl grew older
and began to walk out in the evening with men he wanted to talk to her, but
when he tried was not successful. He always forgot what he wanted to say and
spent the time complaining of his own affairs.%
In her girlhood and young womanhood Elizabeth had tried to be a real
adventurer in life. At eighteen life had so gripped her that she was no longer a
virgin but, although she had a half dozen lovers before she married Tom Willard,
she had never entered upon an adventure prompted by desire alone. Like all the
women in the world, she wanted a real lover. Always there was something she
sought blindly, passionately, some hidden wonder in life. The tall beautiful girl
with the swinging stride who had walked under the trees with men was forever
putting out her hand into the darkness and trying to get hold of some other
hand. In all the babble of words that fell from the lips of the men with whom she
adventured she was trying to find what would be for her the true word,
Elizabeth had married Tom Willard, a clerk in her father's hotel, because he
was at hand and wanted to marry at the time when the determination to marry
came to her. For a while, like most young girls, she thought marriage would
change the face of life. If there was in her mind a doubt of the outcome of the
marriage with Tom she brushed it aside. Her father was ill and near death at the
time and she was perplexed because of the meaningless outcome of an affair in
which she had just been involved. Other girls of her age in Winesburg were
marrying men she had always known, grocery clerks or young farmers. In the

Thesaurus
adventurer: (n) venturer, speculator,
plunger, argonaut, traveler,
daredevil, gambler, adventurers,
carpetbagger, divers, mercenary.
ANTONYMS: (n) killjoy, milquetoast.
blindly: (adv) darkly, dimly,
blindfoldly, purblindly, obscurely,
heedlessly, unreasoningly, blindfold,
unsightedly, inconsiderately,
ignorantly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
sensibly, carefully, considerately,
purposely.

brushed: (adj) napped, fleecy.
meaningless: (adj) empty, pointless,
cheerful: (adj, v) buoyant; (adj) breezy, hollow, useless, stupid, worthless,
merry, optimistic, pleasant, glad,
futile, needless, inane, absurd, vain.
blithe, carefree, bright, lively, happy. ANTONYMS: (adj) meaningful,
ANTONYMS: (adj) depressed,
worthwhile, sensible, significant,
gloomy, sad, depressing, grim,
reasonable, purposeful, provoked,
hopeless, miserable, morose, somber, offensive, justifiable, clear, useful.
sought: (adj) required, quest, seeking,
dejected, unwelcoming.
fare: (n, v) do; (n) food, aliment, board, popular.
table, charge, chow, menu, traveller; stride: (n, v) pace, tread, walk, stalk,
(v) come, eat. ANTONYM: (v) stop.
rate, toddle, stump; (n) footstep, gait,
marrying: (adj) married.
progress; (v) march.

Sherwood Anderson

199

evening they walked in Main Street with their husbands and when she passed
they smiled happily. She began to think that the fact of marriage might be full of
some hidden significance. Young wives with whom she talked spoke softly and
shyly. "It changes things to have a man of your own," they said.%
On the evening before her marriage the perplexed girl had a talk with her
father. Later she wondered if the hours alone with the sick man had not led to
her decision to marry. The father talked of his life and advised the daughter to
avoid being led into another such muddle. He abused Tom Willard, and that led
Elizabeth to come to the clerk's defense. The sick man became excited and tried
to get out of bed. When she would not let him walk about he began to complain.
"I've never been let alone," he said. "Although I've worked hard I've not made the
hotel pay. Even now I owe money at the bank. You'll find that out when I'm
gone."
The voice of the sick man became tense with earnestness. Being unable to
arise, he put out his hand and pulled the girl's head down beside his own.
"There's a way out," he whispered. "Don't marry Tom Willard or anyone else
here in Winesburg. There is eight hundred dollars in a tin box in my trunk. Take
it and go away."
Again the sick man's voice became querulous. "You've got to promise," he
declared. "If you won't promise not to marry, give me your word that you'll
never tell Tom about the money. It is mine and if I give it to you I've the right to
make that demand. Hide it away. It is to make up to you for my failure as a
father. Some time it may prove to be a door, a great open door to you. Come
now, I tell you I'm about to die, give me your promise."
In Doctor Reefy's office, Elizabeth, a tired gaunt old woman at forty-one, sat
in a chair near the stove and looked at the floor. By a small desk near the
window sat the doctor. His hands played with a lead pencil that lay on the desk.
Elizabeth talked of her life as a married woman. She became impersonal and
forgot her husband, only using him as a lay figure to give point to her tale. "And
then I was married and it did not turn out at all," she said bitterly. "As soon as I
had gone into it I began to be afraid. Perhaps I knew too much before and then

Thesaurus
defense: (n) apology, fortification,
clarify; (n) space, clarity, neatness.
obese.
impersonal: (adj) neutral, objective,
querulous: (adj) petulant, irritable,
justification, security, protection,
safeguard, excuse, defence, shield,
detached, cold, impartial, indifferent, fretful, discontented, tetchy,
defend, advocacy. ANTONYMS: (n)
aloof, personal, equitable, remote,
complaining, fractious, touchy, cross,
clinical. ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
attack, offense, criticism, violence,
grumpy, grouchy.
shyly: (adv) timidly, shily, coyly,
prosecution, destruction, aggression, friend, involved.
muddle: (adj, n) mess; (n, v) clutter,
condemnation, accusation,
diffidently, timorously, with reserve,
disorder; (adj, v) confuse, fluster,
opposition.
embarrassedly, clumsily, uncertainly,
gaunt: (adj) lean, thin, cadaverous,
bewilder, perplex; (adj, n, v) blunder; tentatively, unremarkably.
(v) addle, botch; (n) disarray.
ANTONYMS: (adv) boldly, brashly,
desolate, bleak, dreary, meager,
ANTONYMS: (v) enlighten, sharpen, brazenly, urbanely, conspicuously,
bony, angular, lanky, sullen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fresh, rounded,
soothe, organize, disentangle, tidy,
confidently, decisively.

200

Winesburg, Ohio

perhaps I found out too much during my first night with him.
remember.%

I don't

"What a fool I was. When father gave me the money and tried to talk me out
of the thought of marriage, I would not listen. I thought of what the girls who
were married had said of it and I wanted marriage also. It wasn't Tom I wanted,
it was marriage. When father went to sleep I leaned out of the window and
thought of the life I had led. I didn't want to be a bad woman. The town was full
of stories about me. I even began to be afraid Tom would change his mind."
The woman's voice began to quiver with excitement. To Doctor Reefy, who
without realizing what was happening had begun to love her, there came an odd
illusion. He thought that as she talked the woman's body was changing, that she
was becoming younger, straighter, stronger. When he could not shake off the
illusion his mind gave it a professional twist. "It is good for both her body and
her mind, this talking," he muttered.
The woman began telling of an incident that had happened one afternoon a
few months after her marriage. Her voice became steadier. "In the late afternoon
I went for a drive alone," she said. "I had a buggy and a little grey pony I kept in
Moyer's Livery. Tom was painting and repapering rooms in the hotel. He
wanted money and I was trying to make up my mind to tell him about the eight
hundred dollars father had given to me. I couldn't decide to do it. I didn't like
him well enough. There was always paint on his hands and face during those
days and he smelled of paint. He was trying to fix up the old hotel, and make it
new and smart."
The excited woman sat up very straight in her chair and made a quick girlish
movement with her hand as she told of the drive alone on the spring afternoon.
"It was cloudy and a storm threatened," she said. "Black clouds made the green
of the trees and the grass stand out so that the colors hurt my eyes. I went out
Trunion Pike a mile or more and then turned into a side road. The little horse
went quickly along up hill and down. I was impatient. Thoughts came and I
wanted to get away from my thoughts. I began to beat the horse. The black
clouds settled down and it began to rain. I wanted to go at a terrible speed, to

Thesaurus
colors: (n) flag, colours, paints, banner,
color, colour, ensign, pigment, tint,
dye, paint.
fool: (n) blockhead, dunce, clown,
idiot, ass, booby, buffoon; (v) deceive,
bamboozle; (n, v) joke, gull.
ANTONYM: (n) savant.
illusion: (n, v) delusion; (n) fantasy,
apparition, deception, magic, fancy,
deceit, dissimulation, phantom, trick,
vision. ANTONYMS: (n) reality, fact.
impatient: (adj) eager, anxious,

petulant, fidgety, vexed, keen, edgy, realizing: (n) thought.
shake: (n, v) jolt, beat, jar, quiver,
quick, avid, irritable, fretful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) patient, enduring, wave; (v) agitate, excite, disturb; (adv,
unenthusiastic, calm, happy, relaxed, v) brandish; (adj, v) quake, totter.
ANTONYMS: (v) soothe, steady.
slow.
pony: (n) crib, nag, trot, mustang,
twist: (n, v) turn, bend, curl, coil,
wind, pervert, spin, wrench; (adj, v)
clavis, cayuse, jigger, rendering,
distort; (v) contort, deform.
racehorse, translation, version.
quiver: (adj, n, v) shudder, shiver,
ANTONYMS: (v) untwist, undo,
tremble, shake; (v) flicker, flutter,
uncurl, explain, explicate, unbend,
vibrate; (n, v) palpitate, quaver; (n)
smooth, clarify, smile.
vibration, tremor.

Sherwood Anderson

201

drive on and on forever. I wanted to get out of town, out of my clothes, out of
my marriage, out of my body, out of everything. I almost killed the horse,
making him run, and when he could not run any more I got out of the buggy and
ran afoot into the darkness until I fell and hurt my side. I wanted to run away
from everything but I wanted to run towards something too. Don't you see,
dear, how it was?"
Elizabeth sprang out of the chair and began to walk about in the office. She
walked as Doctor Reefy thought he had never seen anyone walk before. To her
whole body there was a swing, a rhythm that intoxicated him. When she came
and knelt on the floor beside his chair he took her into his arms and began to kiss
her passionately. "I cried all the way home," she said, as she tried to continue the
story of her wild ride, but he did not listen. "You dear! You lovely dear! Oh you
lovely dear!" he muttered and thought he held in his arms not the tired-out
woman of forty-one but a lovely and innocent girl who had been able by some
miracle to project herself out of the husk of the body of the tired-out woman.%
Doctor Reefy did not see the woman he had held in his arms again until after
her death. On the summer afternoon in the office when he was on the point of
becoming her lover a half grotesque little incident brought his love-making
quickly to an end. As the man and woman held each other tightly heavy feet
came tramping up the office stairs. The two sprang to their feet and stood
listening and trembling. The noise on the stairs was made by a clerk from the
Paris Dry Goods Company. With a loud bang he threw an empty box on the pile
of rubbish in the hallway and then went heavily down the stairs. Elizabeth
followed him almost immediately. The thing that had come to life in her as she
talked to her one friend died suddenly. She was hysterical, as was also Doctor
Reefy, and did not want to continue the talk. Along the street she went with the
blood still singing in her body, but when she turned out of Main Street and saw
ahead the lights of the New Willard House, she began to tremble and her knees
shook so that for a moment she thought she would fall in the street.
The sick woman spent the last few months of her life hungering for death.
Along the road of death she went, seeking, hungering. She personified the figure

Thesaurus
bang: (n, v) slam, hit, beat, strike,
emotional, fitful, febrile, erratic; (n)
knock, smash, boom, thud, bump;
fanatical, hysterics. ANTONYMS:
(adv, n, v) smack, slap. ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed, composed, restrained.
(n) silence; (v) tiptoe.
intoxicated: (adj) drunken, drunk,
elizabeth: (n) Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II. inebriate, tipsy, elated, stimulated,
hungering: (adj) starving, famished;
intoxicate, infatuated, fuddled,
(n) longing.
loaded, plastered. ANTONYM: (adj)
husk: (n) crust, bran, cortex, covering, sober.
rind, chaff, shell, coat, peel; (n, v)
loud: (adj) flashy, garish, gaudy,
hull, skin.
blatant, brassy, boisterous, high,
hysterical: (adj, n) feverish; (adj) wild,
jazzy, brazen, piercing; (adj, adv)
forte. ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteful,
violent, eccentric, frenzied,

gentle, quiet, subtle, subdued, low,
muted, weak, tranquil, thin; (adv)
softly.
miracle: (adj, n) wonder, prodigy; (n)
phenomenon, mystery, wonderwork,
surprise, sensation, event, theurgy,
astonishment, amazement.
rhythm: (n) cadence, pulse, beat, cycle,
tempo, rhyme, musical rhythm,
calendar method, calendar method of
birth control, metre; (adj, n) meter.

202

Winesburg, Ohio

of death and made him now a strong black-haired youth running over hills, now
a stem quiet man marked and scarred by the business of living. In the darkness
of her room she put out her hand, thrusting it from under the covers of her bed,
and she thought that death like a living thing put out his hand to her. "Be
patient, lover," she whispered. "Keep yourself young and beautiful and be
patient."
On the evening when disease laid its heavy hand upon her and defeated her
plans for telling her son George of the eight hundred dollars hidden away, she
got out of bed and crept half across the room pleading with death for another
hour of life. "Wait, dear! The boy! The boy! The boy!" she pleaded as she tried
with all of her strength to fight off the arms of the lover she had wanted so
earnestly.%
Elizabeth died one day in March in the year when her son George became
eighteen, and the young man had but little sense of the meaning of her death.
Only time could give him that. For a month he had seen her lying white and still
and speechless in her bed, and then one afternoon the doctor stopped him in the
hallway and said a few words.
The young man went into his own room and closed the door. He had a queer
empty feeling in the region of his stomach. For a moment he sat staring at, the
floor and then jumping up went for a walk. Along the station platform he went,
and around through residence streets past the high-school building, thinking
almost entirely of his own affairs. The notion of death could not get hold of him
and he was in fact a little annoyed that his mother had died on that day. He had
just received a note from Helen White, the daughter of the town banker, in
answer to one from him. "Tonight I could have gone to see her and now it will
have to be put off," he thought half angrily.
Elizabeth died on a Friday afternoon at three o'clock. It had been cold and
rainy in the morning but in the afternoon the sun came out. Before she died she
lay paralyzed for six days unable to speak or move and with only her mind and
her eyes alive. For three of the six days she struggled, thinking of her boy, trying
to say some few words in regard to his future, and in her eyes there was an

Thesaurus
angrily: (adv) irately, passionately,
fiercely, indignantly, cholericly,
resentfully, enragedly, infuriatedly,
wrathfully, madly, crossly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) warmly, lightly,
calmly, cheerfully, gently, gladly.
defeated: (n) loser; (adj) frustrated,
beaten, broken, overcome, balked,
baffled, bested, thwarted,
unsuccessful; (adj, n) discomfited.
ANTONYM: (adj) victorious.
hills: (n) home, dry land, foothills,

earth, ground.
occupancy, place, mansion,
paralyzed: (adj) palsied, crippled,
habitation, manse. ANTONYM: (n)
disabled, helpless, torpid, powerless, vacancy.
prostrate, enervated, dead, impotent, stem: (n) root, bow, branch, stalk, bole,
stick, shank, handle; (v) originate,
inert.
pleading: (adj) importunate,
block, arrest. ANTONYMS: (v)
imploring, beseeching, appealing,
encourage, accelerate.
suppliant; (n) defense, replication,
stomach: (adj, v) brook, digest; (v)
demurrer, defence, advocacy,
endure, stand, abide, bear, suffer,
tolerate, take; (n) abdomen, appetite.
argument.
residence: (n) home, house, dwelling,
lodging, accommodation, domicile,

Sherwood Anderson

203

appeal so touching that all who saw it kept the memory of the dying woman in
their minds for years. Even Tom Willard, who had always half resented his wife,
forgot his resentment and the tears ran out of his eyes and lodged in his
mustache. The mustache had begun to turn grey and Tom colored it with dye.
There was oil in the preparation he used for the purpose and the tears, catching
in the mustache and being brushed away by his hand, formed a fine mist-like
vapor. In his grief Tom Willard's face looked like the face of a little dog that has
been out a long time in bitter weather.%
George came home along Main Street at dark on the day of his mother's
death and, after going to his own room to brush his hair and clothes, went along
the hallway and into the room where the body lay. There was a candle on the
dressing table by the door and Doctor Reefy sat in a chair by the bed. The doctor
arose and started to go out. He put out his hand as though to greet the younger
man and then awkwardly drew it back again. The air of the room was heavy
with the presence of the two self-conscious human beings, and the man hurried
away.
The dead woman's son sat down in a chair and looked at the floor. He again
thought of his own affairs and definitely decided he would make a change in his
fife, that he would leave Winesburg. "I will go to some city. Perhaps I can get a
job on some newspaper," he thought, and then his mind turned to the girl with
whom he was to have spent this evening and again he was half angry at the turn
of events that had prevented his going to her.
In the dimly lighted room with the dead woman the young man began to
have thoughts. His mind played with thoughts of life as his mother's mind had
played with the thought of death. He closed his eyes and imagined that the red
young lips of Helen White touched his own lips. His body trembled and his
hands shook. And then something happened. The boy sprang to his feet and
stood stiffly. He looked at the figure of the dead woman under the sheets and
shame for his thoughts swept over him so that he began to weep. A new notion
came into his mind and he turned and looked guiltily about as though afraid he
would be observed.

Thesaurus
candle: (n) candela, light, taper,
ashamedly.
bougie, CD, candlepower, lamp, wax lodged: (adj) wedged, stuck fast, stuck,
light, Standard candle; (v) examine,
jammed.
self-conscious: (adj) shy, abashed,
illuminate.
dressing: (n) bandage, stuffing,
bashful, sheepish, diffident, modest,
fertilization, binding, bandaging,
conscious, self-consciously, inhibited,
scolding, fertilizer, manure,
uncomfortable, mannered.
stiffly: (adv) firmly, stiff, awkwardly,
compress, preparation, farce.
guiltily: (adv) blameworthily,
unbendingly, difficultly, woodenly,
criminally, hangdogly, wickedly,
strongly, formally, stringently,
clumsily, strictly. ANTONYM: (adv)
faultily, sheepishly, delinquently,
sinfully, awkwardly, sorrily,
loosely.

touching: (adj, v) affecting; (adj)
poignant, pitiful, pathetic, adjacent,
adjoining, emotional; (n) touch,
contact; (prep) concerning, about.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unaffecting,
everyday, heartwarming, unmoving,
heartbreaking, emotionless,
unemotional, impassive.
vapor: (n) fog, cloud, steam, haze,
evaporation, vapour, fume; (adj, n)
gas, air; (adj, v) bluster; (v) boast.

204

Winesburg, Ohio

George Willard became possessed of a madness to lift the sheet from the
body of his mother and look at her face. The thought that had come into his
mind gripped him terribly. He became convinced that not his mother but
someone else lay in the bed before him. The conviction was so real that it was
almost unbearable. The body under the sheets was long and in death looked
young and graceful. To the boy, held by some strange fancy, it was unspeakably
lovely. The feeling that the body before him was alive, that in another moment a
lovely woman would spring out of the bed and confront him, became so
overpowering that he could not bear the suspense. Again and again he put out
his hand. Once he touched and half lifted the white sheet that covered her, but
his courage failed and he, like Doctor Reefy, turned and went out of the room. In
the hallway outside the door he stopped and trembled so that he had to put a
hand against the wall to support himself. "That's not my mother. That's not my
mother in there," he whispered to himself and again his body shook with fright
and uncertainty. When Aunt Elizabeth Swift, who had come to watch over the
body, came out of an adjoining room he put his hand into hers and began to sob,
shaking his head from side to side, half blind with grief. "My mother is dead," he
said, and then forgetting the woman he turned and stared at the door through
which he had just come. "The dear, the dear, oh the lovely dear," the boy, urged
by some impulse outside himself, muttered aloud.%
As for the eight hundred dollars the dead woman had kept hidden so long
and that was to give George Willard his start in the city, it lay in the tin box
behind the plaster by the foot of his mother's bed. Elizabeth had put it there a
week after her marriage, breaking the plaster away with a stick. Then she got
one of the workmen her husband was at that time employing about the hotel to
mend the wall. "I jammed the corner of the bed against it," she had explained to
her husband, unable at the moment to give up her dream of release, the release
that after all came to her but twice in her life, in the moments when her lovers
Death and Doctor Reefy held her in their arms.

Thesaurus
adjoining: (adj) contiguous, neighbor,
near, abutting, touching,
conterminous, neighboring,
immediate, next, vicinal; (adj, v) close.
ANTONYMS: (adj) separate, divided,
detached, apart, far.
confront: (adj, v) front; (n, v) oppose;
(v) challenge, defy, brave, approach,
collate, affront, cope with, play,
withstand. ANTONYMS: (v) avoid,
evade, dodge, cooperate, obey,
submit, defend.

graceful: (adj) beautiful, delicate,
mend: (adj, v) improve; (v) correct,
amiable, easy, fine, charming, fair,
cure, heal, doctor, better, amend,
restore, convalesce; (n, v) fix, patch.
airy, becoming, lovely, lithe.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inelegant, stocky, ANTONYMS: (v) worsen, tear,
smash, decline, deteriorate; (n)
awkward, vigorous, jerky, ugly,
stilted, heavy, coarse, strenuous.
fracture.
hers: (pron) she, his; (adj) own.
suspense: (n) doubt, expectancy,
jammed: (adj) packed, congested, full, anticipation, indecision, insecurity,
overcrowded, fixed, wedged,
unrest, expectation, irresolution,
suspension, tension; (adj, n)
crammed, stuffed, blocked, clogged;
(adj, v) stuck. ANTONYMS: (adj) free, hesitation. ANTONYM: (n)
loose.
knowledge.

Sherwood Anderson

205

SOPHISTICATION

It was early evening of a day in the late fall and the Winesburg County Fair
had brought crowds of country people into town. The day had been clear and
the night came on warm and pleasant. On the Trunion Pike, where the road after
it left town stretched away between berry fields now covered with dry brown
leaves, the dust from passing wagons arose in clouds. Children, curled into little
balls, slept on the straw scattered on wagon beds. Their hair was full of dust and
their fingers black and sticky. The dust rolled away over the fields and the
departing sun set it ablaze with colors.%
In the main street of Winesburg crowds filled the stores and the sidewalks.
Night came on, horses whinnied, the clerks in the stores ran madly about,
children became lost and cried lustily, an American town worked terribly at the
task of amusing itself.
Pushing his way through the crowds in Main Street, young George Willard
concealed himself in the stairway leading to Doctor Reefy's office and looked at
the people. With feverish eyes he watched the faces drifting past under the store
lights. Thoughts kept coming into his head and he did not want to think. He
stamped impatiently on the wooden steps and looked sharply about. "Well, is
she going to stay with him all day? Have I done all this waiting for nothing?" he
muttered.

Thesaurus
departing: (adj, v) parting; (adj, n)
restlessly, keenly, intolerantly,
leaving, going away; (adj) outgoing,
hastily, avidly, uneasily,
outbound, outward, passing,
enthusiastically, edgily, fidgetily,
decedent, valedictory, retiring; (v)
restively. ANTONYMS: (adv)
depart. ANTONYM: (n) arrival.
uncomplainingly, calmly,
drifting: (adj, adv) aimless, wandering; unenthusiastically, lightly.
(adv) adrift; (adj) floating, nomadic,
lustily: (adv) stoutly, energetically,
vagabond, rootless, roaming,
robustly, powerfully, vigorously,
wayfaring, migratory; (n) running
mightily, halely, strappingly,
with the regulator closed.
potently, sturdily, heartily.
ANTONYM: (adj) resident.
scattered: (adj) dissipated, thin,
impatiently: (adv) petulantly,
disordered, disconnected, confused,

sparse, sporadic, distributed, rare,
diffuse; (v) disperse.
sticky: (adj) awkward, adhesive,
clammy, glutinous, gummy, humid,
embarrassing, slimy, difficult, viscid,
pasty. ANTONYMS: (adj) dry, fresh,
easy, clean, straightforward, runny,
cool.
stores: (n) provisions, materials,
provender, support, equipment,
military issue, government issue,
goods, food, commissariat.

206

Winesburg, Ohio

George Willard, the Ohio village boy, was fast growing into manhood and
new thoughts had been coming into his mind. All that day, amid the jam of
people at the Fair, he had gone about feeling lonely. He was about to leave
Winesburg to go away to some city where he hoped to get work on a city
newspaper and he felt grown up. The mood that had taken possession of him
was a thing known to men and unknown to boys. He felt old and a little tired.
Memories awoke in him. To his mind his new sense of maturity set him apart,
made of him a half-tragic figure. He wanted someone to understand the feeling
that had taken possession of him after his mother's death.%
There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the
backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into
manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of
the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets
awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and
waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his
consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the
limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes
not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is tom open and for the first
time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession
before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of
nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into
nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little
gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his
village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and
die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt
in the sun. He shivers and looks eagerly about. The eighteen years he has lived
seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already
he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other
human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he
prefers that the other be a woman, that is because he believes that a woman will
be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.

Thesaurus
backward: (adj, adv) late, behindhand;
(adj) tardy, retarded, reluctant, coy,
slow, laggard, dilatory; (adv) behind,
backwardly. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv)
ahead; (adv) onward; (adj) quick,
developing, advanced, confident,
brilliant, bold.
becomes: (v) become.
creep: (v) grovel, sneak, steal, fawn,
lurk, truckle, cringe; (n) creeping,
crawling, toady, sycophant.
ANTONYMS: (v) race, dash, hasten,

hurry, speed, fly.
stoppages, stopped, stopping, card
gasp: (n, v) pant; (v) puff, blow,
game, moolah.
breathe, sigh, heave, wheeze, breathe stout: (adj, n) sturdy, stocky, hearty;
heavily, gag; (n) inhalation, breath.
(adj) hardy, strong, robust, obese,
hears: (v) hear.
husky, bold, corpulent, fleshy.
regrets: (n) regret, declination, RSVP
ANTONYMS: (adj) thin, slim, flimsy,
regrets only, acknowledgement,
cowardly, slight, skinny, fragile,
acknowledgment, celestial latitude,
weak.
wilt: (v) flag, shrivel, sag, weaken,
excuse, Dec.
shivers: (n) cold, jitters.
fade, languish, dry, wither, collapse,
stops: (n) Chicago, Michigan,
tire; (n) wilting. ANTONYMS: (v)
Newmarket, boodle, halts, stop,
flourish, rise, rally.

Sherwood Anderson

207

When the moment of sophistication came to George Willard his mind turned
to Helen White, the Winesburg banker's daughter. Always he had been
conscious of the girl growing into womanhood as he grew into manhood. Once
on a summer night when he was eighteen, he had walked with her on a country
road and in her presence had given way to an impulse to boast, to make himself
appear big and significant in her eyes. Now he wanted to see her for another
purpose. He wanted to tell her of the new impulses that had come to him. He
had tried to make her think of him as a man when he knew nothing of manhood
and now he wanted to be with her and to try to make her feel the change he
believed had taken place in his nature.%
As for Helen White, she also had come to a period of change. What George
felt, she in her young woman's way felt also. She was no longer a girl and
hungered to reach into the grace and beauty of womanhood. She had come
home from Cleveland, where she was attending college, to spend a day at the
Fair. She also had begun to have memories. During the day she sat in the grandstand with a young man, one of the instructors from the college, who was a
guest of her mother's. The young man was of a pedantic turn of mind and she
felt at once he would not do for her purpose. At the Fair she was glad to be seen
in his company as he was well dressed and a stranger. She knew that the fact of
his presence would create an impression. During the day she was happy, but
when night came on she began to grow restless. She wanted to drive the
instructor away, to get out of his presence. While they sat together in the grandstand and while the eyes of former schoolmates were upon them, she paid so
much attention to her escort that he grew interested. "A scholar needs money. I
should marry a woman with money," he mused.
Helen White was thinking of George Willard even as he wandered gloomily
through the crowds thinking of her. She remembered the summer evening when
they had walked together and wanted to walk with him again. She thought that
the months she had spent in the city, the going to theaters and the seeing of great
crowds wandering in lighted thoroughfares, had changed her profoundly. She
wanted him to feel and be conscious of the change in her nature.

Thesaurus
boast: (v) bluster, brag, blow, crow,
instructor: (n) trainer, coach,
greatly, sincerely, gravely, deep,
gasconade, show off, rodomontade,
preceptor, don, educator, tutor,
heavily, weightily, very.
exult; (n, v) vaunt, pride; (n)
ANTONYMS: (adv) lightly, mildly.
demonstrator, lecturer, master,
arrogance. ANTONYMS: (n)
mentor, guru. ANTONYMS: (n)
sophistication: (n) sophism,
deprecation; (v) downplay, lack.
student, pupil.
cultivation, elegance, complexity,
gloomily: (adv) murkily, obscurely,
pedantic: (adj) affected, donnish,
polish, delicacy, casuistry,
drearily, darkly, somberly, morosely, learned, bookish, formal, scholastic,
adulteration, disenchantment,
sadly, sorrowfully, despondently,
scholarly, didactic, full of affectation, disillusion, disillusionment.
fussy; (adj, v) pompous.
ANTONYMS: (n) uncouthness,
unhappily, glumly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) brightly, favorably, happily,
ANTONYMS: (adj) basic, dilettante.
tackiness, naivety, naivete,
optimistically, contentedly; (adj)
profoundly: (adv) thoroughly,
coarseness, crudeness, simplicity,
auspiciously.
extremely, intensely, exhaustively,
tastelessness.

208

Winesburg, Ohio

The summer evening together that had left its mark on the memory of both
the young man and woman had, when looked at quite sensibly, been rather
stupidly spent. They had walked out of town along a country road. Then they
had stopped by a fence near a field of young corn and George had taken off his
coat and let it hang on his arm. "Well, I've stayed here in Winesburg--yes--I've
not yet gone away but I'm growing up," he had said. "I've been reading books
and I've been thinking. I'm going to try to amount to something in life.%
"Well," he explained, "that isn't the point. Perhaps I'd better quit talking."
The confused boy put his hand on the girl's arm. His voice trembled. The
two started to walk back along the road toward town. In his desperation George
boasted, "I'm going to be a big man, the biggest that ever lived here in
Winesburg," he declared. "I want you to do something, I don't know what.
Perhaps it is none of my business. I want you to try to be different from other
women. You see the point. It's none of my business I tell you. I want you to be a
beautiful woman. You see what I want."
The boy's voice failed and in silence the two came back into town and went
along the street to Helen White's house. At the gate he tried to say something
impressive. Speeches he had thought out came into his head, but they seemed
utterly pointless. "I thought--I used to think--I had it in my mind you would
marry Seth Richmond. Now I know you won't," was all he could find to say as
she went through the gate and toward the door of her house.
On the warm fall evening as he stood in the stairway and looked at the crowd
drifting through Main Street, George thought of the talk beside the field of young
corn and was ashamed of the figure he had made of himself. In the street the
people surged up and down like cattle confined in a pen. Buggies and wagons
almost filled the narrow thoroughfare. A band played and small boys raced
along the sidewalk, diving between the legs of men. Young men with shining
red faces walked awkwardly about with girls on their arms. In a room above one
of the stores, where a dance was to be held, the fiddlers tuned their instruments.
The broken sounds floated down through an open window and out across the
murmur of voices and the loud blare of the horns of the band. The medley of

Thesaurus
blare: (v) bellow; (n, v) sound, honk,
beep, hoot; (adj, n) boom; (n) din,
clamor, racket; (adj) peal, thunder.
ANTONYMS: (v) mute, stifle; (n)
silence.
diving: (n) immersion, dives, belly
whopper, skin diving, belly flopper,
belly whop, diving event, gainer;
(adv) headlong, headfirst; (v)
submerge.
medley: (n) mixture, miscellany,
jumble, melange, potpourri,

hotchpotch, concoction, admixture,
senselessly, fatuously, slowly,
hash; (adj) imbroglio, chaos.
insanely, unwisely, doltishly, crassly,
sensibly: (adv) sanely, intelligently,
densely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
rationally, pragmatically,
shrewdly, brightly, sensibly, wisely,
realistically, cleverly, politically,
sensitively, prudently, carefully.
thoroughfare: (n) road, street,
perceptibly, soundly, noticeably,
wisely. ANTONYMS: (adv) foolishly, highway, avenue, passage, way,
ludicrously, ridiculously,
route, path, boulevard, track,
unreasonably, illogically, madly,
roadway.
tuned: (adj) keyed, adjusted, musical,
irrationally, hastily, stupidly,
irresponsibly, immaturely.
tempered, melodious.
stupidly: (adv) dully, thickly, obtusely,

Sherwood Anderson

209

sounds got on young Willard's nerves. Everywhere, on all sides, the sense of
crowding, moving life closed in about him. He wanted to run away by himself
and think. "If she wants to stay with that fellow she may. Why should I care?
What difference does it make to me?" he growled and went along Main Street
and through Hern's Grocery into a side street.%
George felt so utterly lonely and dejected that he wanted to weep but pride
made him walk rapidly along, swinging his arms. He came to Wesley Moyer's
livery barn and stopped in the shadows to listen to a group of men who talked of
a race Wesley's stallion, Tony Tip, had won at the Fair during the afternoon. A
crowd had gathered in front of the barn and before the crowd walked Wesley,
prancing up and down boasting. He held a whip in his hand and kept tapping
the ground. Little puffs of dust arose in the lamplight. "Hell, quit your talking,"
Wesley exclaimed. "I wasn't afraid, I knew I had 'em beat all the time. I wasn't
afraid."
Ordinarily George Willard would have been intensely interested in the
boasting of Moyer, the horseman. Now it made him angry. He turned and
hurried away along the street. "Old windbag," he sputtered. "Why does he want
to be bragging? Why don't he shut up?"
George went into a vacant lot and, as he hurried along, fell over a pile of
rubbish. A nail protruding from an empty barrel tore his trousers. He sat down
on the ground and swore. With a pin he mended the torn place and then arose
and went on. "I'll go to Helen White's house, that's what I'll do. I'll walk right in.
I'll say that I want to see her. I'll walk right in and sit down, that's what I'll do,"
he declared, climbing over a fence and beginning to run.
On the veranda of Banker White's house Helen was restless and distraught.
The instructor sat between the mother and daughter. His talk wearied the girl.
Although he had also been raised in an Ohio town, the instructor began to put on
the airs of the city. He wanted to appear cosmopolitan. "I like the chance you
have given me to study the background out of which most of our girls come," he
declared. "It was good of you, Mrs. White, to have me down for the day." He
turned to Helen and laughed. "Your life is still bound up with the life of this

Thesaurus
airs: (n, v) pretension; (n) affectation,
international, sophisticated, global,
pride, pose, pretensions, attitude;
Catholic, ecumenical, planetary,
(adj, n) arrogance; (v) precisianism,
widely distributed, oecumenical; (adj,
n) cosmopolite; (n) creeping wood
euphuism, purism, pedantry.
ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
sorrel. ANTONYMS: (adj) insular,
personality, realness, truthfulness,
country, endemic, parochial, rustic.
crowding: (n) plough crowding,
honesty.
boasting: (n) bluster, bravado,
bunch, jostlement, overcrowding.
rodomontade, swagger, braggadocio, dejected: (adj) sad, depressed, low,
ostentation, show; (v) brag; (adj)
downhearted, gloomy, down,
swaggering, vaporing, strutting.
unhappy, spiritless, sorrowful,
cosmopolitan: (adj) universal,
miserable, melancholy. ANTONYMS:

(adj) elated, happy, euphoric, joyous,
encouraged, positive, enthusiastic,
hopeful.
protruding: (adj) obtrusive, projecting,
jutting, protrusive, salient, projected,
bulging, protuberant, noticeable,
sticking out, proposed.
wearied: (adj) jaded, tired, spent,
fatigued, weary, prostrate, limp,
haggard, shattered, worn, fatigate.

210

Winesburg, Ohio

town?" he asked. "There are people here in whom you are interested?" To the
girl his voice sounded pompous and heavy.%
Helen arose and went into the house. At the door leading to a garden at the
back she stopped and stood listening. Her mother began to talk. "There is no
one here fit to associate with a girl of Helen's breeding," she said.
Helen ran down a flight of stairs at the back of the house and into the garden.
In the darkness she stopped and stood trembling. It seemed to her that the world
was full of meaningless people saying words. Afire with eagerness she ran
through a garden gate and, turning a corner by the banker's barn, went into a
little side street. "George! Where are you, George?" she cried, filled with nervous
excitement.
She stopped running, and leaned against a tree to laugh
hysterically. Along the dark little street came George Willard, still saying words.
"I'm going to walk right into her house. I'll go right in and sit down, " he
declared as he came up to her. He stopped and stared stupidly. "Come on," he
said and took hold of her hand. With hanging heads they walked away along
the street under the trees. Dry leaves rustled under foot. Now that he had found
her George wondered what he had better do and say.
At the upper end of the Fair Ground, in Winesburg, there is a half decayed
old grand-stand. It has never been painted and the boards are all warped out of
shape. The Fair Ground stands on top of a low hill rising out of the valley of
Wine Creek and from the grand-stand one can see at night, over a cornfield, the
lights of the town reflected against the sky.
George and Helen climbed the hill to the Fair Ground, coming by the path
past Waterworks Pond. The feeling of loneliness and isolation that had come to
the young man in the crowded streets of his town was both broken and
intensified by the presence of Helen. What he felt was reflected in her.
In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm
unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers,
and the older, the more sophisticated thing had possession of George Willard.
Sensing his mood, Helen walked beside him filled with respect. When they got

Thesaurus
crowded: (adj) compact, congested,
intensified: (adj) intense, resonant,
incautious, negligent, rash,
full, packed, busy, dense, populous,
furious.
imprudent, involuntary, instinctive;
jammed, cramped, tight; (adj, n)
pompous: (adj) grand, arrogant,
(adj, v) unconscious. ANTONYMS:
thronged. ANTONYMS: (adj) sparse, ostentatious, affected, pretentious,
(adj) deliberate, considered, cautious,
deserted, uncrowded, loose.
overblown, showy, inflated, majestic, voluntary, careful, caring, discreet,
helen: (n) Helen of Troy.
lordly; (adj, prep) bloated.
stilted, guarded; (adv) thoughtfully.
hysterically: (adv) feverishly,
ANTONYMS: (adj) modest,
warped: (adj, n) twisted; (adj)
frantically, agitatedly, worriedly,
straightforward, unceremonious,
deformed, crooked, perverted,
wildly, violently, turbulently,
quiet, unassuming, natural,
misshapen, kinky, curved, distorted,
excitedly, emotionally, passionately,
deferential, relaxed, meek.
wry, partisan, superficial.
stormily. ANTONYM: (adv)
unthinking: (adj) inconsiderate,
ANTONYMS: (adj) wholesome,
peacefully.
heedless, careless, mindless,
impartial.

Sherwood Anderson

211

to the grand-stand they climbed up under the roof and sat down on one of the
long bench-like seats.%
There is something memorable in the experience to be had by going into a
fair ground that stands at the edge of a Middle Western town on a night after the
annual fair has been held. The sensation is one never to be forgotten. On all
sides are ghosts, not of the dead, but of living people. Here, during the day just
passed, have come the people pouring in from the town and the country around.
Farmers with their wives and children and all the people from the hundreds of
little frame houses have gathered within these board walls. Young girls have
laughed and men with beards have talked of the affairs of their lives. The place
has been filled to overflowing with life. It has itched and squirmed with life and
now it is night and the life has all gone away. The silence is almost terrifying.
One conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree and what there is
of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified. One shudders at the thought
of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant, and if the people of the
town are his people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes.
In the darkness under the roof of the grand-stand, George Willard sat beside
Helen White and felt very keenly his own insignificance in the scheme of
existence. Now that he had come out of town where the presence of the people
stirring about, busy with a multitude of affairs, had been so irritating, the
irritation was all gone. The presence of Helen renewed and refreshed him. It
was as though her woman's hand was assisting him to make some minute
readjustment of the machinery of his life. He began to think of the people in the
town where he had always lived with something like reverence. He had
reverence for Helen. He wanted to love and to be loved by her, but he did not
want at the moment to be confused by her womanhood. In the darkness he took
hold of her hand and when she crept close put a hand on her shoulder. A wind
began to blow and he shivered. With all his strength he tried to hold and to
understand the mood that had come upon him. In that high place in the
darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and

Thesaurus
atoms: (n) smithereens, Smither.
penetratingly, fervently, avidly.
insignificance: (n) unimportance,
ANTONYMS: (adv)
insignificancy, indifference,
unenthusiastically, apathetically,
immateriality, inconsiderableness,
faintly, reluctantly, patiently,
slightness, smallness, meanness,
passively, halfheartedly, vaguely.
littleness, futility, inconsequentiality. meaninglessness: (n) pointlessness,
ANTONYMS: (n) seriousness,
inanity, incoherence, incoherency,
importance, gravity, appropriateness, amphigory, flummery, bosh,
value, fame.
balderdash, baloney, gibberish,
keenly: (adv) eagerly, zealously,
absurdness. ANTONYMS: (n)
piercingly, acutely, cuttingly,
importance, meaningfulness,
ardently, strongly, lively,
sensibleness, worthiness.

readjustment: (n) adjustment,
accommodation, equilibration,
alignment, alteration, adaptation,
standardization, standardisation,
modification, fitting, reset.
reverence: (n, v) respect, regard, fear,
worship, honor, esteem, adore; (n)
deference, adoration, admiration,
awe. ANTONYMS: (n) despise,
disrespect, irreverence, disdain,
disparagement, contempt; (v)
dishonor.

212

Winesburg, Ohio

waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely
place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt.%
In Winesburg the crowded day had run itself out into the long night of the
late fall. Farm horses jogged away along lonely country roads pulling their
portion of weary people. Clerks began to bring samples of goods in off the
sidewalks and lock the doors of stores. In the Opera House a crowd had
gathered to see a show and further down Main Street the fiddlers, their
instruments tuned, sweated and worked to keep the feet of youth flying over a
dance floor.
In the darkness in the grand-stand Helen White and George Willard
remained silent. Now and then the spell that held them was broken and they
turned and tried in the dim light to see into each other's eyes. They kissed but
that impulse did not last. At the upper end of the Fair Ground a half dozen men
worked over horses that had raced during the afternoon. The men had built a
fire and were heating kettles of water. Only their legs could be seen as they
passed back and forth in the light. When the wind blew the little flames of the
fire danced crazily about.
George and Helen arose and walked away into the darkness. They went
along a path past a field of corn that had not yet been cut. The wind whispered
among the dry corn blades. For a moment during the walk back into town the
spell that held them was broken. When they had come to the crest of
Waterworks Hill they stopped by a tree and George again put his hands on the
girl's shoulders. She embraced him eagerly and then again they drew quickly
back from that impulse. They stopped kissing and stood a little apart. Mutual
respect grew big in them. They were both embarrassed and to relieve their
embarrassment dropped into the animalism of youth. They laughed and began
to pull and haul at each other. In some way chastened and purified by the
mood they had been in, they became, not man and woman, not boy and girl, but
excited little animals.
It was so they went down the hill. In the darkness they played like two
splendid young things in a young world. Once, running swiftly forward, Helen

Thesaurus
animalism: (n) philosophy,
temperament, ism, carnality,
disposition, doctrine, lust, license,
physicality.
chastened: (v) lamblike, resigned,
content; (adj) refined, reprimanded,
rebuked, reproved, subdued,
contrite, remorseful.
crazily: (adv) insanely, dementedly,
foolishly, wildly, nutsly, frantically,
loonily, frenziedly, daftly,
deliriously, wackily. ANTONYMS:

(adv) calmly, sanely, sensibly,
rationally.
crest: (n, v) crown, top, peak, climax;
(n) summit, brow, cockscomb, acme,
pinnacle, zenith; (v) cap.
ANTONYMS: (n) base, bottom, nadir,
trough.
haul: (v) tow, drag, cart, carry, lug,
draught, tug, transport; (n, v) pull,
heave; (n) freight.
kissing: (n) hugging, cuddling,
fondling, arousal, foreplay, necking;

(adj) embracing, adhering closely,
billing, clinging, interosculant.
purified: (adj) refined, clean, pure,
cleared, cleaned, cleansed, corrected,
chastened, sublimated, sanitary,
pured.
relieve: (n, v) ease, assuage, mitigate,
alleviate, allay, calm, redress; (v) free,
help, console, excuse. ANTONYMS:
(v) burden, aggravate, exacerbate,
harbor, enforce, include, upset,
depress.

Sherwood Anderson

213

tripped %George and he fell. He squirmed and shouted. Shaking with laughter,
he roiled down the hill. Helen ran after him. For just a moment she stopped in
the darkness. There was no way of knowing what woman's thoughts went
through her mind but, when the bottom of the hill was reached and she came up
to the boy, she took his arm and walked beside him in dignified silence. For
some reason they could not have explained they had both got from their silent
evening together the thing needed. Man or boy, woman or girl, they had for a
moment taken hold of the thing that makes the mature life of men and women in
the modern world possible.

Thesaurus
dignified: (adj) exalted, majestic,
despair, boredom, misery,
noble, grand, lofty, respectable,
despondency.
solemn, distinguished, lordly, high; mature: (adj, v) ripe, ripen; (v) develop,
(adj, v) great. ANTONYMS: (adj)
age, mellow, season; (adj) complete,
undignified, foolish, dishonorable,
old, experienced, adult, perfect.
ANTONYMS: (adj) childish, naive,
boisterous, unceremonious,
unseemly, vulgar, poor, lowly,
young, unripe, sophomoric,
modest, base.
unfledged, green, unclear,
laughter: (n) amusement, fun, guffaw, irresponsible, incomplete; (v)
merriment, chortle, chuckle, mirth,
growing.
hilarity, giggle, derision, happiness. roiled: (adj) riled, disordered, nettled,
ANTONYMS: (n) sadness, gloom,
peeved, irritated, churning, annoyed,

crocked, plastered, pixilated, pissed
off.
silent: (adj, adv) motionless; (adj)
dumb, tacit, mute, noiseless,
reserved, placid, reticent, mum,
taciturn, hush. ANTONYMS: (adj)
spoken, talkative, loud, explicit,
open, live, forthcoming, verbal,
audible, talking, moving.
when: (adv, conj) once, as soon as; (adv)
then, because, than, since, after; (conj)
although, while, if; (prep) during.

Sherwood Anderson

215

DEPARTURE

Young George Willard got out of bed at four in the morning. It was April
and the young tree leaves were just coming out of their buds. The trees along the
residence streets in Winesburg are maple and the seeds are winged. When the
wind blows they whirl crazily about, filling the air and making a carpet
underfoot.%
George came downstairs into the hotel office carrying a brown leather bag.
His trunk was packed for departure. Since two o'clock he had been awake
thinking of the journey he was about to take and wondering what he would find
at the end of his journey. The boy who slept in the hotel office lay on a cot by the
door. His mouth was open and he snored lustily. George crept past the cot and
went out into the silent deserted main street. The east was pink with the dawn
and long streaks of light climbed into the sky where a few stars still shone.
Beyond the last house on Trunion Pike in Winesburg there is a great stretch
of open fields. The fields are owned by farmers who live in town and drive
homeward at evening along Trunion Pike in light creaking wagons. In the fields
are planted berries and small fruits. In the late afternoon in the hot summers
when the road and the fields are covered with dust, a smoky haze lies over the
great flat basin of land. To look across it is like looking out across the sea. In the
spring when the land is green the effect is somewhat different. The land

Thesaurus
awake: (v) wake, awaken, realize,
squeaking, harsh, screaky, noisy,
moosewood, hedge maple, great
waken; (adj) alive, alert, attentive,
arthritic; (v) rickety; (n) screak.
maple, dwarf maple, goosefoot
conscious, keen, intelligent; (adj, v)
filling: (n) filler, weft, contents,
maple, field maple.
broad awake. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smoky: (adj) murky, hazy, fumid,
loading, plug, packing, pad,
unconscious, sleeping, comatose,
replenishment, padding, impletion,
vaporous, opaque, muddy, famish,
sleepy, relaxed; (v) deaden, lull,
stuffing. ANTONYMS: (adj) light,
burnt; (v) sooty, smutty, dusty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, fresh, clear.
sleep.
insufficient.
basin: (n) bowl, pot, hollow,
haze: (n) fog, cloud, confusion, vapor, streaks: (n) stripes, cords.
washbowl, washbasin, depression,
blur, daze, film, cloudiness, turbidity; winged: (adj) swift, rapid, speedy,
dock, tank, washstand, sink, basinful. (n, v) mist; (v) dim. ANTONYMS: (n) quick, flying, alate, sublime, lofty,
ANTONYMS: (n) hill, hump.
clarity, brightness.
alated, aligerous, composed.
creaking: (adj, v) creaky; (adj)
maple: (n) box elder, full moon maple,

216

Winesburg, Ohio

becomes a wide green billiard table on which tiny human insects toil up and
down.%
All through his boyhood and young manhood George Willard had been in
the habit of walking on Trunion Pike. He had been in the midst of the great open
place on winter nights when it was covered with snow and only the moon
looked down at him; he had been there in the fall when bleak winds blew and on
summer evenings when the air vibrated with the song of insects. On the April
morning he wanted to go there again, to walk again in the silence. He did walk
to where the road dipped down by a little stream two miles from town and then
turned and walked silently back again. When he got to Main Street clerks were
sweeping the sidewalks before the stores. "Hey, you George. How does it feel to
be going away?" they asked.
The westbound train leaves Winesburg at seven forty-five in the morning.
Tom Little is conductor. His train runs from Cleveland to where it connects with
a great trunk line railroad with terminals in Chicago and New York. Tom has
what in railroad circles is called an "easy run." Every evening he returns to his
family. In the fall and spring he spends his Sundays fishing in Lake Erie. He has
a round red face and small blue eyes. He knows the people in the towns along
his railroad better than a city man knows the people who live in his apartment
building.
George came down the little incline from the New Willard House at seven
o'clock. Tom Willard carried his bag. The son had become taller than the father.
On the station platform everyone shook the young man's hand. More than a
dozen people waited about. Then they talked of their own affairs. Even Will
Henderson, who was lazy and often slept until nine, had got out of bed. George
was embarrassed. Gertrude Wilmot, a tall thin woman of fifty who worked in the
Winesburg post office, came along the station platform. She had never before
paid any attention to George. Now she stopped and put out her hand. In two
words she voiced what everyone felt. "Good luck," she said sharply and then
turning went on her way.

Thesaurus
billiard: (n) pool, one thousand
insulator, nonconductor.
incline: (v) cant, dispose, bend; (n, v)
billions.
bleak: (adj) austere, bare, barren, cold, slope, bias, dip, tilt; (n) ascent,
dreary, murky, black, desolate, raw,
gradient, grade, inclination.
bald, bitter. ANTONYMS: (adj) mild, ANTONYMS: (v) indispose, level; (n)
lush, sunny, hopeful, encouraging,
hollow, descent.
lazy: (adj) indolent, inert, idle, inactive,
cheery, bright, sheltered, soulful,
cozy, populated.
shiftless, slothful, faineant, slow,
conductor: (n, v) guide, guard; (n)
sluggish; (adj, n) drowsy, dull.
ANTONYMS: (adj) diligent, active,
chief, director, driver, chauffeur,
bandmaster, collector, commander,
prompt, vigorous, industrious, keen,
pilot, ringleader. ANTONYMS: (n)
productive.

returns: (n, v) proceeds, income,
profits; (n) earnings, return, census,
take, revenue, wage, takings, result.
sweeping: (adj) broad, extensive,
radical, wholesale, indiscriminate,
exhaustive, blanket, thorough,
general, wide; (adv) sweepingly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) narrow,
restricted, exclusive, specific, modest,
isolated.
westbound: (n) westbound
movement; (adj) westerly.

Sherwood Anderson

217

When the train came into the station George felt relieved. He scampered
hurriedly aboard. Helen White came running along Main Street hoping to have
a parting word with him, but he had found a seat and did not see her. When the
train started Tom Little punched his ticket, grinned and, although he knew
George well and knew on what adventure he was just setting out, made no
comment. Tom had seen a thousand George Willards go out of their towns to
the city. It was a commonplace enough incident with him. In the smoking car
there was a man who had just invited Tom to go on a fishing trip to Sandusky
Bay. He wanted to accept the invitation and talk over details.%
George glanced up and down the car to be sure no one was looking, then
took out his pocketbook and counted his money. His mind was occupied with a
desire not to appear green. Almost the last words his father had said to him
concerned the matter of his behavior when he got to the city. "Be a sharp one,"
Tom Willard had said. "Keep your eyes on your money. Be awake. That's the
ticket. Don't let anyone think you're a greenhorn."
After George counted his money he looked out of the window and was
surprised to see that the train was still in Winesburg.
The young man, going out of his town to meet the adventure of life, began to
think but he did not think of anything very big or dramatic. Things like his
mother's death, his departure from Winesburg, the uncertainty of his future life
in the city, the serious and larger aspects of his life did not come into his mind.
He thought of little things--Turk Smollet wheeling boards through the main
street of his town in the morning, a tall woman, beautifully gowned, who had
once stayed overnight at his father's hotel, Butch Wheeler the lamp lighter of
Winesburg hurrying through the streets on a summer evening and holding a
torch in his hand, Helen White standing by a window in the Winesburg post
office and putting a stamp on an envelope.
The young man's mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams.
One looking at him would not have thought him particularly sharp. With the
recollection of little things occupying his mind he closed his eyes and leaned
back in the car seat. He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused

Thesaurus
behavior: (n, v) bearing, demeanor; (n) employment, moving in, occupation. reminiscence, recall, anamnesis,
parting: (n) adieu, division, leave,
carriage, conduct, deportment, act,
remembrance, recognition, memento,
behaviour, manner, character, action, departure, disunion, goodbye,
memorial, commemoration, memoir,
morality.
leaving, segregation, dying, rupture;
retrospect.
gowned: (adj) clothed, togated.
(adj) valedictory. ANTONYMS: (n)
stamp: (n, v) print, imprint, mark, seal,
invited: (adj) welcomer, wanted,
joining, meeting, connection,
brand, impress, cast, punch, shape;
(v) trample; (n) impression.
cherished.
Reunion.
lighter: (n) light, flatboat, igniter,
pocketbook: (n) bag, handbag,
torch: (n) brand, light, flambeau,
cigarette lighter, wherry, primer,
notebook, wallet, notecase, reticule,
burner, great mullein, blowlamp,
scow, kindling, fuze, fuzee,
billfold, jotter, finances, pocket book, Verbascum Thapsus, flannel mullein,
common mullein, blowtorch; (v)
houseboat.
paperback.
occupying: (n) commencement,
recollection: (n, v) mind; (n)
burn.

218

Winesburg, Ohio

himself %and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had
disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint
the dreams of his manhood.

Thesaurus
again: (adv) more, then, repeatedly,
disappeared: (adj) lost, missing,
anew, encore, furthermore, yet, also,
extinct, vanished, left. ANTONYM:
(adj) remaining.
often, once again, once more.
background: (n) groundwork,
himself: (pron) herself, themselves,
yourself, itself; (adj) myself; (n)
backdrop, education, basis, context,
scene, environment, backcloth,
yourselves.
life: (adj, n) animation; (n) energy,
panorama, ground, situation.
ANTONYM: (n) future.
spirit, activity, dash, enthusiasm,
become: (v) grow, suit, be, match,
being, biography, existence,
come about, arise, get, sit, to become, exuberance, live. ANTONYMS: (n)
fall; (adj) becoming. ANTONYMS: (v) death, apathy, extinction,
halt, stay, lower, stop, reduce, clash.
nonexistence, lifelessness.

paint: (n, v) color, tint; (v) daub, coat,
decorate, varnish, depict, enamel,
lacquer, apply; (n) painting.
town: (adj) municipal, urban; (n)
borough, township, village, burgh,
burg, municipality, townspeople,
metropolis; (adj, n) community.
ANTONYMS: (adj) country, private.
window: (n) casement, pane, skylight,
gap, Ventian window, clearstory,
transom, windowpane, rosette,
clerestory, embrasure.

Sherwood Anderson

219

GLOSSARY
abandon: (v) relinquish, renounce,
resign, vacate, waive, evacuate,
desert, give up, leave, depart, throw
away. ANTONYMS: (v) keep,
support, maintain, adopt, retain,
continue, defend; (n) restraint,
inhibition, deliberation, control
abandoned: (adj) immoral, profligate,
deserted, stranded, empty,
shameless, wicked, lonely,
depraved, corrupt, licentious.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inhabited,
orderly, overcrowded, used, pure,
virtuous, upright, seemly, reserved,
principled, moral
ablaze: (adj, v) afire, alight, blazing;
(adj) flaming, burning, on fire,
passionate, bright, flushed, fiery; (v)
splendid. ANTONYMS: (adj) dark,
dispassionate, dull, dim, smothered,
unexcited, extinguished
abloom: (adj) flowering, efflorescent,
mature, maturer
aboard: (adv) afloat, afield, at home,
there, everywhere, here, on base,
onboard, where
abominably: (adv) atrociously,
awfully, terribly, repulsively, badly,
frightfully, awful, sadly, hideously,
sickeningly, rottenly
abroad: (adj, adv) overseas, away;
(adv) afield, forth, beyond seas,
yonder, farther, at large, further;
(adj) foreign, out. ANTONYMS:
(adj) remaining, nearby
absence: (n) absenteeism, deficiency,
lack, default, dearth, want,
nonattendance, scarcity, paucity,
shortage, privation. ANTONYMS:
(n) attendance, existence,
fulfillment, inclusion, occurrence,
abundance, glut, confirmation,
supply, excess
absentmindedly: (adv) absently,
inattentively, distractedly, distantly,
dreamily, forgetfully, vaguely,
pensively, scattily, anxiously,

thoughtlessly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
calmly, carefully
absorbed: (adj) rapt, intent,
immersed, fixed, deep, engaged,
preoccupied, pensive, fascinated,
enthralled, held. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bored, disinterested, distracted,
restless, unfocused, uninterested,
indifferent, shallow, superficial,
detached
absorbing: (adj) fascinating,
engrossing, charming, enthralling,
gripping, captivating, riveting,
absorbent, attractive, readable; (adj,
v) exciting. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
irksome, tedious, repellent,
uninteresting
absorption: (n) assimilation,
attention, inhalation, ingestion,
preoccupation, imbibition,
engrossment, self-estrangement,
amalgamation, interest, abstraction.
ANTONYMS: (n) expulsion,
rejection
absurd: (adj) ridiculous, foolish,
unreasonable, irrational,
meaningless, inept, senseless,
nonsensical, illogical, ludicrous; (adj,
n) silly. ANTONYMS: (adj) rational,
reasonable, logical, wise, weighty,
sound, consistent, serious, plausible,
credible, acceptable
absurdity: (n) absurdness, nonsense,
silliness, nonsensicality,
meaninglessness, illogicality,
stupidity, folly, fatuity, idiocy,
preposterousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
logic, reasonableness, worthiness,
solemnity, sensibleness
absurdly: (adv) ridiculously,
foolishly, ludicrously, nonsensically,
idiotically, silly, stupidly,
inconsistently, comically, illogically,
irrationally. ANTONYMS: (adv)
solemnly, impressively, rationally,
harmoniously
abundant: (adj, n) lush, luxuriant;

(adj) generous, thick, plenty,
affluent, liberal, fruitful, teeming,
fertile, ample. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sparse, meager, scanty, infertile,
scant, arid, rare, empty, skimpy,
lacking, fruitless
abused: (adj) maltreated, physically
abused, downtrodden, perverted,
dull
accomplish: (v) perform, reach, do,
compass, perfect, attain, make,
fulfill, realize, execute, carry out.
ANTONYMS: (v) abandon, neglect,
choke, blow, lose
accounts: (n) financial statement
accoutrements: (n) accouterments,
trappings, paraphernalia,
equipment, gear, dress, clothes,
apparel, attire
accumulated: (adj) amassed,
assembled, collected, accumulate,
aggregate, gathered, hoarded, store,
concentrated, massed, increased
acquaintances: (n) associates
acquaintanceship: (n) familiarity,
relationship, association, friendship,
awareness
acquainted: (adj) knowledgeable,
informed, aware, cognizant,
conversant, hand and glove,
intimate, thick; (adv) abreast; (v)
inform, acquaint
acquire: (v) achieve, gain, find, take,
accept, attain, buy, collect, earn,
receive; (n, v) contract.
ANTONYMS: (v) sell, yield,
surrender, relinquish, forfeit, give,
scatter, remove
acquiring: (n) acquisition, getting,
receipt, contracting, acceptance,
appropriation, obtainment,
occupancy, occupation; (adj)
acquisitive, appropriative
acquisitiveness: (n) rapacity,
bibliomania, materialism,
covetiveness, covetousness,
cupidity, greediness, retentiveness,

220
bibliomaniacal, avarice.
ANTONYM: (n) generosity
acres: (n) land, acres and perches,
roods and perches, landed estate,
leasehold, homestead, glebe, manor,
freehold, fief, feoff
acting: (adj) interim, active,
temporary, pro Tem, provisional,
agent, substitute; (n) drama,
business, portrayal, playing
actor: (n, v) doer, performer; (n)
player, agent, thespian, comedian,
entertainer, mimic, histrion, artiste,
impersonator. ANTONYMS: (n) fan,
spectator
actuality: (n) truth, realism, fact,
substance, verity, veracity, entity,
existence, realness, being,
genuineness. ANTONYMS: (n)
falseness, pretense, illusion,
idealism
adept: (adj, n) expert; (adj) skillful,
able, accomplished, experienced,
capable, smart, clever, adroit; (n)
virtuoso, whiz. ANTONYMS: (adj)
incompetent, inept, awkward,
bumbling, fumbling, unskilled
adjoining: (adj) contiguous,
neighbor, near, abutting, touching,
conterminous, neighboring,
immediate, next, vicinal; (adj, v)
close. ANTONYMS: (adj) separate,
divided, detached, apart, far
admiration: (n) esteem, adoration,
appreciation, reverence, estimation,
amazement, liking, awe,
compliment; (adj, n) regard; (v)
laud. ANTONYMS: (n) disdain,
criticism, disapproval, contempt,
abhorrence, loathing, disgust,
despising, dishonor, disparagement,
detestation
admire: (v) revere, look up to, idolize,
appreciate, adore, wonder, praise,
worship, admiring, esteem, honor.
ANTONYMS: (v) despise, loathe,
scorn, hate, condemn, abhor,
disrespect, detest, disregard,
disapprove, deprecate
admired: (adj) respected, admirable,
estimable, favorite, pet, beloved,
honored, August, loved, accepted,
popular. ANTONYM: (adj)
disreputable
admit: (n, v) allow; (adj, v)
acknowledge; (v) concede, accede,
grant, affirm, confess, include,
permit, take, welcome.
ANTONYMS: (v) reject, exclude,
bar, dispute, gainsay, withhold,
refuse, oust, hide, eject, dismiss
admitted: (v) admitting, understood,

Winesburg, Ohio
of course; (adj) acknowledged,
undisputed, known, orthodox
adolescence: (n) youth, boyhood,
juvenility, puberty, childhood,
immatureness, majority, minority,
prime, pubescence, youthfulness.
ANTONYM: (n) senescence
adopted: (adj) adoptive, elected,
consecrated, inspired, justified,
regenerated, sanctified, unearthly,
converted, select, adoptious.
ANTONYM: (adj) native
adrift: (adj, adv) directionless; (adv)
afloat, wrong; (adj, v) astray; (adj)
disoriented, isolated, undirected,
rudderless, planless, insular, in
Twain. ANTONYMS: (adv)
anchored, determined, purposeful,
stable, moored
advance: (v) accelerate, proceed,
encourage, lend; (adv, v) further;
(adj, v) promote; (n, v) rise,
approach, raise, offer; (n)
improvement. ANTONYMS: (v)
recede, demote, regress, delay,
retard, prevent, reverse; (n)
deterioration, recession; (n, v)
decrease, downgrade
advanced: (adj) progressive, senior,
higher, precocious, modern, new,
late, superior, ripe, cultured,
developed. ANTONYMS: (adj)
inferior, fundamental, slow,
traditional, simple, obsolete,
neurotic, behind, after, backwards,
incomplete
advancing: (adj) progressive, moving
forward, increasing, moving,
processive, thriving, ongoing,
aggressive; (n) advancement,
progression, proceeding
adventure: (n, v) venture, chance; (n)
accident, escapade, incident, event,
undertaking, consequence, essay; (v)
risk, jeopardize. ANTONYMS: (n)
stillness, passiveness, inactivity,
inaction, avoidance, inertia, bore
adventurer: (n) venturer, speculator,
plunger, argonaut, traveler,
daredevil, gambler, adventurers,
carpetbagger, divers, mercenary.
ANTONYMS: (n) killjoy,
milquetoast
adventures: (n) experiences, fortunes,
confessions, journal, life, biography,
autobiography, personal narrative
adventurous: (adj) unsafe,
venturesome, enterprising, plucky,
audacious, bold, courageous,
daring, brave, foolhardy, rash.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cautious,
prudent, careful, timid

advertising: (n) advert,
advertisement, advertizing,
propaganda, handbill, promotion,
advertizement, publicity,
commercial, hard sell, public
relations
advisability: (n) suitability, fitness,
wiseness, advisableness,
desirability, wisdom, soundness,
appropriateness, propriety,
advantage, adventure.
ANTONYMS: (n) foolishness,
unsuitability
advise: (v) recommend, propose,
warn, inform, acquaint, suggest,
notify, announce, tell, offer,
forewarn. ANTONYMS: (v) betray,
deceive, delude, fool, trick
advised: (adj) studied, considered,
premeditated, deliberate, calculated,
intended; (v) determinate, express,
designed
affair: (n) occurrence, event, business,
concern, occasion, job, topic, duty,
subject, amour, thing
affected: (adj) unnatural, pretentious,
stilted, pompous, pedantic, studied,
feigned, pretended, factitious,
exaggerated, strained. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unchanged, natural, genuine,
calm, modest, unswayed,
untouched, untroubled, unmoved;
(adv) modestly
affecting: (adj) poignant, emotional,
moving, stirring, pathetic, emotive,
piteous, pitiful, heartbreaking,
mournful; (adj, v) sad.
ANTONYMS: (adj) emotionless,
unemotional
affection: (n) charity, attachment,
fondness, heart, love, disease,
nature, feeling, affectionateness,
tenderness, kindness. ANTONYMS:
(n) disgust, neglect, malice, loathing,
dislike, detachment, coldness,
roughness
affections: (n) bosom
afire: (adj) flaming, burning, blazing,
fiery, on fire, glowing, aflare,
aflame, in flames, passionate; (adj, v)
alight
afoot: (n) afloat, prevalent; (v) on
foot, on the tapis, agoing; (adv)
walking, abroach; (adj) underway,
itinerant, current
afraid: (adj) fearful, timid, shy,
apprehensive, anxious, worried,
scared, frightened, nervous,
terrified; (adj, adv) cowardly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) brave,
venturesome, calm, confident, cool,
courageous, eager, unafraid, valiant,

Sherwood Anderson
bold, carefree
afterward: (adv, conj) then, after that;
(adv) thereafter, afterwards, later,
subsequently, later on, next, soon;
(adj) following; (n) future.
ANTONYMS: (adv) now,
previously, before
agency: (n) office, bureau,
commission, means, intermediation,
way, authority, expedient,
instrument, organ; (n, v) act
agent: (n, v) broker, actor; (n)
medium, deputy, mediator,
instrument, factor, surrogate,
attorney, channel, procurator.
ANTONYMS: (n) principal, patriot
age-old: (adj) old, aged, immemorial,
antediluvian
ages: (n) time out of mind, time
immemorial, coon's age, blue moon,
month of Sundays
aggressive: (adj) active, offensive,
enterprising, warlike, energetic,
pushy, hostile, invasive, vigorous,
strong, strenuous. ANTONYMS:
(adj) peaceable, friendly, passive,
suspicious, calm, timid, antiwar,
easygoing, ineffectual, lazy, mild
agitation: (n) disturbance,
excitement, tumult, stirring,
convulsion, stir, commotion,
emotion, unrest, shake, turmoil.
ANTONYMS: (n) serenity, calm,
equanimity, rest, peace, deterrent
aglow: (adj) glowing, radiant,
brilliant, ablaze, bright, lambent,
lucent, luminous, light; (v) alight
agnostic: (n) freethinker, doubter,
atheist, nonbeliever, infidel,
unbeliever, sceptic; (adj, n) pagan;
(adj) theophobist, somatist,
unbelieving. ANTONYMS: (n)
believer, adherent; (adj) gnostic,
attached
aimlessly: (adv) indiscriminately,
pointlessly, without aim, randomly,
haphazardly, driftingly, blindly,
erratically, objectlessly, desultorily,
vagrantly
airs: (n, v) pretension; (n) affectation,
pride, pose, pretensions, attitude;
(adj, n) arrogance; (v) precisianism,
euphuism, purism, pedantry.
ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
personality, realness, truthfulness,
honesty
alarm: (n, v) alert, scare, awe, panic;
(n) consternation, alarm clock,
fright, alarum, terror; (v) agitate,
horrify. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
comfort; (v) reassure, soothe, assure;
(n) reassurance, composure,

nonchalance, assurance, bravery,
confidence, order
alarmed: (adj) afraid, scared,
frightened, apprehensive, horrified,
anxious, uneasy, agitated, shocked,
terrified, concerned. ANTONYM:
(adj) carefree
alas: (adv) unluckily, regrettably,
sadly, unhappily, sorry to say; (n)
oh; (int) lackaday. ANTONYM:
(adv) luckily
albert: (n) Eugne D'Albert, Jeanne
d'Albert, Prince Albert, Albert
Francis Charles Augustus
Emmanuel
alight: (v) light, land, perch,
dismount, get down, settle, get off,
descend; (adj) ablaze, burning,
blazing. ANTONYM: (v) mount
alike: (adj) corresponding, equal,
equivalent, cognate, analogical,
parallel, analogous, identical,
similar, the same, duplicate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) different,
dissimilar, contrasting, unalike,
disparate, unlike, opposite; (adv)
differently, unequally, unevenly
alive: (adj) live, vivacious, living,
sensible, delicate, snappy, animated,
lively, spry, responsive; (n) life.
ANTONYMS: (adj) deceased,
inanimate, unanimated, dispirited,
dull, inactive, lethargic, lifeless,
listless, nonfunctioning, sluggish
all-around: (adj) general, versatile,
finished, global, inclusive,
sweeping, accommodating
alley: (n) track, road, passage, lane,
alleyway, aisle, path, runway,
pathway, street, back street
alleyway: (n) lane, passage, corridor,
back street, aisle, hallway, walkway,
hall, thoroughfare, street,
passageway
alone: (adj) forlorn, individual,
lonely, lonesome; (adj, adv) only,
apart; (adv) solely, entirely,
exclusively, separately, individually.
ANTONYMS: (adj) overshadowed,
ordinary, mobbed, equaled,
crowded, accompanied, common,
grouped, surpassed; (adv) jointly;
(n) foe
aloof: (adj) distant, reserved, cool,
standoffish, unconcerned,
indifferent, unfriendly, frigid,
arrogant, cold; (adv) afar.
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
involved, approachable, sociable,
outgoing, open, enthusiastic,
relaxed, communicative, affable,
respectful

221
aloud: (adv) loud, out loud, strong,
out, audibly, hard, forte.
ANTONYMS: (adv) softly,
inaudibly, quietly
alpaca: (n) textile, material, cloth,
fabric, llama, wool
altogether: (adv) absolutely, all,
wholly, perfectly, purely, all in all,
completely, entirely, totally, simply,
ensemble. ANTONYMS: (adv)
incompletely, partially
amazed: (adj) astounded, astonished,
stunned, dumbfounded,
flabbergasted, shocked, staggered,
bewildered, surprised,
thunderstruck, aghast
amazement: (n) admiration, wonder,
surprise, consternation,
stupefaction, stupor, wonderment,
feeling, alarm, jolt; (v) amaze.
ANTONYMS: (n) preparation,
indifference, expectation, coolness,
cool, composure, calmness,
contempt, belief
ambition: (n) aim, hope, goal, drive,
ambitiousness, wish, dream,
purpose, target, objective, intention.
ANTONYMS: (n) satisfaction,
contentment, sloth, laziness,
lethargy
ambitious: (adj) eager, difficult,
energetic, competitive, desirous,
grandiose, enterprising, pushy,
challenging; (adj, v) aspiring,
vaulting. ANTONYMS: (adj)
fulfilled, undemanding,
unambitious, slothful, simple,
satisfied, lazy, humble, facile, easy,
content
ambivalent: (adj) ambiguous, unsure,
equivocal, vague, unresolved,
undecided, unclear, timid, open,
incertain, in doubt. ANTONYMS:
(adj) sure, settled, resolved,
concrete, definite, certain,
unequivocal, decisive, clear
amid: (adv, prep) among, amongst;
(prep) between, amidst, mid,
during, in the midst of, with,
surrounded by, stuck between; (n)
midst. ANTONYMS: (prep) outside,
separate
amuck: (adj) berserk, possessed,
demoniacal, demoniac; (adv) wildly,
murderously
amused: (adj) amusing, smiling,
tickled pink, pleased, diverted
amusement: (n) pleasure, recreation,
entertainment, distraction,
diversion, sport, pastime, laughter,
enjoyment, joy, hobby.
ANTONYMS: (n) sadness, boredom,

222
work, tedium, business,
despondency, discomfort,
displeasure
amusing: (adj) humorous, fun,
pleasant, entertaining, risible,
comical, diverting, enjoyable,
laughable, agreeable, pleasing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tragic, boring,
unpleasant, unfunny, tiring, grim,
depressing, sad, annoying, heavy,
serious
anderson: (n) Marian Anderson,
Maxwell Anderson, Carl Anderson,
Phil Anderson, Philip warren
Anderson, Philip Anderson, Carl
David Anderson, Sherwood
Anderson
angel: (n, v) sponsor, support; (n)
backer, cherub, messenger, patron,
benefactor, saint; (adj) Dulcinea,
goddess; (adj, n) darling.
ANTONYMS: (n) fiend, devil, jerk,
demon
anger: (n) fury, rage, displeasure,
resentment, indignation; (v) incense,
offend, irritate, exasperate; (adj)
angry; (n, v) wrath. ANTONYMS:
(v) placate, pacify, tickle; (n)
pleasure, composure, glee, affection,
serenity, goodwill, forbearance; (n,
v) calm
angrily: (adv) irately, passionately,
fiercely, indignantly, cholericly,
resentfully, enragedly, infuriatedly,
wrathfully, madly, crossly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) warmly, lightly,
calmly, cheerfully, gently, gladly
angry: (adj) anger, furious, provoked,
incensed, vehement, fierce, irate,
raging, maddened, shirty,
indignation. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pleased, gentle, joyful, content,
euphoric, mild, happy, resigned,
joyous, gleeful, quiet
animalism: (n) philosophy,
temperament, ism, carnality,
disposition, doctrine, lust, license,
physicality
annoyance: (n) anger, harassment,
aggravation, disturbance,
inconvenience, pain, bother,
botheration, temper, displeasure,
vexation. ANTONYMS: (n) calm,
satisfaction, patience, calmness,
delight, equanimity, advantage,
balm
annoyed: (adj) irritated, vexed, irate,
aggravated, angered, cross,
disgruntled, exasperated, infuriated,
displeased, resentful. ANTONYMS:
(adj) pleased, unprovoked, smiling,
patient, unconcerned, contented

Winesburg, Ohio
annoying: (adj) galling, vexatious,
aggravating, vexing, worrying,
awkward, trying, bothersome,
disagreeable; (adj, v) irritating; (n)
annoyance. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pleasing, delightful, pleasant,
charming, satisfying, welcome,
convenient
anticipation: (n) forecast, hope,
foresight, prevention, augury,
expectance, hopefulness,
prefiguration, presentiment; (n, v)
outlook, prospect. ANTONYMS: (n)
despair, boredom
anxiety: (n) disquiet, trouble, fear,
care, alarm, anxiousness,
uneasiness, worry, anguish, concern;
(adj, n) solicitude. ANTONYMS: (n)
calm, bravery, confidence,
reassurance, security, relaxation,
indifference, serenity, tranquility,
peace, satisfaction
anxious: (adj) uneasy, alarmed,
thoughtful, fearful, apprehensive,
agitated, keen; (adj, v) nervous,
tense, solicitous, jumpy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed, carefree,
confident, rational, unconcerned,
undisturbed, untroubled, assured,
comfortable, cool, apathetic
anxiously: (adv) uneasily, restlessly,
carefully, worriedly, fearfully,
nervously, concernedly, solicitously,
timidly, keenly, enthusiastically.
ANTONYMS: (adv) calmly,
confidently, merrily, indifferently,
fearlessly, nonchalantly, patiently,
unconcernedly
anywhere: (adv, n) anyplace; (adv)
someplace, wherever, everywhere
apart: (adj, adv) aloof; (adv) aside,
asunder, especially; (adj) alone,
distant, detached, isolated, only;
(adj, v) separate; (v) segregate.
ANTONYMS: (adv) adjoining, near,
surrounded; (adj) connected, nearby
apartment: (n) residence, lodging,
suite, place, dwelling, chamber,
room, abode, house, home,
accommodation
appearance: (n) look, face, shape,
show, apparition, advent, form,
image, surface, impression; (adj, n)
semblance. ANTONYMS: (n)
departure, vanishing
appearances: (n) show, semblance,
outlook, indicia
appeared: (n) appearing
appearing: (adj) seeming, beseen,
emergent, accomplished; (n) coming
into court; (prep) liking; (adj, adv)
prima facie

appetite: (n, v) desire; (n) appetence,
appetency, relish, inclination,
stomach, taste, thirst, passion,
liking, gusto. ANTONYMS: (n)
dislike, repulsion, revulsion, apathy,
distaste
apple: (n) Malus pumila, pome, earth,
city, world, orchard apple tree; (v)
apple slump, ball; (adj) green
appoint: (v) assign, accredit,
designate, set, prescribe, delegate,
create, make, commission, fix; (n, v)
name. ANTONYMS: (v) dismiss,
fire, unfurnish, expel, dismantle,
discharge, strip, elect, change
approaching: (adj) future,
forthcoming, impending, imminent,
oncoming, near; (adj, n) coming; (n,
v) approach; (adv) nearly, almost;
(prep) toward
approval: (n) applause, approbation,
acclaim, agreement, recognition,
admiration, acquiescence, praise,
acknowledgment, appreciation,
permission. ANTONYMS: (n)
rejection, condemnation, scorn,
criticism, refusal, caution,
dissatisfaction, disrespect, denial,
veto, opposition
approve: (v) adopt, allow, accept,
acknowledge, ratify, let, agree,
endorse, admit, support, applaud.
ANTONYMS: (v) condemn, censure,
disapprove, veto, forbid, invalidate,
disallow, disrespect, deny,
desecrate, oppose
apron: (n) skirt, proscenium, pall,
pontificals, lawn sleeves, pinafore,
petticoat, gathering head, wife, jupe,
farthingale
arguments: (n) reasons, argument,
contention, advice, opinion,
influence, point of view, urging,
wiles
arise: (v) appear, emerge, result,
issue, mount, proceed, originate, get
up, ascend, awake, stand up.
ANTONYMS: (v) end, sit, recline,
stop, retire, disappear, descend,
cease, fade
arisen: (adj) risen
arising: (n) emanation
armful: (n) mouthful, containerful,
capful, spoonful
arose: (v) happen, occur
arouse: (v) wake, stir, agitate, excite,
awaken, stimulate, anger, kindle,
provoke, raise; (n, v) rouse.
ANTONYMS: (v) calm, dampen,
stifle, sedate, quiet, pacify, bore,
allay, lull, quench, suppress
aroused: (adj) ablaze, aflame,

Sherwood Anderson
passionate, hot, agitated, inflamed,
susceptible, tense, fascinated,
emotional, elated
arranged: (adj) settled, regular,
prepared, orderly, fixed, organized,
ready, tidy, straight, ordered, neat.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disorderly,
disorganized, changing,
unprepared, untidy
arrangement: (n) order, settlement,
array, distribution, design, system,
adjustment, sequence, contract,
alignment; (adj, n) method.
ANTONYMS: (n) disarray,
individual
arrangements: (n) arranging,
disposition, fixing, schedule, travels,
activities, actions, accompaniments,
movements
arranging: (n) arrange, arrangements,
disposition, composing,
composition, order, position, set,
orchestration, organization,
agreement
arrested: (adj) apprehended, halted,
backward, in remission, inactive,
intermittent
arrival: (n) advent, accession,
entrance, incoming, newcomer,
return, attainment, coming, comer,
entry, reaching. ANTONYMS: (n)
exit, leaving, disappearance,
conclusion
arrive: (n, v) come, appear; (v)
mature, reach, attain, succeed, turn
up, land, fall, get in, show.
ANTONYMS: (v) go, depart, fail,
fall, lose, exit
arrived: (adv) here, at home; (adj)
accepted
artful: (adj) crafty, cunning,
scheming, wily, shrewd, insidious,
designing, sly, adroit, subtle,
disingenuous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
artless, unskillful, inept, ingenuous,
unskilled, open, straight
articulate: (v) speak, pronounce,
utter, vocalize, voice, state, say,
joint, enunciate, express; (adj)
eloquent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
incoherent, unintelligible, illogical,
misrepresented, mumbled, unclear,
unarticulated; (v) mumble,
disconnect, misrepresent, misspeak
artist: (n) actor, artificer, player,
master, musician, performer,
draftsman, sculptor, painter,
entertainer, maker. ANTONYM: (n)
spectator
ashamed: (adj) hangdog, guilty,
embarrassed, sheepish, remorseful,
regretful, bashful, disconcerted,

contrite, chagrined; (v) dashed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) proud, arrogant,
unremorseful, unashamed, pleased,
blatant, bold, happy, unabashed,
unrepentant
ashy: (adj) wan, ashen, pale, sallow,
pallid, grey, livid, gray, cadaverous,
pasty, white
aside: (adv) apart, away, beside,
alongside, in reserve, off, abreast;
(adj, adv) by; (n) digression,
divagation, parenthesis.
ANTONYMS: (adv) erectly,
uprightly, vertically
asking: (v) ask; (n) invitation, prayer,
suit, application, begging,
supplication, entreaty, billing; (adj)
interrogatory, interrogative
asleep: (adj) sleeping, deceased,
sleepy, dormant, numb, dead, sound
asleep, snoozing, slumbering,
napping, gone. ANTONYMS: (adj)
up, attentive, alert, conscious
assail: (n, v) assault; (v) invade,
bombard, molest, raid, hit, beset,
besiege, strike, storm, impugn.
ANTONYMS: (v) withdraw,
champion, support, protect
assembled: (adj) amassed, collected,
collective, concentrated, united,
gather, assembling, gathered,
massed, built, aggregate
assertiveness: (n) forcefulness,
violence, forwardness, fierceness,
ferociousness, bumptiousness,
brazenness, belligerence, boldness,
insolence. ANTONYM: (n)
gentleness
assistant: (n, v) assist, aid, assistance;
(adj, n) subordinate; (n) acolyte,
accomplice, colleague, auxiliary,
helper, adjutant; (adj) ancillary.
ANTONYM: (adj) chief
assisting: (adj) aiding, auxiliary,
subsidiary, suffragan, adjuvant,
supporting, support, secondary,
supplementary, assistant; (n)
helping. ANTONYM: (adj) main
associate: (n, v) affiliate, connect,
link; (n) partner, fellow, companion,
assistant, accomplice, adjunct; (v)
company, relate. ANTONYMS: (v)
avoid, distance, separate,
disconnect, clear, divide, estrange;
(adj) chief; (n) stranger, rival,
competitor
associated: (adj) connected, allied,
affiliated, united, attendant, linked,
confederate, attached, joined, alike,
coupled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unconnected, different, rival
associates: (n) staff, membership,

223
circle, entourage, intimates, people
assumed: (adj) sham, affected,
fictitious, fake, feigned, counterfeit,
pretended, reputed, artificial,
hypothetical, spurious.
ANTONYMS: (adj) true, authentic,
explicit, known, real, natural
asylum: (n) shelter, sanctuary, haven,
retreat, home, madhouse, insane
asylum, institution, cover, harbor,
protection
atmosphere: (n) ambience, ambiance,
mood, aura, feel, environment,
feeling, background, quality,
medium, setting
atoms: (n) smithereens, Smither
attached: (adj) affectionate,
committed, affiliated, associated,
devoted, fond, loving, loyal, near,
added; (n) attachment.
ANTONYMS: (adj) separate,
unmarried, unattached, vagile, free,
distant
attacked: (adj) assaulted, corroded
attacking: (adj) aggressive, assailing,
invading, abusive, abhorrent,
warlike, rebellious, assailant
attempted: (adj) unsuccessful
attend: (n, v) tend, escort, nurse,
conduct; (v) assist, serve, minister,
aid, look, partake, follow.
ANTONYMS: (v) neglect, leave,
ignore, disregard, desert, abandon
attended: (adj) attent, fraught, tended
to
attending: (v) attend; (n) presence,
nursing, care, appearing,
observation; (adj) concomitant,
attendant, ministrant, in attendance,
ancillary. ANTONYMS: (n)
nonattendance, inattention
attentive: (adj) assiduous, diligent,
heedful, watchful, observant,
advertent, mindful, careful, aware,
alert, respectful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unfocused, negligent, neglectful,
forgetful, heedless, unobservant,
rude, unprepared, unconscious,
uncaring, inconsiderate
attentively: (adv) carefully,
mindfully, watchfully, observantly,
heedfully, vigilantly, cautiously,
considerately, diligently, alertly,
obligingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
unhelpfully, neglectfully, abruptly,
carelessly, hastily, casually
attitude: (n) aspect, posture,
behavior, mind, notion, approach,
air, bearing, disposition, point of
view, outlook
attract: (v) charm, beguile, tempt,
enamor, invite, entice, captivate,

224
draw, arrest, beckon; (adj, v) allure.
ANTONYMS: (v) disgust, repulse,
dismiss, appall, shun, exude
attracted: (adj) paying attention,
concerned, enamored, enthusiastic,
interested, involved, amatory
attracting: (adj) alluring, tempting,
attractive, tractive, winning, taking,
prepossessing, allicient, seductive;
(n) drawing; (v) attrahent
attractive: (adj) good-looking,
engaging, appealing, amiable,
charming, alluring, adorable,
agreeable, striking, enchanting,
sweet. ANTONYMS: (adj) ugly,
unappealing, revolting, disgusting,
repellent, unpleasant, repulsive,
straight, boring, uninteresting,
tasteless
aunt: (n) uncle, auntie, aunty, father's
younger brother's wife, father's
older brother's wife, mother's sister,
kinswoman, nephew, niece, paternal
aunt, maternal uncle's wife
authentic: (adj) genuine, actual,
straight, right, real, accurate, valid,
believable, bona fide, true; (adj, v)
authoritative. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bogus, fake, unrealistic, false,
spurious, phony, counterfeit,
dishonest, unauthorized,
unbelievable, imitation
author: (n) writer, producer, founder,
creator, inventor, parent, originator,
architect, maker; (v) compose,
create. ANTONYM: (n) reader
authorial: (adj) authorly
avaricious: (adj) greedy, grasping,
acquisitive, avid, miserly, grabby,
parsimonious, penurious; (adj, v)
mercenary, sordid, extortionate
avoiding: (n) shunning; (adj) fugitive,
antisocial
awake: (v) wake, awaken, realize,
waken; (adj) alive, alert, attentive,
conscious, keen, intelligent; (adj, v)
broad awake. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unconscious, sleeping, comatose,
sleepy, relaxed; (v) deaden, lull,
sleep
awaken: (v) arouse, wake, rouse, call,
stir, kindle, get up, raise, wake up,
waken, revive. ANTONYMS: (v)
dampen, calm, retire, suppress,
spoil, quench, douse, stifle
awakened: (adj) excited, aroused,
awakens, awoke, interested
awakening: (n) arousal, waking up,
revival, disenchantment,
awakenment, introduction,
provocation; (adj) arousing, moving,
animating; (v) awake. ANTONYM:

Winesburg, Ohio
(n) suppression
awkward: (adj) inconvenient, clumsy,
embarrassing, uncomfortable,
ungainly, untoward, crude, inept,
sticky, left-handed, heavy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) graceful, easy,
adroit, manageable, straightforward,
simple, dexterous, rotund,
convenient, helpful, skillful
awkwardly: (adv) gawkily, ineptly,
ungracefully, embarrassingly,
maladroitly, stiffly, gracelessly,
inopportunely, bunglingly,
inelegantly, unwieldily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) gracefully,
elegantly, usefully, urbanely,
contentedly, coherently, calmly,
conveniently, agilely, expertly,
amenably
awning: (n) screen, shade, tilt,
sunblind, marquee, umbrella, blind,
canopy, cover, tarpaulin, shelter
awoke: (adj) awakened
babble: (n, v) drivel, gossip, chat,
burble, prattle; (v) ripple, gab, talk,
blab, smatter, bubble. ANTONYMS:
(n, v) stillness, quietness; (n) sense
babbling: (adj) loquacious, telltale,
voluble, blatant, blathering,
blithering, gabbling, garrulous,
jabbering; (n) stultiloquy,
stultiloquence
background: (n) groundwork,
backdrop, education, basis, context,
scene, environment, backcloth,
panorama, ground, situation.
ANTONYM: (n) future
backward: (adj, adv) late,
behindhand; (adj) tardy, retarded,
reluctant, coy, slow, laggard,
dilatory; (adv) behind, backwardly.
ANTONYMS: (adj, adv) ahead;
(adv) onward; (adj) quick,
developing, advanced, confident,
brilliant, bold
badly: (adv) poorly, severely,
awfully, wrongly, seriously,
naughtily, wickedly, hardly,
corruptly, injuriously; (adj, adv)
gravely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
skillfully, obediently, perfectly,
giftedly, flawlessly, satisfactorily,
admirably, superbly, shamelessly,
excellently, pleasingly
baffled: (adj) bewildered, puzzled,
perplexed, confounded, at sea,
frustrated, befuddled, beaten,
bemused, preoccupied, helpless.
ANTONYM: (adj) clear
baggage: (n) bag, bags, trunk, pack,
gear, equipment, stuff, effects,
suitcases, woman, thing

baker: (n) bakery, merchandiser,
merchant, cook, bread maker, baxter
bakery: (n, v) bakehouse; (n) baker,
bakeshop, patisserie, oven, candy
store, confectionery, supermarket,
grocery, sweet shop
balanced: (adj) equal, firm, wellbalanced, steady, stable, staid,
regular, suitable, harmonious,
uniform, symmetrical.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unfair,
unbalanced, unsettled,
unsymmetrical, uncertified,
asymmetrical, disproportionate,
imbalanced, unequal, uneven,
irrational
bald: (adj) hairless, simple, austere,
meager, raw, barefaced, stark, plain,
nude, naked; (adj, v) threadbare.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ornate, furry,
hirsute, woolly, embellished,
adorned, decorated
balls: (n) guts, family jewels,
intestinal fortitude, nerve, spirit,
tenacity, valor, audacity, prowess
bands: (n) cords, stripes
bang: (n, v) slam, hit, beat, strike,
knock, smash, boom, thud, bump;
(adv, n, v) smack, slap.
ANTONYMS: (n) silence; (v) tiptoe
banker: (n) cashier, teller, cambist,
investor, moneyman, bank
employee, capitalist, ditcher,
goldsmith, usurer, moneyer
bare: (adj) naked, austere, bald, stark,
bleak, exposed, desolate, plain; (adj,
v) empty, vacant; (v) show.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cultivated,
ornate, concealed, elaborate,
adorned, decorated, dressed,
clothed, embellished; (v) cover,
conceal
barking: (adj) latrant; (n) abay,
latration
barn: (n) outhouse, shed, cowshed,
cowhouse, stable, bawn, grange,
byre, godown, granary, storehouse
barnyard: (n) farmyard; (adj) crude,
gross, obscene, vulgar
barrel: (n) vessel, keg, roll, barrels,
barrelful, tun, vase, cask, vat,
container, hogshead
bartender: (n) barman, barkeep,
barmaid, publican, employee,
tapster, mixologist
baseball: (n) hockey, ball game,
ballock, baseball game, football
basement: (n) base, vault, cellarage,
offices, story, storey, kitchen,
pantry, scullery, footing; (adj, n)
bottom
bases: (n) basis, foundation

Sherwood Anderson
basin: (n) bowl, pot, hollow,
washbowl, washbasin, depression,
dock, tank, washstand, sink,
basinful. ANTONYMS: (n) hill,
hump
basket: (n) cage, hamper, basketful,
creel, Corf, coop, bucket, spinner
basket, bassinet, containerful, cradle
bathed: (adj) sweaty
bats: (adj) nutty, loony, crackers,
cracked, barmy, batty, balmy, goofy,
wacky, nuts, loopy
battleground: (n) field, arena, tract,
theatre of war, theatre, theater of
operations, parcel, theater,
landmark, area, Armageddon
bear: (v) accept, take, stand, acquit,
abide, allow, wear, comport,
tolerate, convey, teem.
ANTONYMS: (v) release, avoid,
destroy, dodge, take, eradicate,
evade, kill, refuse, erase; (n) bull
beard: (v) defy, dare; (adj, v) brave;
(adj, n) hair; (n) whiskers,
moustache, sloven, facial hair; (n, v)
camouflage, disguise, mask.
ANTONYM: (n) shaven
bearded: (adj) barbate, awny,
whiskered, hairy, aristate, coniform,
calamiform, gladiate, pilous,
shagged, echinate
bearing: (n, v) demeanor; (n) manner,
direction, deportment, conduct,
attitude, aspect, approach,
appearance, respect, air.
ANTONYMS: (n) insignificance,
irrelevance; (adj) nonbearing
bearings: (n) bearing, direction, crest,
position
beast: (n) animal, monster, swine,
fiend, creature, scavenger, savage,
critter, animate being, barbarian;
(adj) bear. ANTONYM: (n) man
beasts: (n) stock
beat: (n, v) pulse, throb, tick, flap,
knock; (v) batter, whip, trounce,
pulsate, bat; (n) round.
ANTONYMS: (v) protect, help,
divide, cede, aid, separate,
surrender; (adj) invigorated,
energized; (n) caress, pat
beaten: (adj) overpowered, routed,
conquered, overcome, prostrate,
frothy, trounced, worsted; (v) beat,
lose, fail. ANTONYMS: (adj)
heartened, uplifted, triumphant,
encouraged, loose
beating: (n) reverse, defeat,
whipping, thrashing, battery,
flogging, pounding, pulsation,
pulse, rout; (adj) pulsing.
ANTONYMS: (n) victory, win

beautifully: (adv) exquisitely, nicely,
gorgeously, splendidly,
handsomely, attractively, superbly,
charmingly, divinely, grandly,
elegantly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
unappealingly, tastelessly,
abysmally, harshly, horribly, badly
beauty: (n) attractiveness, beaut,
charm, pulchritude, loveliness,
exquisiteness, grace, grandeur,
looker, good looks; (adj) beautiful.
ANTONYMS: (n) hag, plainness,
shortcoming, flaw, witch, dog,
disadvantage, detraction,
repulsiveness, eyesore,
awkwardness
beckoning: (adj) irresistible
bedroom: (n) bedchamber,
dormitory, sleeping room,
apartment, assembly, berth,
boudoir, master bedroom; (adj) sexy
beech: (n) Black beech, copper beech,
tree, common beech, wood, beech
tree, beech wood
beehive: (n) hive, skep, yard,
workplace, wharf, usine, receptacle,
hairdo, forcing pit; (v) aviary,
alveary
beer: (v) wine, heavy wet, stingo,
spirits; (n) lager, ale, brewage, malt
liquor, suds, alcoholic beverage,
alcoholic drink
bees: (n) Apoidea, superfamily
Apoidea
befall: (v) bechance, become, happen,
fall, arise, come about, occur, betide,
chance, transpire, pass
beginnings: (n) origin, root, early
stages, early period, first phase
begun: (adj) present
behavior: (n, v) bearing, demeanor;
(n) carriage, conduct, deportment,
act, behaviour, manner, character,
action, morality
belief: (n) feeling, doctrine,
supposition, opinion, idea, thought,
impression, trust, view, confidence,
assumption. ANTONYMS: (n)
unbelief, doubt, disavowal, distrust,
denial, rejection, uncertainty,
independence, innovation
beliefs: (n) philosophy, persuasion,
creed, thinking, values, principles,
way of life, morals, viewpoint,
attitude, ideas
believed: (adj) whispered, alleged,
thought, held
bell: (n, v) chime; (n) gong,
Alexander Graham Bell, ring,
doorbell, handbell, tocsin, alarum,
Alexander Bell, buzz, angelus
belle: (n) beauty, fille, girl, miss,

225
missy
bells: (n) addition, approval,
matrimony, marriage, approbation,
wedding
belong: (v) appertain, pertain, lie, go,
belong to, attach, dwell, consist,
come, rank, stand. ANTONYMS: (v)
separate, disagree, disassociate,
leave, quit, differ
belonging: (adj) appertaining,
appertinent, apropos, apposite; (n)
household, family, appendage,
appurtenance, intimacy,
commodity, closeness. ANTONYM:
(n) antipathy
belongings: (n) property, luggage,
baggage, wealth, assets, gear,
chattels, personal property,
possessions, possession, equipment
bench: (n) banquette, chair,
workbench, court, terrace, bank, bar,
judicatory, Ottoman, board, form
bending: (n) bow, bend, deflection,
deflexion, refraction, flexure, crook;
(adj) flexible, supple, winding,
pliant. ANTONYM: (adj) stiff
beneath: (adv, prep) below, under;
(adj) low, inferior; (adv) downward,
infra, at a lower place; (prep) lower
than, less than, unworthy of,
unbefitting. ANTONYMS: (adv,
prep) over; (adv) higher
bent: (adj) curved, arched, deformed,
crooked; (n) propensity, inclination,
fancy, leaning, flair, gift, curvature.
ANTONYMS: (n) weakness,
inability, aversion; (adj)
undetermined, undecided,
uncurved, uncaring, rigid, unbent
berating: (n) reprehension, blowing
up, rebuke, tirade, invective
berry: (n) fruit, kernel, berries,
cranberry, currant, dewberry,
hackberry, wintergreen,
whortleberry, teaberry, mulberry
beset: (v) beleaguer, afflict, assault,
siege, molest, worry, attack, plague,
obsess, assail; (adv, v) surround
beside: (adv) on, abreast, aside,
closely, nearly; (prep) about; (adv,
prep) besides; (adj) adjacent; (n)
while, at; (adj, prep) near
besides: (adv) as well, moreover, too,
furthermore, again, as well as,
anyway, additionally; (prep) apart
from, beside; (adj, adv) more
besiege: (v) beset, beleaguer,
surround, blockade, attack,
compass, hem in, press, importune,
assail, bombard. ANTONYMS: (v)
help, please
besieged: (adj) enclosed, under

226
pressure, under attack, targeted,
struggling, stressed, under fire,
fraught, embattled, careworn,
harassed
bestowal: (n) conferral, presentation,
gift, endowment, contribution,
bestowment, conferment, delivery,
benefaction, gratuity, donation
bible: (n) scripture, scriptures, book,
Holy Scripture, word of God, good
book, bibliography, bibliotheca,
Holy Bible, handbook, word
bicycle: (n, v) bike, wheel,
motorcycle; (n) machine, velocipede,
mountain bike, push bike; (v) cycle,
pedal, backpedal, drive
biff: (n, v) punch, cuff; (n) lick, blow,
poke, thrust, haymaker; (v) whack,
crown, pommel, pummel
bigger: (adj) greater, larger, better,
major, largest, biggest, big, large,
great, vast, wide. ANTONYM: (adj)
lesser
biggest: (adj) utmost, largest, bigger,
greatest, major, most, best,
superlative, top, big, main
bigness: (n) bulk, size, largeness,
vastness, roominess, magnitude,
grandness, bulkiness, ampleness,
dimensions, volume
billiard: (n) pool, one thousand
billions
bills: (n) currency, folding money
biography: (n) history, life story, life,
life history, memoirs, memoir, story,
hagiography, animation,
biographies, resume
bird: (n) wench, poultry, fowl, girl,
birdie, hen, chick, Bronx cheer,
shuttlecock, archaeornis,
archeopteryx
birds: (n) aves, class Aves, Craniata,
flora and fauna, natural world,
nature, subphylum Craniata,
Subphylum Vertebrata, Vertebrata,
amphibians
birth: (n) beginning, genesis,
ancestry, descent, extraction, start,
onset, parentage, origin; (v)
delivery; (n, v) parturition.
ANTONYMS: (n) death,
bereavement, ending, finale, finish,
passing, end, decease, conclusion,
demise
birthmark: (n) mole, blotch, nevus,
blemish, defect, freckle, macula,
birthmarks, strawberry mark, patch,
beauty spot
bitch: (n, v) gripe, moan; (n) harlot,
beef, slut, shrew, trollop, kick, hen,
cunt; (v) complain
bite: (n, v) nip, cut, taste, hurt, pain;

Winesburg, Ohio
(v) pinch, chew, erode, gnaw, eat;
(n) morsel. ANTONYMS: (n) lot,
whole, mildness
biting: (adj, v) acute, acrid, sarcastic,
sharp, acrimonious, pungent,
severe, cutting; (adj) acid, bitter,
barbed. ANTONYMS: (adj) mild,
blunt, kind, bland, nice, soothing,
sweet, hot, complimentary, faint,
sympathetic
bits: (n) odds and ends, scraps, debris
bitten: (adj) stung, rabid, annoyed;
(v) smitten
bitter: (adj, v) acrimonious, acrid;
(adj) sharp, acid, malicious, caustic,
virulent, sour, resentful, keen,
acerbic. ANTONYMS: (adj) mild,
charitable, hot, sugary, kind,
wonderful, warm, pleasant, nice,
agreeable, gentle
bitterly: (adv) bitingly, sourly,
fiercely, cruelly, caustically, harshly,
poignantly, piercingly, cuttingly,
rancorously, acrimoniously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) harmoniously,
sweetly, warmly, gladly, agreeably,
kindly, friendly
blackberry: (v) bloater, bouilli,
bouillon, breadfruit, chop suey,
blancmange; (n) drupelet, mulberry,
bramble, black haw, blackberry
bush
blame: (v) arraign, chide; (n, v)
reprimand, censure, attack, charge,
reproach, rap, rebuke, fault; (n)
onus. ANTONYMS: (n, v) praise; (v)
absolve, exonerate, commend, clear,
acquit; (n) vindication, exoneration,
honor, absolution, glory
blamed: (adj) goddamned, goddamn,
damned, goddam, infernal,
damnable, ageless, answerable,
beatified, blessed, aeonian
blameless: (adj) irreproachable,
perfect, faultless, unimpeachable,
pure, spotless, innocent, guiltless,
inculpable, not guilty, clean.
ANTONYMS: (adj) culpable,
blameworthy, responsible, wrong,
bad, sinful, shameful, flawed
blank: (adj) bare, empty, unfilled,
pure, vacant, clean; (n) space,
blankness, form, vacuity; (v) addle.
ANTONYMS: (adj) full, expressive,
used, understanding, thoughtful,
incomplete, marked, filled, excited,
lively, aware
blanket: (adj) sweeping, overall,
comprehensive, global, wholesale,
generic; (n, v) cloak; (n) sheath,
sheet, bedding; (v) clothe.
ANTONYMS: (adj)

uncomprehensive, discerning,
incomplete, partial, specific
blare: (v) bellow; (n, v) sound, honk,
beep, hoot; (adj, n) boom; (n) din,
clamor, racket; (adj) peal, thunder.
ANTONYMS: (v) mute, stifle; (n)
silence
blast: (adj, n, v) discharge, explosion,
burst; (n, v) attack, slam, smash,
boom, blight, roar; (adj, v) blow up;
(v) detonate
blathering: (adj) loquacious,
blithering, gabbling, jabbering,
voluble
blaze: (n, v) flash, glare, flame, mark,
scintillation; (n) fire, light, burning,
inflammation, sheen; (adj, v) burn
blazing: (adj) flaming, afire, burning,
ardent, aflame, glaring, bright,
blatant, alight, passionate; (n) blaze.
ANTONYMS: (adj) freezing, quiet
bleak: (adj) austere, bare, barren,
cold, dreary, murky, black, desolate,
raw, bald, bitter. ANTONYMS: (adj)
mild, lush, sunny, hopeful,
encouraging, cheery, bright,
sheltered, soulful, cozy, populated
bleary: (adj) misty, blear, fuzzy,
blurry, filmy, vague, foggy, dim,
muzzy, blurred, indistinct.
ANTONYM: (adj) clear
bleeding: (adj) bloody, gory, blasted;
(n) haemorrhage, bloodletting,
runout, cupping, leeches,
venesection, phlebotomy; (v) bleed
blessed: (adj) happy, holy, cursed,
sacred, damned, hallowed, blasted,
fortunate, saintly, lucky, divine.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unlucky,
condemned, damned, disapproved,
unhappy, unholy, secular
blind: (n) curtain, shutter, veil, drape,
awning, trick; (v) bedazzle, dazzle,
daze; (adj) sightless; (adj, v) obscure.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sighted,
uncovered, understanding, sharp,
seeing, revealed, quick, perceptive,
open, controlled, cautious
blindly: (adv) darkly, dimly,
blindfoldly, purblindly, obscurely,
heedlessly, unreasoningly,
blindfold, unsightedly,
inconsiderately, ignorantly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) sensibly,
carefully, considerately, purposely
blinking: (adj) flickering, bally,
blooming; (adj, n) winking; (n)
shimmer, blink, wink, twinkling,
nictation, blink of an eye, nictitation
bloated: (adj) swollen, inflated,
distended, turgid, proud,
supercilious, haughty, puffed,

Sherwood Anderson
pompous, tumescent, tumid
block: (n, v) arrest, barricade, stop,
clog; (n) pad; (v) hinder, plug,
encumber, lock, obstruct; (adj, n)
lump. ANTONYMS: (v) free,
unblock, open, remember, unclog,
clear, release, promote, help,
encourage; (n) opening
blonde: (adj) fair, golden, fairish,
sandy, flaxen; (n) towheaded,
person, somebody, someone, soul,
buff. ANTONYM: (n) brunette
bloodless: (adj) white, livid, dead,
pale, pasty, wan, exsanguine,
blanched, anaemic, ghastly, watery.
ANTONYMS: (adj) robust,
sanguine, rosy, bloody, florid,
caring, lively
bloodshot: (n) inflamed
bloom: (adj, n, v) flower; (v) prosper,
flourish, thrive, burgeon; (adj, v)
blow, fructify; (n) prime, blush,
flush, bud. ANTONYMS: (v) shrivel,
struggle, wane, die, deteriorate,
decrease; (n) pallor, withering
blot: (n, v) spot, blemish, smudge,
mark, slur, taint, shame; (v) tarnish,
blob; (n) blotch; (adj, n) fault.
ANTONYMS: (v) dampen, grace,
soak, wet, beautify, improve,
enhance
blotch: (adj, n) blot; (n, v) spot, mark,
smudge; (n) pimple, stain, freckle,
splotch, patch, discoloration; (v)
mottle. ANTONYMS: (n) cleanness,
enhancement
blow: (n) beat, knock, shock, wallop,
gust, jolt; (adj, n, v) gasp, puff; (n, v)
blast, slap; (v) squander.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) calm; (v) save,
conserve, store, stillness, inhale,
come, arrive; (n) luck, comfort,
caress
blowing: (n) processing, insufflation,
bravado; (v) fanning, blow out; (adj)
windy, breezy
blown: (adj) puffy, panting, swollen,
winded, inflated, moving, high,
haughty lofty, late; (v) puffing and
blowing; (n) blowen
blue-eyed: (adj) pet, favorite,
precious, pure, dear
blueness: (n) blue, aqua, aquamarine,
navy, obscenity, turquoise, blueing,
Amytal, blue air, blue angel; (adj)
bluishness
bluntly: (adv) frankly, directly,
rudely, bluffly, coarsely,
forthrightly, candidly, curtly,
brusquely, gruffly, openly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) deceitfully,
hesitantly, indirectly, guardedly,

politely
blurred: (adj) fuzzy, indistinct, foggy,
blurry, bleary, vague, out of focus,
blear, cloudy, clouded, dim.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sharp, definite,
distinct, precise, certain
blushing: (adj) rosy, coy, blushful,
flushed, red, shy, bashful,
overmodest, ruddy; (adv)
blushingly, ablush. ANTONYM:
(adj) pale
blustering: (adj, v) stormy; (adj)
raging, blusterous, blustery,
turbulent, loud, vaporing,
vociferous, noisy, hectoring; (adv)
blusteringly
boards: (n) timber, arena, table, stage,
fence, floor
boast: (v) bluster, brag, blow, crow,
gasconade, show off, rodomontade,
exult; (n, v) vaunt, pride; (n)
arrogance. ANTONYMS: (n)
deprecation; (v) downplay, lack
boastful: (adj, v) braggart; (adj)
pompous, arrogant, proud,
vaunting, thrasonical, vainglorious,
vain, ostentatious; (v) Thrasonic;
(adj, n) noble. ANTONYMS: (adj)
deprecating, humble, insecure
boastfully: (adv) proudly,
conceitedly, arrogantly,
vaingloriously, pretentiously,
braggartly, big, crowingly,
thrasonically, pompously, bigly
boasting: (n) bluster, bravado,
rodomontade, swagger,
braggadocio, ostentation, show; (v)
brag; (adj) swaggering, vaporing,
strutting
boat: (n) yacht, steamship, ark, scull,
craft, steamboat, dinghy, pinnace,
ship, gondola, hoy
bobbing: (n) faggot, firewood, peat,
turf
boisterously: (adv) noisily,
clamorously, raucously,
uproariously, rowdily, riotously,
loudly, tumultuously, vociferously,
unruly, roughly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) demurely, peacefully
bold: (adj) adventurous, audacious,
manly, arrogant, intrepid, fearless,
spirited, heroic, daring, courageous,
stalwart. ANTONYMS: (adj) timid,
modest, afraid, meek, shy, light,
courteous, discreet, faint, fearful,
abashed
boldly: (adj, adv) courageously,
valiantly, heroically; (adv)
fearlessly, daringly, bravely,
intrepidly, impudently, audaciously,
shamelessly, brashly. ANTONYMS:

227
(adv) discreetly, modestly,
nervously, hesitantly, shyly,
fearfully, meekly, submissively,
secretly, respectfully, diffidently
boldness: (n) prowess, face, daring,
valor, nerve, assurance, heroism,
audaciousness, spirit, cheek, valour.
ANTONYMS: (n) cowardice,
shyness, timidity, meekness,
reticence
bolted: (adj) barred, Bolten, secured,
firm, barricaded, blockaded, bolted
attachment, fast, fastened, latched,
tight
bond: (n) association, alliance, deed,
agreement, bail, attachment, joint;
(v) bind; (n, v) cement, band, link.
ANTONYMS: (v) unstick, open,
unfasten, loosen, disconnect, clash;
(n) separation, divorce
bones: (n) bone, frame, corpse, dry
bones, framework, maraca,
physician, finger cymbals, tymbal,
wreck, timbrel
booked: (adj) reserved, registered,
affianced, bespoken, betrothed,
destined, future, engaged; (v)
bespeak, given over
bookkeeper: (n) book-keeper, babu,
auditor, amanuensis, actuary, clerk,
comptroller, controller, custos
rotulorum, booker, bean counter
bookstore: (n) bookshop, bookstall,
bookseller, shop, store, library, book
store, tobacco store, jewelry shop,
tobacconists, hardware store
boost: (n, v) advance, jump, increase,
hike, raise, thrust, push; (v)
advertise, promote, amplify,
augment. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
knock, decrease, drop; (v)
undermine, lower, diminish,
discourage, disparage; (n)
disappointment, cutback,
undermining
boots: (n) Bootes, bell boy, bootblack,
counterjumper, boy, shoeblack,
footwear
bore: (v) dig, tire, pierce, tap, annoy,
perforate; (n, v) bother, plague; (n)
auger, well, gimlet. ANTONYMS:
(v) fascinate, excite, hypnotize,
engage, entertain, stimulate; (n)
charmer, exciter, excitement,
pleasure
borne: (adj) weak, wanting, spoony,
soft, sappy, shallow, little, limited
borrow: (v) adopt, lend, appropriate,
to borrow, assume, take, accept,
acquire, plagiarize, cadge, get.
ANTONYMS: (v) give, invent, loan,
originate, return

228
borrowed: (adj) foreign, rubato,
secondary
bosom: (n) heart, interior, boob,
thorax, chest, bust, tit; (n, v)
embrace; (v) cherish, hug; (adj)
intimate. ANTONYMS: (n) outside,
exteriority
boss: (v) govern, administer, direct,
superintend; (n) head, superior,
chief, overseer, ruler, captain,
superintendent. ANTONYMS: (n)
subordinate, inferior, employee; (v)
follow, submit, obey; (adj) lousy,
poor
bother: (n, v) trouble, torment, worry,
hassle, pain; (adj, n, v) fuss, bore; (v)
vex, annoy, irritate; (n) nuisance.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) delight; (v)
soothe, please, help, aid, comfort,
placate, encourage, defend; (n)
accord, satisfaction
bothered: (adj) troubled, disturbed,
nervous, distraught, uneasy,
concerned, upset, annoyed,
harassed, vexed, fazed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) peaceful,
unconcerned, pleased, serene,
untroubled, content
bottle: (n) container, jug, flask, cruet,
vial, pot, phial, jar, decanter, carboy;
(n, v) can
bottom: (n) basis, backside, bed,
behind, foot, footing, back,
foundation, posterior, floor; (n, v)
ground. ANTONYMS: (n) pinnacle,
summit, peak, roof, apex, ceiling,
middle; (adj) highest
bound: (n, v) leap, jump, border,
bounce, limit, edge, vault, recoil; (n)
boundary, barrier, compass.
ANTONYMS: (v) allow, amble,
crawl, limp, permit; (adj) permitted,
released, unbound, allowed,
unlikely
bounds: (n) boundary, border, limit,
bound, margin, borderline, end,
bourn, Bourne, brink, edge.
ANTONYMS: (n) center, middle
bounty: (adj, n) largesse; (n)
abundance, bounteousness,
premium, blessing, prize,
munificence, beneficence,
generosity; (v) benefaction; (n, v)
gift. ANTONYMS: (n) miserliness,
fine, insufficiency, penalty,
meanness
bowed: (adj) arched, curved, inclined,
crooked, arciform, arching, arced,
bandy, arcuate, twisted, bended.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight,
concave, plucked
bowing: (n) obeisance, playing,

Winesburg, Ohio
gesticulation, capitulation,
genuflection, scraping, submission;
(adj) bowed, bent, fawning,
submissive
boxes: (n) auditory, pit, parquet,
gallery, box, case, front of the house,
bleachers, stalls
boyhood: (n) babyhood, adolescence,
youth, youthhood, infancy,
girlhood, age, boyism, puberty.
ANTONYM: (n) adulthood
boyish: (adj) young, puerile,
adolescent, youthful, babyish,
childish, girlish, kittenish, boylike,
callow, immature. ANTONYM: (adj)
mature
bracing: (n) brace, backing; (adj)
invigorating, brisk, exhilarating,
refreshing, tonic, enlivening, cool,
benign, energizing. ANTONYMS:
(adj) soporific, tiring, debilitating,
draining, exhausting, soothing,
warm, balmy, still
bracket: (n) prop, rack, stand,
parentheses, support, knee,
parenthesis, holder; (adj, v) link,
couple; (adj) hook
bragging: (n) brag, swagger, bluff,
bluster, conceit, arrogance; (adj)
arrogant, boastful, big,
overweening, braggy. ANTONYMS:
(adj) modest; (n) timidity
braided: (adj) curled, decorated,
artful, tressed, breaded
brain: (n) mastermind, genius, head,
mind, reason, wit, psyche, noddle,
intelligence, nous, brains.
ANTONYMS: (n) emotion, moron,
body, dummy, imbecile, idiot,
physicality
branched: (adj) bifurcate, branching,
ramous, ramose, divided, biramous,
branchy, prongy, bearing branches,
split, pronged
branches: (n) branch, brushwood
brass: (n, v) face; (adj, n) boldness; (n)
nerve, cheek, administration,
audaciousness, insolence, arrogance;
(adj) bronze; (v) assurance,
impudence
brave: (adj, n) bold, hardy; (adj)
audacious, fearless, courageous,
virile, intrepid, valiant; (adj, v)
endure; (v) defy, face. ANTONYMS:
(adj) cowardly, frightened, pathetic,
gutless, afraid, cautious,
fainthearted, meek, mousy, nervous;
(v) skip
bravely: (adv) courageously,
fearlessly, valiantly, boldly,
intrepidly, dauntlessly, gallantly,
audaciously, undauntedly,

heroically, doughtily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) timidly, fearfully, execrably,
nervously
bread: (n) livelihood, bun,
maintenance, cash, currency, loot,
dough, pelf, food, sustenance, kale
breakdown: (n) collapse, analysis,
failure, ruin, downfall, fall, defeat,
resolution, decay, smash; (adj, n)
fiasco. ANTONYMS: (n) ease, rise
breakfast: (n) repast, banquet,
dejeuner, mealtime, feast, meal; (v)
sup, take tea, eat, have a meal, dine
breaking: (n) breakage, breach,
violation, infringement,
contravention, smash, rift,
scutching, shift, intermission; (v)
deaden
breast: (n) boob, udder, tit, titty,
chest, knocker, mammilla, bust, pap,
heart; (n, v) front
breasts: (n) chest, booby
breath: (n) wind, air, inspiration,
puff, soul, aspiration, respite,
airflow; (v) breathe, respire; (adj, n)
whisper
breathed: (adj) unvoiced, inaudible,
breathing, aphonic
breathing: (adj) animate, live, living,
respiratory, alive, above ground; (v)
breathe, respire; (n) respiration,
instant, moment. ANTONYMS: (adj)
inanimate, breathless, dead
breathlessly: (adv) pantingly,
eagerly, windedly, deadly,
inanimately, breathtakingly,
impatiently, animatedly, hungrily,
chokingly, pulselessly
breed: (n) variety, race, kind,
ancestry, sort, order, species; (v)
engender, multiply, beget, bear.
ANTONYMS: (v) destroy, eradicate,
ignore, kill, neglect, quell
breeder: (n) stockman, farmer,
livestock farmer, fast breeder
reactor, stock breeder, plant breeder;
(v) trainer
brick: (n) adobe, block, rough
diamond, ugly duckling, lump, unit,
red; (adj) trump, concrete; (v) pot,
terra cotta
bricks: (n) walk, highway
brief: (adj) concise, transient, little,
abridge, short-lived, abrupt; (adj, n)
abstract, summary; (n) epitome,
report; (v) notify. ANTONYMS:
(adj) permanent, lengthy, rambling,
wordy, prolonged, extended,
lasting, civil; (adv) civilly; (v)
secrete, hide
briefly: (adv) concisely, pithily,
momentarily, curtly, tersely,

Sherwood Anderson
succinctly, fleetingly, transitorily,
transiently; (adj, adv) summarily,
quickly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
permanently, endlessly, slowly,
thoroughly, verbosely
bright: (adj) alive, vivid, intelligent,
apt, shining, brilliant, lustrous,
luminous, light, beaming, shiny.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cloudy, stupid,
gloomy, dim, unintelligent, dreary,
dark, overcast, shadowy, thick,
leaden
bringing: (n) delivery, consignment,
serving, service, passage, post
brisk: (adj) bracing, agile, alive,
bright, lively, acute, alert, energetic,
sprightly; (adj, v) quick, smart.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soporific,
sluggish, hesitant, tedious,
temperate, inactive, civil, torpid,
slack, serious, lethargic
briskly: (adv) busily, energetically,
vigorously, quickly, freshly,
actively, sharply, rapidly, vividly,
brightly, merrily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) seriously, laboriously, civilly,
pleasantly, languorously
broad: (adj) wide, sweeping,
comprehensive, vast, general,
extensive, large, ample, free, big; (n)
female. ANTONYMS: (adj) specific,
thin, restricted, polite, minor,
limited, exclusive, dogmatic, decent,
cultured, confined
broke: (adj) bankrupt, poor,
insolvent, impecunious, penniless,
impoverished, skint, bust, destitute,
strapped, ruined. ANTONYMS:
(adj) solvent, wealthy, affluent
brokenheartedly: (adv)
disconsolately, despondently,
wretchedly, desolately,
despairingly, heartsickly,
mournfully
brokenly: (adv) interruptedly,
disconnectedly, crackedly,
irregularly, faultily, fragmentarily,
tamely, intermittently, ruggedly,
discontinuously, defectively
brood: (n, v) breed; (v) sulk, think,
incubate; (n) offspring, issue,
progeny, young, posterity, family;
(adj, n) herd. ANTONYMS: (v)
reassure, delight, console
brook: (v) endure, abide, stomach,
stand, tolerate, digest, suffer,
support, undergo; (n, v) creek; (n)
stream. ANTONYMS: (v) spurn,
resist, reject, prohibit
broom: (v) sweep, to sweep, bream,
shovel, rake, screen, sieve; (n) brush,
Scots heather, Calluna vulgaris,

heath
brush: (n, v) broom, touch, kiss; (v)
sweep, polish, graze, clean; (n)
brushwood, conflict, copse,
encounter
brushed: (adj) napped, fleecy
brushing: (n) brush, slashing,
hairdressing, rub, striking, combing;
(adj) ripping. ANTONYM: (n) set
brutal: (adj) barbaric, barbarous,
bestial, hard, cruel, unkind, vicious,
savage, harsh, truculent, barbarian.
ANTONYMS: (adj) merciful, kind,
liberal, humane, generous, caring,
friendly, nice, pleasant
buck: (n) dollar, stag, beau, boar,
greenback, exquisite, fop, clam, hart;
(v) charge; (n, v) buck jump.
ANTONYMS: (v) conform,
surrender; (n) female, girl
buckeye: (n) seed, Aesculus
hippocastanum, conker, horse
chestnut, Ohioan
buggy: (adj) nutty, kooky, loony,
loopy, balmy; (n) cart, pushchair,
trap, truck, pram, random
bully: (n, v) hector; (v) bluster,
bulldoze, threaten, ballyrag; (n)
tough, rowdy, hooligan, ruffian,
bravo; (adj, v) domineer.
ANTONYMS: (n) urge, flatter,
cajole; (v) help, encourage, assist,
obey, protect, reassure
bundle: (n, v) pack, cluster, clump,
wad; (n) sheaf, pile, batch, stack,
package, group, heap. ANTONYMS:
(v) scatter, separate, disperse, divide
burden: (n, v) bother, weight, pack,
burthen, trouble, clog, strain; (n)
anxiety, bale, responsibility; (v)
afflict. ANTONYMS: (v) relieve,
lighten, free, disburden, alleviate,
relax; (n, v) help; (n) tranquility,
relaxation, peace, pleasure
buried: (adj) hidden, covert, interred,
underground, inhumed, profound,
covered, ulterior; (v) perdu, imbed,
embed. ANTONYMS: (adj) explicit,
overt
burned: (adj) baked, scorched,
tempered, sore, hurt, heated,
hardened, destroyed, bleak,
parched, adust
burner: (n) blowlamp, setup, injector,
apparatus, wick, pilot light, burner
reactor, boiler burner, blowtorch
burning: (adj) blazing, ablaze,
boiling, afire, flaming, hot; (n)
combustion, firing; (adj, n)
passionate, zealous, glowing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cold, trivial,
cool, out, painless, quenched,

229
soothing, unimportant, apathetic,
insignificant, unconcerned
burns: (n) George Burns, Nathan
Birnbaum, Robert Burns
burnt: (adj) adust, heated, baked,
torrid, sunburnt, seared, scorched,
well done, tempered, overdone,
combust. ANTONYMS: (adj)
underdone, unburned, wet
burr: (n) bit, birrus, bureau, burrel,
borel, flash, pericarp; (v) pipe,
jangle, clink, clank
burst: (adj, n, v) crack; (adj, v) split,
blow up, explode, splinter, detonate;
(n, v) rupture, blast; (adj, n) flash; (v)
break out, belch. ANTONYMS: (v)
attach, join, connect, fasten, trickle
bush: (n) shrub, wild, jungle, hedge,
outback, scrub, heath, plant, thicket,
wilderness, chaparral
bushes: (n) underbrush, thicket,
undergrowth, minor league
busily: (adv) actively, occupiedly,
briskly, industriously, engagedly,
energetically, assiduously, lively,
officiously, fussily, meddlesomely.
ANTONYM: (adv) inactively
busy: (adj) brisk, engaged, assiduous,
occupied, agile, meddlesome,
industrious, crowded, officious, live;
(v) occupy. ANTONYMS: (adj) free,
inactive, dodging, available,
deserted, lazy, quiet, still,
unengaged, avoiding, empty
butch: (n) man, hairstyle, dyke, dike
butcher: (v) slaughter, kill, murder,
slay; (n, v) massacre, botch; (n)
assassin, bungler, slaughterer,
meatman, murderer. ANTONYMS:
(v) develop, create, grow, build
butt: (v) bunt, abut; (n) extremity,
stump, grip, stub, rump, cask, rear,
tail; (n, v) edge
buttons: (n) bellboy, peyote
buying: (n) purchasing, buy,
purchase, business, shopping,
import, export, transaction,
ownership, patronage, sale
bystander: (n) spectator, witness,
eyewitness, observer, beholder,
looker-on, viewer, watcher, passer
by, outsider, looker
cage: (n, v) jail; (n) basket, birdcage,
hutch, gaol, frame, corral, cell; (v)
confine, imprison, enclose.
ANTONYMS: (v) release; (n)
freedom, liberation
calculating: (adj) scheming, sly,
shrewd, crafty, calculative, wily,
wary, discreet, devious; (n)
calculation; (adj, v) wise.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uncalculating,

230
unassuming, reckless, artless, rash,
guileless, candid, unconscious
calico: (n) cambric, fabric, cashmere,
chintz, cloth; (adj) motley,
varicoloured, pied, assorted
calling: (n) business, occupation, call,
avocation, job, trade, career,
employment, walk, pursuit; (n, v)
profession. ANTONYMS: (n)
entertainment, hobby
calls: (n) securities, puts, bonds,
preferred stock, common stock
calm: (adj, n, v) assuage, appease,
lull; (adj, v) cool, pacify, peaceful,
easy, steady; (adj, adv, n, v) still; (n,
v) allay; (v) mollify. ANTONYMS:
(adj) agitated, wild, stormy,
nervous, angry, scared, terrified,
tense; (v) agitate, provoke; (adj, v)
upset
calvinism: (n) Erastianism,
Jansenism, Protestantism, Stundism,
Arianism
canada: (n) Upper Canada, arethusa
bulbosa, bog rose, wild pink
candle: (n) candela, light, taper,
bougie, CD, candlepower, lamp,
wax light, Standard candle; (v)
examine, illuminate
candy: (n) bonbon, sweet, toffee,
taffy, sugarplum, sugar candy,
praline, lozenge, confection,
lollipop; (adj, n) cake
capable: (adj) competent, adequate,
apt, adept, accomplished, fit, gifted,
qualified, proficient, trained; (adj, n)
efficient. ANTONYMS: (adj)
incapable, inept, unable, helpless,
lacking, bad, unimaginative,
unqualified, untrained
carcass: (n) body, frame, corpse,
cadaver, framework, shell, carrion,
remains, dead body, skeleton, bomb
cards: (n) baccarat, boodle, card, rum,
poker, cribbage, rummy,
Newmarket, pinocle, pinochle,
penuchle
careful: (adj, v) attentive, anxious;
(adj) thrifty, thoughtful, frugal,
mindful, prudent, deliberate, alert,
economical, guarded. ANTONYMS:
(adj) reckless, slapdash, neglectful,
wasteful, unconcerned, tactless,
stupid, spendthrift, rash, negligent,
inaccurate
careless: (adj) forgetful, inattentive,
insouciant, haphazard, cursory,
reckless, lax, unwary, sloppy; (adj,
adv) thoughtless; (adj, v) heedless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cautious,
prudent, meticulous, thoughtful,
diligent, attentive, thorough, wary,

Winesburg, Ohio
guarded, methodical, strict
carelessness: (n) negligence,
inattention, indifference,
nonchalance, thoughtlessness,
abandon, incaution, disregard,
omission, forgetfulness, dereliction.
ANTONYMS: (n) attention, caution,
alertness, vigilance, carefulness,
thoughtfulness, assiduousness,
economy, regard, prudence,
forethought
caress: (v) stroke, fondle, tickle, pat,
pet, kiss, nuzzle, cuddle, coddle; (n,
v) touch; (n) endearment.
ANTONYM: (n) hit
caressing: (adj) caressive, soft; (n)
petting, foreplay, stimulation,
dalliance, smooching, snuggling,
arousal, hugging, cuddling
caretaker: (n) superintendent,
concierge, porter, watchman,
manager, supervisor, controller,
doorkeeper, gatekeeper, steward;
(adj) interim
carnal: (adj, adv) fleshly; (adj) bodily,
earthly, sensual, brutal, sexual,
worldly, physical, erotic, fleshy,
brute. ANTONYMS: (adj) chaste,
godly, moral, pure, spiritual
carpenter: (n) woodman, woodsman,
woodworker, Joseph; (v) build
carpet: (v) cover, drape, rebuke,
encase, row, chew out; (n) rug,
carpeting, tapis, runner, covering
carpets: (n) carpeting
carriage: (n) attitude, conveyance,
cab, air, walk, position, mien,
shipping; (n, v) transport, behavior,
port
carriages: (n) carriage
carrying: (n) transport, conveyance,
carriage, transportation, haulage,
hauling, shipping; (adj) bearing,
gerent; (v) convey, bring
cart: (n) car, carriage, handcart,
barrow, applecart, wagon; (v) haul,
drag, bear, take, transfer
cashier: (n) accountant, receiver,
teller, paymaster, almoner; (v)
discard, reject, discharge, shed,
dismiss, displace. ANTONYMS: (v)
designate, hire, name
cast: (n, v) throw, stamp, form, fling,
shape, figure; (v) shed, pitch, chuck;
(n) casting, appearance.
ANTONYMS: (v) refuse, receive,
subtract, reject, take, gather, catch,
retain, keep
casting: (n) cast, hurl, pouring,
molding, teeming, block, Malleable
castings, fling, to throw something a
long distance, flinging, pelt

casual: (adj) adventitious, careless,
chance, occasional, nonchalant,
irregular, easy, cursory,
coincidental, passing, random.
ANTONYMS: (adj) deliberate,
formal, thorough, careful, rushed,
premeditated, predetermined,
planned, serious, permanent,
intense
catch: (n, v) capture, hook, haul,
hitch, trick, grab, snatch; (v) get,
apprehend, intercept; (n) pawl.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) release; (v)
misunderstand, unhitch, mistake,
Miss, misinterpret, free, give, lose;
(n) advantage, boon
catching: (adj) communicable,
infectious, epidemic, gripping,
transferable, zymotic; (n) discovery,
take, playing, uncovering, getting.
ANTONYM: (adj)
noncommunicable
cattle: (n) stock, cows, neat, bull, beef,
bovine, livestock, ox, kine, cow,
oxen
caught: (adj) fixed, guilty,
accomplished, wedged, trapped,
interested, exposed, defenseless,
culpable; (v) seize, get. ANTONYM:
(adj) loose
causing: (n) causation, coercion,
compulsion; (adj) causative,
factitive; (prep) behind
cautiously: (adv) guardedly,
prudently, warily, circumspectly,
charily, discreetly, vigilantly,
timidly, attentively, watchfully,
sparingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
openly, irresponsibly, imprudently,
bravely, recklessly, incautiously,
thoughtlessly, wastefully, tactlessly,
rashly, liberally
cave: (n) lair, hole, grotto, hollow,
cove, den, cell, grot, nest; (v)
undermine, calve. ANTONYMS: (n)
hump; (v) withstand
ceaselessly: (adv) incessantly,
perpetually, unceasingly, eternally,
unremittingly, continuously,
constantly, everlastingly,
continually, unendingly,
uninterruptedly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) temporarily, briefly
ceasing: (n) stopping, subsidence
cedar: (n) true cedar, pahautea,
kawaka, deodar, cedar tree
cellar: (n) basement, cellarage, wine
cellar, godown, warehouse, winery,
silo, pit, excavation, story, storey
cellini: (n) Benvenuto Cellini
cemetery: (n) graveyard, tomb, burial
ground, burying ground,

Sherwood Anderson
churchyard, necropolis, burial site,
resting place, site, burial place,
grave
center: (n, v) centre, focus; (adj, n)
middle; (n) heart, core, pivot, midst,
kernel, substance, seat; (v)
concentrate. ANTONYMS: (n) edge,
outside, exterior, circumference;
(adj, n) border; (adj) extreme, right,
left; (v) scatter, dissipate, disperse
centralized: (adj) concentrated,
centralised, centred, focused,
focussed, central, internal.
ANTONYM: (adj) regional
centuries: (n) century
ceremony: (n) courtesy, celebration,
ceremonial, parade, pomp, rite,
ceremonies, manners, custom, ritual,
pageant. ANTONYMS: (n) modesty,
understatement
chain: (n) network, rope, cable, band,
catena, range; (adj, n, v) tether; (v)
bind, fetter; (adj, v) tie; (n, v)
handcuff. ANTONYMS: (v)
emancipate, liberate, unchain,
detach
chairs: (n) seats
challenge: (n, v) defy, dare, brave; (n)
defiance, protest, contest; (v)
dispute, ask, provoke, impeach,
demur. ANTONYMS: (v) obey,
answer, avoid, prove, accept,
bolster, stifle, correspond; (n) yield,
pushover, acquiesce
chambermaid: (n) maid, fille de
chambre, maidservant, housemaid,
domestic, chamberer, carpetmonger
chances: (n) probability, odds,
opportunities, possibility, state,
circumstances
changing: (adj) unsettled, shifting,
variable, dynamic, moving, choppy,
uncertain, various, varying,
inconstant, fickle. ANTONYMS:
(adj) usual, fixed
channel: (n, v) canal, conduct; (n)
conduit, groove, trough, waterway,
drain, line, passage; (v) carry,
convey. ANTONYMS: (v) keep; (n)
ridge
chapped: (adj) cracked, balmy,
unsmooth, barmy, bats, batty,
bonkers, buggy, roughened, coarse,
alligatored
characterized: (adj) affected, formed,
molded, cast
characters: (n) letters, typescript,
typeset, symbols, script, lettering,
inscription, handwriting, font, cast,
writing
charged: (adj) laden, loaded, replete,
aerated, tense, strained, full, filled,

emotional, abounding, deferred
chastened: (v) lamblike, resigned,
content; (adj) refined, reprimanded,
rebuked, reproved, subdued,
contrite, remorseful
chattering: (n) chatter, cackle, yak,
grabbing, claver; (adj) talkative,
loquacious, noisy, gabby, garrulous;
(v) natter
cheap: (adj) tacky, low, stingy, base,
flashy, worthless, sleazy, shabby,
niggardly, mean, economical.
ANTONYMS: (adj) expensive,
costly, tasteful, generous, luxurious,
quality, noble, inflated, precious,
dear, steep
cheaply: (adv) commonly, shoddily,
tawdrily, stingily, meanly, trashily,
flashily, economically, tackily,
vulgarly, chintzily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) extravagantly, luxuriously,
tastefully
cheated: (adj) embittered, resentful
cheek: (n) audacity, nerve, brass,
boldness, impertinence, face, lip,
mouth, gall, insolence, impudence.
ANTONYMS: (n) respect,
cowardice, timidity, humbleness,
meekness, reticence, seriousness; (v)
praise
cheeks: (n) Gemini, twins, couple,
posterior, pair, deuce, two, duet
cheerful: (adj, v) buoyant; (adj)
breezy, merry, optimistic, pleasant,
glad, blithe, carefree, bright, lively,
happy. ANTONYMS: (adj)
depressed, gloomy, sad, depressing,
grim, hopeless, miserable, morose,
somber, dejected, unwelcoming
cheerlessness: (n) sadness,
depression, joylessness, squalidness,
uncheerfulness, unhappiness,
plainness, misery, dullness,
shabbiness, infestivity.
ANTONYMS: (n) smartness,
splendor
chest: (n) bosom, ark, bust, box, chest
of drawers, case, hutch, bureau,
caisson, casket, dresser
chicago: (n) boodle, Windy City,
cabbage, Michigan, Newmarket,
stops
chicken: (n) fowl, hen, broiler,
coward, cock, poultry, weakling,
nestling; (adj) yellow, fearful,
chicken-hearted. ANTONYM: (n)
daredevil
chickens: (n) Galliformes, order
Galliformes
childbirth: (n, v) parturition, travail;
(n) accouchement, childbearing,
confinement, childbed, delivery,

231
blessed event, birthing; (v)
obstetrics, midwifery
childhood: (n) babyhood, boyhood,
immaturity, infancy, puerility,
youth, youthhood, immatureness,
adolescence, age, anal phase.
ANTONYMS: (adj) recent; (n)
maturity
childish: (adj) childlike, naive,
babyish, immature, simple, puerile,
infantile, juvenile, silly, frivolous,
young. ANTONYMS: (adj) sensible,
old, wise, adult, jaded
childlike: (adj) ingenuous, simple,
babyish, young, innocent, pure,
unsophisticated, juvenile, immature,
childly, childish. ANTONYMS: (adj)
old, untrusting, experienced,
cunning, complicated, jaded,
worldly
chill: (adj, v) cool; (adj, n) cold; (adj)
bleak, icy, chilly, frosty, depressing;
(v) freeze, dispirit, damp; (n)
coolness. ANTONYMS: (adj, v)
warm; (n) warmth, warmness; (v)
encourage, hearten, inspirit, thaw;
(adj) hot, gregarious, friendly,
sociable
chilling: (adj) icy, bloodcurdling,
wintry, macabre, ghastly, cold,
scary, apathetic; (n) cooling,
freezing, refrigeration. ANTONYM:
(adj) reassuring
chimney: (n) fireplace, smokestack,
shaft, flue, hearth, vent, lamp
chimney, chimneys, nostril, throat,
weasand
chimneys: (n) chimney
chin: (n) jaw, Kuki, jawbone,
lineament, rap, jowl; (v) elevate,
speak, chin up, confer, bring up
choked: (adj) clogged, smothered,
congested, annoyed, high-strung,
strained, neurotic, tense, angry,
anxious, insecure
chopper: (n) helicopter, axe, cleaver,
whirlybird, mincer, chop, grounder,
knife, copter, hatchet, tooth
chose: (v) choose, opt, decide; (n)
thing
chosen: (adj, n) elect; (adj) preferred,
select, favored, named; (adj, v)
designate, desired, designated; (n)
deary, ducky, dearie. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ignored, involuntary
christ: (n) Jesus, Messiah, rescuer,
word, Christly, deliverer, God the
Son, redeemer, Good Shepherd,
Jesus of Nazareth, logos
chunk: (n, v) lump; (n) clump, bit,
fragment, section, mass, portion,
ball, block, piece, cut. ANTONYMS:

232
(n) particle, scrap, whole
churn: (v) seethe, agitate, toss,
bubble, eddy, whirl, roil, shake, stir,
buffet; (n) butter churn
cider: (v) Brazil tea, ice water, claret;
(n) inebriant, alcoholic beverage,
hard cider, pomade, sicer, sider,
alcohol, beverage
cigar: (n) cheroot, cigars, smoke,
cigarette, corona, panatela,
panetella, segar, cigarillo
cigarette: (adj) cigar; (n) tobacco, fag,
butt, can, coffin nail, cubeb, scroll,
buttocks, reefer, butt joint
cigarettes: (n) tobacco, cigaret
cigars: (n) cigar
circle: (n) association, field, range,
beat, set; (n, v) ring, band, compass,
turn, whirl; (v) encircle
circulate: (v) broadcast, circle,
disseminate, disperse, distribute,
propagate, circularize, mobilize,
diffuse, proclaim, issue.
ANTONYMS: (v) suppress, hide,
block, withhold, concentrate
circus: (n) arena, hippodrome, circle,
ring, square, pygargus, Flavian
amphitheater, amphitheater,
cockpit, turf, troupe
citizen: (n) national, inhabitant,
denizen, resident, burgher, the
people, subject, freeman, native,
nationality, voter. ANTONYMS: (n)
foreigner, immigrant, tourist, alien,
stranger
citizens: (n) people, population,
inhabitants, populace, public,
commonwealth, country, the general
public, the public, the populace
clad: (adj) dressed, attired, clothed,
coated, garbed; (n) cladding; (prep)
gowned; (v) costume, shod, dress,
attire. ANTONYMS: (adj)
undressed, unclothed
clarence: (n) whisky, Victoria,
phaeton, mail phaeton, landau,
drag, coach, chariot, brougham,
break, barouche
classes: (n) lessons
clatter: (n, v) rattle, jingle, bang,
clank, clang, roll, clink; (v) clash,
chatter; (n) noise, racket.
ANTONYM: (n) quiet
claustrophobic: (adj) afraid, confined
clay: (n) soil, remains, adobe, loam,
dust, dirt, mud, bentonite, ashes;
(adj, n) pottery; (adj) earthen
clean: (adj, adv) fair; (v) cleanse,
brush, bathe, disinfect; (adj)
antiseptic, blank, pure, chaste,
unblemished; (n, v) wash.
ANTONYMS: (adj) filthy, unclean,

Winesburg, Ohio
muddy, unhygienic, tainted,
unwholesome, syrupy, full; (v) soil,
contaminate, pollute
cleanly: (adj) clean; (adv) clearly,
tidily, purely, neatly, freshly,
immaculately, spotlessly,
unsulliedly, fairly, unadulteratedly
cleared: (adj) absolved, clean, empty,
exculpated, bleak, innocent, exempt,
vindicated, exonerated, guiltless, let
off. ANTONYMS: (adj) full,
uncleared, guilty
clearing: (n) clarification, clearance,
purgation, purging, purge, clearmelting, correction, tract,
improvement, release, freeing
clearness: (n) clarity, brightness,
distinctness, perspicuity, lucidity,
explicitness, sharpness, simplicity,
purity, limpidity, intelligibility.
ANTONYMS: (n) ambiguity,
opacity, dirtiness, vagueness,
unclearness, obscureness,
indistinctness, clutter, haziness,
mustiness
clenched: (adj) tight, clinched
clerk: (n, v) writer, secretary,
transcriber; (n) servant, shop
assistant, salesclerk, employee,
accountant, recorder; (v) scrivener,
scribe
cleveland: (n) Grover Cleveland,
Stephen Grover Cleveland,
president Cleveland
clew: (n) cue, clod, glob, knob,
footmark, footprint, vestige; (v)
point out; (adj) pellet, globule,
Pelote
climb: (v) ascend, arise, scale,
escalate, go up, scramble; (n, v)
clamber, mount, increase; (n) ascent,
jump. ANTONYMS: (n, v) drop; (n)
descent; (v) wane, dismount,
plummet
climbing: (n) climb, ascension,
mounting, mountain climbing,
mountaineering, rock climbing,
acclivity; (v) ascending, uprise,
arise; (adj) scandent
clinging: (adj) adhering, sticky,
adherent, devoted, adhering closely,
affectionate, dependent, tenacious,
osculant; (n) coherence
cloak: (n, v) veil, mask, camouflage,
wrap, masquerade, screen, pall; (n)
cape; (v) conceal, dissemble, hide.
ANTONYMS: (v) reveal, uncloak,
unmask; (n, v) uncover
clock: (n) chronometer, horologe,
alarm, alarm clock, clepsydra, ticker,
cuckoo clock, clock radio; (n, v)
time, stopwatch; (v) measure

clod: (adj, n) lump; (n) oaf, glebe, ball,
clay, yokel, gawk, agglomeration,
lout, clump; (adj) block.
ANTONYM: (n) intellect
cloistered: (adj) secluded, solitary,
claustral, isolated, recluse, cloistral,
conventual, monastic, monastical,
private, sequestered. ANTONYMS:
(adj) public, conspicuous, open
closed: (v) close, tight; (adj) blind,
finished, blocked, shut, congested,
enclosed, folded, fastened, not open.
ANTONYMS: (adj) beginning,
running, started, starting,
welcoming, continuing
closely: (adv) nearly, narrowly,
intimately, strictly, exactly, thickly,
firmly, securely, confidentially,
solidly, familiarly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) loosely, thoughtlessly,
heedlessly, carelessly,
approximately, inconveniently,
sparsely, casually, lightly,
inaccurately
closer: (adv) nearer, closest, more
rapidly; (adj) close, approximate,
near, dear, good, nigh; (n) finisher,
finale
closet: (n) cupboard, cubicle, cell,
latrine, bathroom, wardrobe, water
closet; (adj) clandestine,
confidential, secret, private.
ANTONYM: (adj) open
closing: (n) end, finish, conclusion,
close, ending, shutting, finishing;
(adj) ultimate, last, final, terminal.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) opening; (adj)
first
cloth: (n) drapery, fabric, clothes,
clothing, rag, stuff, linen, tapestry,
silk, flannel; (v) napkin
clothed: (adj) dressed, wrapped,
cloaked, robed, covered, attired,
vested, absorbed, decent; (v)
accustomed, arrayed. ANTONYM:
(adj) unclothed
clothing: (n) attire, threads, outfit,
gear, dress, cloth, duds, habit, wear;
(n, v) apparel, vesture
cloud: (n, v) mist, blur; (v) becloud,
obscure, eclipse, blacken, taint,
befog, overshadow; (adj, n) swarm;
(n) haze. ANTONYMS: (v) clear,
refine, accentuate, illuminate,
explain, clarify, unveil
clouded: (adj, n) cloudy; (adj)
gloomy, dark, overcast, obscure,
blurred, foggy, misty, hazy, bleary;
(v) cymophanous. ANTONYM: (adj)
clear
clouds: (n) exhaust, fumes, gas,
smoke, vapors

Sherwood Anderson
cloudy: (adj) dull, gloomy, nebulous,
murky, dark, turbid, foggy, muddy,
misty, sunless, vaporous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clear, bright,
sunny, cloudless
clover: (n) trefoil, shamrock, herb,
Dutch clover, claver, riches, wealth,
success, prosperity, good life, fat city
clump: (n, v) cluster, bundle; (n)
lump, group, clot, knot, tuft, chunk,
clod, ball; (v) plod
clumsily: (adv) awkwardly, ineptly,
crudely, ungracefully, maladroitly,
gawkily, inelegantly, gauchely,
inexpertly, unwieldily, roughly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) skillfully,
cleverly, coherently, deftly,
elegantly, gracefully, carefully,
expertly, competently, tactfully,
urbanely
cluster: (n, v) clump, bundle, huddle,
group, crowd; (n) batch,
agglomeration, gang, collection, tuft;
(v) collect. ANTONYMS: (v)
dissemble, scatter; (n) individual
clustered: (adj) agglomerated,
agglomerative, bunched, bunchy,
gregarious, concentrated,
conglomerate, collective
clutch: (n, v) clasp, grip, clench,
grasp, hold, clinch, gripe; (v) grab,
grapple, embrace; (adj, v) catch.
ANTONYMS: (n) loose; (v) release,
unfasten
clutched: (adj) tense, worried,
anxious, neurotic
clutching: (n) locking
coach: (adj, v) prime; (n) trainer,
teacher, instructor, stagecoach,
charabanc, carriage, autobus, bus;
(v) train, educate. ANTONYMS: (v)
listen, learn; (n) pupil, student
coal: (n) ember, bituminous coal,
carbon, lignite, anthracite, wallsend,
culm, oil, petroleum, firewood; (adj)
black
coarse: (adj) vulgar, boorish, rough,
brutal, crude, gross, common,
earthy, blunt, bawdy; (adj, v) harsh.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sophisticated,
refined, smooth, polite, soft, civil,
cultured, delicate, fine, genteel,
gentlemanly
coat: (v) cloak, blanket; (n, v) sheath,
plaster; (n) coating, fur, film, crust,
jacket, layer, bark. ANTONYMS: (v)
reveal, expose
coaxing: (n) blarney, flattery, sweet
talk, temptation, enticement, soft
soap; (adv) coaxingly; (adj)
ingratiatory, persuasive, oily
cogency: (n) persuasion, force,

strength, validness, credibility,
credibleness, relevancy, vigor,
relevance, power, rigor.
ANTONYMS: (n) invalidness,
irrelevance, feebleness
coherently: (adv) lucidly,
consistently, plainly, soundly,
clearly, rationally, sanely, cogently,
normally, forcefully, convincingly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) irrationally,
disjointedly, unconvincingly,
illogically
coiled: (adj) curled, curved, twined,
coiling, twisted, convoluted, rolled,
wavy, bent, round; (adj, v) spiral.
ANTONYM: (adj) uncoiled
coldness: (n) chilliness, coolness,
indifference, distance, apathy,
iciness, reserve, frost, frigidity,
unconcern; (adj, n) cold.
ANTONYMS: (n) friendliness,
sympathy, sensitivity, hotness, heat,
responsiveness, concern, brightness,
kindness
collapse: (n, v) slump, fall, flop,
subsidence; (n) breakdown; (v)
break, break down, buckle, crumple,
crack, crumble. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
rise; (v) build, grow, invigorate,
withstand, improve, hold; (n)
growth, success, triumph, making
collar: (n, v) arrest, catch, capture,
pinch; (n) choker, ruff, lapel; (v)
apprehend, nail, grab, clutch.
ANTONYMS: (v) free, release
collected: (adj) calm, accumulated,
amassed, tranquil, sober, assembled,
cool, poised, unflappable, peaceful;
(adj, v) composed. ANTONYMS:
(adj) nervous, worried, upset,
uncollected, flustered,
scatterbrained, anxious, excitable
color: (n, v) flush, blush, tint, tinge,
paint, stain; (adj, n, v) colour; (v)
redden; (n) guise, complexion; (adj,
n) tone. ANTONYMS: (v) discolor,
pale, show, whiten, untwist, denote,
depict, represent, blanch, blench
colored: (adj) chromatic, black,
tinged, tinted, colorful, dyed,
coloured, partial, dark, bleached,
biased. ANTONYMS: (adj) truthful,
white, uncolored, unbiased, pale,
objective, honest, genuine, real
colorless: (adj) achromatic, neutral,
drab, dull, monotonous, wan, tame,
pallid, bloodless, white, colourless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) rosy, interesting,
rich, vivid, brilliant, vibrant,
stimulating, lively, glamorous,
exciting, distinctive
colors: (n) flag, colours, paints,

233
banner, color, colour, ensign,
pigment, tint, dye, paint
columbus: (n) Cristobal colon,
Cristoforo Colombo
comb: (v) brush, ransack, search,
dress, eliminate, groom; (adj) weed;
(n) crest, combing, caruncle,
currycomb
combination: (n) union, blend,
coalition, merger, association,
league, amalgam, mix, mixture,
junction; (adj, n) complex.
ANTONYMS: (n) separation,
division, dissolution, rejection; (adj)
simple
combinations: (n) incorporation,
conjunction
combined: (adj) united, collective,
cooperative, amalgamated,
aggregate, concerted, conjoint,
incorporate, conjunct, joined,
conjunctive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
simple, solitary, uncombined,
disjointed
comely: (adj) beautiful, good-looking,
decent, fair, attractive, decorous,
shapely, proper; (adj, adv, v)
seemly; (adj, adv) sightly, lovely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) repulsive,
homely, plain, revolting,
unattractive, ugly
comfort: (n, v) ease, allay, support,
aid, alleviate; (n) consolation, relief,
amenity, assistance; (adj, n, v)
assuage; (v) cheer. ANTONYMS: (n)
discomfort, aggravation, agony; (v)
alarm, annoy, frighten, afflict,
aggravate, bother, burden,
disappoint
comfortable: (adj, v) easy, snug; (adj)
pleased, pleasing, prosperous,
agreeable, pleasurable, congenial,
rich, enjoyable, homely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) poor, tense,
formal, unpleasant, unhappy,
unaccustomed, intimidating,
difficult, anxious, broke, destitute
command: (n, v) order, charge, call,
control, decree; (n) instruction,
bidding, direction, behest; (v) direct,
commission. ANTONYMS: (v) obey,
follow, contradict, countermand,
revoke, recall, oppose; (n) beg,
plead, plea
commanded: (adj) lawful
comment: (n) annotation,
commentary, critique, note,
explanation, interpretation, mention;
(n, v) remark, gloss, censure, notice.
ANTONYM: (n) confirmation
commerce: (n, v) trade, barter; (n)
business, exchange, connection,

234
dealings, intercourse, association,
conversation, communication; (v)
affair
commit: (v) consign, assign, charge,
confide, dedicate, apply, entrust,
submit, intrust, leave, give.
ANTONYMS: (v) stop, desist,
divest, end, idle, withhold, wait,
cease, keep, refuse
committed: (adj) engaged, dedicated,
firm, devoted, involved, connected,
loyal, constant, linked, vigorous; (v)
compromised. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unattached, passive, casual, flippant,
uncaring, halfhearted
commonplace: (adj, v) trite,
hackneyed; (adj) banal, ordinary,
humdrum, common, average, plain,
mundane, dull; (n) platitude.
ANTONYMS: (adj) extraordinary,
unusual, exceptional, infrequent,
rare, romantic, uncommon, weird;
(n) deepness, profundity,
profoundness
communion: (n) communication,
denomination, intercourse, alliance,
Eucharist, faction, sacrament, traffic,
sharing, fellowship, Holy
Communion. ANTONYMS: (n)
hostility, disunity, distance,
disagreement, alienation, contention
companion: (adj, n) associate; (n)
colleague, buddy, mate, peer, chum,
partner, fellow, comrade, assistant,
brother. ANTONYMS: (n) foe,
stranger, adversary
companions: (n) circle, entourage,
people
companionship: (n) company,
society, fellowship, camaraderie,
partnership, friendship, fraternity,
amity, coexistence, brotherhood,
communion. ANTONYMS: (n)
animosity, enmity, solitude
compelled: (adj) forced, obligate,
enforced, constrained, responsible,
answerable, unwilling, destined
competent: (adj, n) able, efficient;
(adj) adequate, fit, sufficient,
effective, clever, commensurate,
qualified, skillful, proficient.
ANTONYMS: (adj) useless, inept,
incapable, unable, lacking,
inadequate, unqualified,
unprofessional, untrained, bad,
clumsy
complain: (v) bemoan, protest,
whine, squawk, bewail, beef,
grudge, accuse, carp, plain,
complaint. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
applaud, cheer, recommend, rejoice,
laud, approve, agree, accept

Winesburg, Ohio
complaining: (adj) irritable, peevish,
petulant, whining, moaning,
complaintive, repining; (adj, v)
querulous; (n, v) lamenting; (adv)
complainingly; (n) plaintive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
uncomplaining, cheerful, willing
complaint: (n) charge, ailment,
disease, affection, whine, disorder,
wail, complain, plaint, protest,
sickness. ANTONYMS: (n)
compliment, commendation, health
completeness: (n) thoroughness,
entirety, fullness, entireness, unity,
integrality, plenitude,
comprehensiveness, perfection,
totality, wholeness. ANTONYM: (n)
incompleteness
complexion: (n, v) tint; (n) cast,
character, appearance, look, hue,
aspect, flush, glow, dye, fashion
composed: (adj) calm, dispassionate,
cool, peaceable, pacific, staid,
imperturbable, temperate, level,
impassive, unflappable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) distressed,
trembling, nervous, excited, tense,
ruffled, jumpy, intemperate,
discomposed, upset, worried
composite: (n) amalgam, mix, blend,
admixture, combination, concoction,
alloy, medley; (adj, n, v) compound;
(adj) aggregate, mixed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unmixed,
uncombined, separated, segregated,
unblended
composition: (n) texture,
construction, constitution, alloy,
amalgam, composing, compost,
compound, compromise, harmony,
combination
comprise: (v) contain, comprehend,
include, compose, constitute, make
up, carry, encompass, form, make,
subsume. ANTONYMS: (v) lack,
need
comrade: (n) colleague, chum, buddy,
fellow, compeer, partner, brother,
mate, familiar; (adj, n) associate,
ally. ANTONYMS: (n) stranger,
enemy, foe, opponent
conceal: (v) hide, disguise, bury,
screen, cloak, smother, shield,
suppress, mask, obscure; (n, v) veil.
ANTONYMS: (v) reveal, show,
expose, divulge, clarify, uncover,
disclose, tell, admit, spotlight, flaunt
concealed: (adj) covert, clandestine,
blind, occult, secret, mysterious,
obscure, buried, invisible, secreted,
surreptitious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unconcealed, available, overt, open,

divulged, Shown, revealed,
disclosed, uncovered, noticeable,
mainstream
conception: (n) concept, idea, view,
thought, creation, mind, design,
imagination, impression,
understanding, fancy. ANTONYMS:
(n) termination, finish, ending,
concrete, abortion, ignorance,
destruction
concerning: (adj, prep) regarding,
with regard to, with reference to, in
relation to; (prep) respecting, as
regards, of, touching, relating to;
(adj) as to, relevant
conclusively: (adv) decisively,
convincingly, ultimately,
definitively, absolutely, lastly,
concludingly, determinately,
categorically, cogently, decidedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) unconvincingly,
questionably, arguably
condemned: (adj) censured,
convicted, doomed, destined,
appropriated, taken, taken over,
fated, seized, predestined; (adj, v)
guilty
condemning: (adj) inculpative,
censorious, inculpatory, critical; (n)
conviction, reproachful
conduct: (v) bring, direct, carry,
show; (n, v) act, administration,
manage, administer, carriage,
bearing; (adj, v) acquit.
ANTONYMS: (v) mismanage, leave,
follow
conductor: (n, v) guide, guard; (n)
chief, director, driver, chauffeur,
bandmaster, collector, commander,
pilot, ringleader. ANTONYMS: (n)
insulator, nonconductor
confined: (adj) limited, cramped,
imprisoned, bounded, enclosed,
restricted, narrow, constrained,
strict; (adj, v) close, invalided.
ANTONYMS: (adj) liberated,
invasive, roomy, unconfined,
unlimited, open, spacious, general
confirmed: (adj) inveterate, assured,
habitual, constant, settled, definite,
established, affirmed, fixed,
ingrained, corroborated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unproven,
unconfirmed, undecided,
uncommitted, questionable,
infrequent, dubious, mild, unfaithful
confound: (v) bewilder, baffle,
nonplus, perplex, astonish, puzzle,
amaze, astound, mistake; (adj, v)
confuse, stupefy. ANTONYMS: (v)
explain, clarify, comfort, lose,
distinguish; (n) understanding

Sherwood Anderson
confront: (adj, v) front; (n, v) oppose;
(v) challenge, defy, brave, approach,
collate, affront, cope with, play,
withstand. ANTONYMS: (v) avoid,
evade, dodge, cooperate, obey,
submit, defend
confused: (adj) abashed, baffled,
befuddled, bemused, dizzy, chaotic,
confounded, deranged, incoherent,
disjointed, indistinct. ANTONYMS:
(adj) enlightened, orderly, alert,
clearheaded, organized, oriented,
precise, systematic, ordered,
unimpressed, methodical
confusion: (n) commotion, chaos,
disarray, bedlam, pandemonium,
disorder, disturbance, distraction,
clutter, tumult, agitation.
ANTONYMS: (n) clarity,
understanding, tidiness,
systematization, enlightenment,
peace, organization, lucidity,
neatness, space, calm
congregation: (n) assembly,
gathering, meeting, collection, fold,
flock, crowd, convocation,
congregating, company; (n, v)
assemblage
congress: (n) convocation,
convention, council, intercourse,
conference, meeting, congregation,
confluence, gathering, synod,
association
connect: (v) bind, bond, join, attach,
associate, annex, conjoin, relate,
unite, combine, affiliate.
ANTONYMS: (v) separate,
disconnect, detach, unplug, undo,
dissociate, clash, divide, clear
connected: (adj, v) related; (adj)
attached, allied, affiliated, coherent,
linked, committed, conjoint,
combined, relevant, consecutive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unrelated,
separate, unimportant, disjoined,
unaffiliated, disconnected,
unattached, irrelevant
connecticut: (n) computed axial
tomography, computed
tomography, computerized axial
tomography, Connecticut river,
Constitution state, cat, Nutmeg State
connection: (n) communication,
concatenation, attachment, joint,
bearing, affiliation, association, knot,
conjunction, alliance, link.
ANTONYMS: (n) breach, enemy,
dissociation, disjunction,
unconnectedness, foe, detachment,
rival, interruption, clash, difference
conquered: (adj) overcome,
vanquished, overwhelmed, crushed,

subdued, profligate, routed,
overthrown, done for, under enemy
control, baffled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
victorious, liberated
conquest: (n) defeat, triumph,
conquering, achievement, reduction,
coup, rout, overthrow, subjection,
mastery, success. ANTONYMS: (n)
failure, defeat, loss, victory
conscious: (adj) alive, premeditated,
mindful, deliberate, cognizant,
calculated, intended, discerning,
self-conscious, studied, voluntary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unaware,
ignorant, unintentional, dead,
accidental, inanimate, spontaneous,
subconscious, unplanned,
inadvertent, oblivious
consciousness: (n) feeling, sense,
conscience, cognizance, mind,
notion, knowledge, sensibility, feel,
Consciousness of kind, self.
ANTONYMS: (n) ignorance,
oblivion, certainty, numbness
considering: (conj, prep) because,
bearing in mind; (conj) as, since;
(adv) whereas, enough; (v) consider;
(n) consideration, thought,
deliberation; (prep) in view of
consist: (n, v) be; (adj, v) lie; (v)
belong, fit, comprise, lie in, reside,
exist, make up; (adj, n) abide; (n)
agree
constant: (adj) ceaseless, perpetual,
continual, faithful, changeless,
steadfast, eternal, uninterrupted,
continuous; (adj, n) steady,
invariable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
irregular, intermittent, changeable,
variable, inconstant, erratic,
episodic, fickle, temporary, disloyal,
inconsistent
constantly: (adv) continually, firmly,
incessantly, eternally, steadily,
endlessly, unremittingly,
ceaselessly, steadfastly; (adj, adv)
always, forever. ANTONYMS: (adv)
inconsistently, intermittently,
acutely, erratically, infrequently
constitute: (v) compose, commission,
appoint, establish, comprise, build,
name, create, found, institute; (n, v)
make. ANTONYMS: (v) deny,
repeal, refuse, disband
constructed: (adj) made, formed,
synthetic
consumed: (adj) exhausted, finished,
used up, worn, depleted, obsessed,
possessed, lost, tired, immersed,
gone
consumer: (n) customer, client, buyer,
shopper, employer, patron,

235
purchaser, user, punter, chewer;
(adj) capitalist. ANTONYMS: (n)
seller, marketer, merchandiser,
consultant
contained: (adj) implicit, unspoken,
unexpressed, latent, understood,
numbered, inside, confined to a
small area, being within, limited to a
small area. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unrestrained, generalized, pervasive
containing: (adj) including,
comprehensive
contempt: (n, v) scorn; (v) despise; (n)
disrespect, derision, mockery,
disregard, ridicule, shame, slight,
reproach, discourtesy. ANTONYMS:
(n) approval, admiration, regard,
honor, esteem
content: (n) meaning, matter,
capacity, contents, subject; (n, v)
contentment; (v) appease, please,
satisfy, suffice; (adj) happy.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) discontent; (adj)
tormented, unhappy, dissatisfied,
rebellious, discontented, troubled;
(adj, v) upset; (n) unhappiness,
sadness; (v) trouble
contented: (adj) content, happy,
comfortable, quiet, cheerful, smug,
complacent, satisfied, easy, proud,
delighted. ANTONYMS: (adj)
discontented, unhappy, depressed,
unsatisfied, sad, anxious
contentment: (n) content, happiness,
pleasure, fulfillment, ease, delight,
comfort, complacency, bliss, joy,
contentedness. ANTONYMS: (n)
dissatisfaction, sadness, discomfort,
discontentment, misery,
unhappiness, displeasure,
discontent, panic, anxiety
contest: (v) compete, contend; (n)
bout, competition, contention; (n, v)
combat, conflict, fight, dispute,
altercation, struggle. ANTONYMS:
(n) tranquility, quiet, peace, calm,
cooperation; (v) surrender, agree,
acquiesce, accede, favor, prove
continual: (adj, adv) constant; (adj)
ceaseless, incessant, endless,
continuous, frequent, everlasting,
uninterrupted, perpetual,
unrelenting, perennial.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sporadic,
temporary, occasional, finite,
inconstant, infrequent, ending,
ceasing, halting, rare, acute
continually: (adv) perpetually,
ceaselessly, incessantly, endlessly,
unceasingly, continuously,
persistently, eternally, steadily,
frequently; (adj, adv) always.

236
ANTONYMS: (adv) acutely,
infrequently, spasmodically,
sporadically
continuing: (adj) constant, lasting,
abiding, ongoing, serial, persistent,
enduring, permanent, durable,
chronic, steady. ANTONYMS: (adj)
rapid, spasmodic, occasional,
fleeting
controlled: (adj) limited, restrained,
restricted, temperate, subdued,
inhibited, deliberate, illicit, illegal,
graceful, forced. ANTONYMS: (adj)
spontaneous, uncontrolled,
intemperate, involuntary,
unscientific, demonstrative, natural,
open, pervasive, public
convention: (n) congress, meeting,
contract, council, custom,
convocation, assembly, tradition,
practice, habit, assemblage.
ANTONYMS: (n) informality,
innovation
conventional: (adj) orthodox, formal,
customary, accepted, common,
everyday, routine, typical,
traditional, normal; (adj, v) familiar.
ANTONYMS: (adj) radical, unusual,
relaxed, unorthodox, original,
rebellious, new, abnormal, odd,
unique, uncustomary
conversation: (n) talk, conference,
communication, colloquy,
confabulation, discussion, language,
discourse, speech, talking, palaver
conviction: (n) belief, confidence,
certainty, condemnation,
persuasion, faith, trust, certitude,
firmness, doctrine, determination.
ANTONYMS: (n) acquittal, doubt,
release, absolution, disbelief,
justification, insecurity, distrust
convinced: (adj, v) sure, positive,
confident, firm; (v) cocksure,
persuaded, satisfied, assured, bold;
(adj) clear, definite. ANTONYMS:
(adj) doubtful, unconvinced,
uncertain, cynical
convincing: (adj) cogent, forceful,
persuasive, compelling, believable,
probable, impressive, likely,
credible, valid, plausible.
ANTONYMS: (adj) weak,
unrealistic, unpersuasive,
questionable, dubious, doubtful,
unbelievable, disputable, inaccurate,
hesitant, unreliable
convulsive: (adj) spastic, galvanic,
fitful, paroxysmal, violent, choreic,
unsteady, hysterical; (v) unquiet,
restless, saltatory
convulsively: (adv) spasmodically,

Winesburg, Ohio
paroxysmally, spasticly, with
convulsions
cooked: (adj) well done, overcooked,
cook, done, wanting, damaged,
defiled, heated, suitable for eating,
done for, fit for human
consumption. ANTONYMS: (adj)
poisonous, raw, underdone
copy: (n, v) counterfeit, duplicate,
pattern, trace; (v) imitate, ape,
follow; (adj, n, v) model; (n)
imitation, transcription,
reproduction. ANTONYMS: (v)
create, originate; (n) master
cord: (n) band, bond, tie, twine, tape,
whipcord, thread, yarn, lace, rope,
leash
cork: (n, v) plug; (n) bung, stopper,
phellem, bobber, bob, bobfloat; (v)
cap, stop, close; (adj) cobweb
corn: (n) clavus, cereals, Zea Mays,
callus, wheat, Indian corn, callosity,
grain; (v) feed, keep; (adj, n)
commonplace
corners: (adj) cornered
cornfield: (n) corn field
corrupted: (adj) tainted, rotten,
spoiled, degraded, adulterated,
depraved, distorted, decayed,
impaired, debased; (n) corrupter.
ANTONYM: (adj) pure
cosmopolitan: (adj) universal,
international, sophisticated, global,
Catholic, ecumenical, planetary,
widely distributed, oecumenical;
(adj, n) cosmopolite; (n) creeping
wood sorrel. ANTONYMS: (adj)
insular, country, endemic, parochial,
rustic
couch: (n) bed, sofa, settee, divan;
(adj, v) lie; (v) express, put, frame,
lower, repose; (adj) recline
count: (v) compute, weigh, consider,
estimate, matter; (n, v) calculate,
tally, number, total; (n) calculation,
computation. ANTONYMS: (v)
guess, except, estimate, disregard,
dismiss, abandon, ignore, subtract
counter: (adj, n) converse; (n, v)
reply; (n) bench, reverse, numerator;
(v) contradict, resist, react, retort,
respond; (adj) antagonistic.
ANTONYMS: (v) yield, surrender;
(adv) similarly, same, equally; (adj)
corroborating, corresponding,
consistent, concurring, analogous,
agreeing
countless: (adj) innumerable,
multitudinous, many, endless,
myriad, measureless, uncounted,
legion, untold, infinite, incalculable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) finite, limited,

numbered, counted, countable,
small
countryside: (adj, n) country; (n)
village, panorama, landscape, land,
rural area, scenery, nature, suburb,
ground; (adj) rustic
coupled: (adj) conjugate, linked,
united, double, joined, associated,
conjugated, attached, fixed, twin,
paired. ANTONYM: (adj) unrelated
coupling: (n) coupler, clutch,
connection, yoke, conjugation, link,
combination, junction, mating,
pairing, marriage
courage: (n) audacity, fortitude,
boldness, nerve, spirit, backbone,
valor, heroism, gallantry, mettle,
chivalry. ANTONYMS: (n)
cowardice, faintheartedness,
weakness, wimpiness, yellowness
courageous: (adj, n) bold; (adj)
audacious, fearless, valiant, gallant,
intrepid, spirited, heroic,
undaunted, manly, confident.
ANTONYMS: (adj) timid, wimpy,
weak, spineless, pusillanimous,
fearful, fainthearted, afraid,
despicable
courthouse: (n) tribunal, forum,
house, building, town hall
courting: (n) wooing, courtship,
bundling, appeal, attraction, case,
causa, cause, flirtation, suit
courtship: (n) courting, wooing, love,
bundling, the soft impeachment,
prayer, entreaty, gallantry,
addresses, cause, affection
covered: (adj) veiled, concealed,
covert, coated, secret, wrapped,
thick, obscured, masked, shrouded;
(adj, prep) cloaked. ANTONYMS:
(adj) bare, uncovered, open, plain,
exposed, outdoor, empty
coward: (n) cur, pantywaist, sneak,
dastard, milksop, weakling,
milquetoast; (adj) gutless,
chickenhearted, pusillanimous,
chicken-hearted. ANTONYMS: (n)
daredevil, stalwart; (adj) brave
cows: (n) cattle, cow, bull, ox, oxen,
Bos Taurus, bullock, beef, Cowes,
steer, milker
cracked: (adj) nutty, batty, crazy,
chapped, balmy, wacky, dotty,
crackled, deranged, loony, crackers.
ANTONYMS: (adj) resonant, sane
crawl: (adv, v) grovel, lag; (n, v)
clamber, climb; (v) sneak, fawn,
cringe, teem, swarm, scramble, inch.
ANTONYMS: (v) fly, rush, hurry,
hasten, dart, dash, lead, soothe,
speed

Sherwood Anderson
crawling: (adj, n) creeping; (n) creep,
itch; (adj) slow, teeming, thick,
swarming, reptant, populous,
packed, moving
crazily: (adv) insanely, dementedly,
foolishly, wildly, nutsly, frantically,
loonily, frenziedly, daftly,
deliriously, wackily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) calmly, sanely, sensibly,
rationally
crazy: (adj) wild, mad, brainsick,
absurd, eccentric, silly, wacky,
cracked, crazed, demented; (adj, n)
madcap. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sensible, sane, rational, indifferent,
stable, reasonable, realistic,
balanced, levelheaded, cool, calm
creaking: (adj, v) creaky; (adj)
squeaking, harsh, screaky, noisy,
arthritic; (v) rickety; (n) screak
creative: (adj, v) original, inventive,
fertile; (adj) imaginative,
resourceful, ingenious, originative,
artistic, constructive, untranslated,
inspired. ANTONYMS: (adj)
uncreative, unoriginal, uninspired,
untalented, mindless, logical,
destructive, stale, unproductive,
hackneyed
creature: (n) being, brute, animal,
tool, individual, person, body,
entity, human, puppet, somebody
creek: (n) brook, cove, bay, stream,
inlet, river, bayou, rivulet; (v) burn,
runnel, beck
creep: (v) grovel, sneak, steal, fawn,
lurk, truckle, cringe; (n) creeping,
crawling, toady, sycophant.
ANTONYMS: (v) race, dash, hasten,
hurry, speed, fly
creeping: (n) creep, crawl,
locomotion, spreading; (v) lentor;
(adj) reptile, slow, reptant,
reptatory, serpiginous, moving
crest: (n, v) crown, top, peak, climax;
(n) summit, brow, cockscomb, acme,
pinnacle, zenith; (v) cap.
ANTONYMS: (n) base, bottom,
nadir, trough
crew: (n) cluster, gang, bunch, party,
band, faction, crowd, assemblage,
team, group, set
crisis: (n) pinch, conjuncture,
juncture, difficulty, turning point,
emergency, circumstance, dilemma,
situation, strait, depression.
ANTONYMS: (n) serenity, peace
crisp: (adj) short, terse, fresh, crispy,
sharp, crunchy, brisk; (adj, v)
wrinkle; (v) crease, crinkle; (n) chip.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soggy, soft,
limp, wilted, rumpled, stale,

slovenly, sloppy, wordy, long,
lengthy
critic: (n, v) judge; (n) commentator,
censor, reviewer, evaluator, pundit,
appraiser, critique, criticiser,
censurer; (adj) critical. ANTONYMS:
(n) advocate, backer, champion, fan
critical: (adj) important, decisive,
severe, ticklish, vital, acute, delicate,
momentous, minute, particular; (adj,
n) urgent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
complimentary, positive,
insignificant, flattering, approving,
unimportant, praising, noncritical,
minor, mild, uncritical
criticism: (n) critique, commentary,
blame, review, attack, comment,
censure, animadversion,
denunciation, disapproval, rebuke.
ANTONYMS: (n) praise, approval,
compliment, admiration,
commendation, support, credit,
defense, raves, acclaim
crop: (adj, v) clip, reap, shave; (v)
browse, top, graze, cultivate, cut; (n,
v) fruit, harvest; (n) craw
crops: (n) crop
cross: (adj) crabby, angry, grumpy,
grouchy, cantankerous; (v) intersect,
cover, thwart, baffle; (adj, v)
traverse; (n) crisscross.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm, cheerful,
happy; (v) uncross, assist, separate,
remain, help, stay, unmix, aid
crossed: (adj) crossbred, mixed,
hybrid, interbred, decussated,
intercrossed; (v) matted,
disconcerted dashed, unhinged,
frustrated
crossing: (n) transit, ford,
intersection, hybridization,
crossbreeding, passage, voyage,
mating, crossway, crosswalk, cruise
crouched: (v) subjacent, squat; (adj)
crutched, hunkered down,
hunkered, low, huddled
crouching: (adj) sneaking, huddled,
obsequious, squat, hunkered,
cowering, hunkered down; (v)
submissive, resigned
crowd: (n, v) huddle, flock, swarm,
press, squeeze, cluster, mob; (n)
crew, collection, circle, army.
ANTONYMS: (v) disperse, empty,
retreat, scatter, desert; (n) dispersal,
scattering, trickle, few
crowded: (adj) compact, congested,
full, packed, busy, dense, populous,
jammed, cramped, tight; (adj, n)
thronged. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sparse, deserted, uncrowded, loose
crowding: (n) plough crowding,

237
bunch, jostlement, overcrowding
crude: (adj, v) raw; (adj) clumsy,
rough, rude, barbarous, uncouth,
primitive, vulgar, immature,
barbarian, impolite. ANTONYMS:
(adj) sophisticated, tasteful,
cultured, permanent, polished,
finished, formal, civilized, fine,
clean, decent
crudely: (adv) roughly, coarsely,
vulgarly, grossly, rawly, harshly,
earthily, uncouthly, impolitely,
boorishly, barbarously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) finely, decently
crudity: (n) crudeness, rudeness,
coarseness, immaturity, wild,
impoliteness, rawness, grossness,
uncouthness, incivility, vulgarity.
ANTONYM: (n) decency
cruelty: (n) brutality, cruelness,
oppression, barbarity, ferociousness,
tyranny, violence, atrocity, ferocity,
mercilessness, harshness.
ANTONYMS: (n) compassion,
gentleness, friendliness, humanity,
benevolence, sensitivity, liberty,
decency
crust: (n) skin, peel, bark, cheekiness,
gall, impertinence, covering, shell,
cortex, coating, encrustation
crying: (adj, v) exigent, instant,
pressing, urgent; (adj) insistent,
clamant, imperative, blatant; (n)
weeping; (v) weep; (adj, n) sniveling
cultivated: (adj) cultured, refined,
tame, educated, sophisticated,
elegant, urbane, polished,
accomplished, civil, polite.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wild, untamed,
uncouth, coarse, graceless
curbing: (n) limitation, restriction,
bridle, check, Amex, curb bit,
frustration, American Stock
Exchange. ANTONYM: (n)
extension
cure: (n, v) correct, medicine, help; (n)
antidote, salve, therapy, treatment;
(v) treat, pickle, preserve, restore.
ANTONYMS: (n) poison; (v) injure,
hurt, harm, wound, damage,
exacerbate
cured: (adj) recovered, corned, aged,
mellow, whole, better, pickle cured,
salted, vulcanised, well, vulcanized
curiosity: (n) curiousness, rarity,
interest, curio, oddity, prying,
nosiness, peculiarity, novelty,
marvel; (adj, n) prodigy.
ANTONYMS: (n) emotionlessness,
indifference, disinterest
curious: (adj) odd, unusual,
abnormal, strange, peculiar,

238
interested, quizzical, quaint, queer,
inquiring, inquisitive. ANTONYMS:
(adj) incurious, ordinary, apathetic,
uninterested, unconcerned, typical,
indifferent, everyday, disinterested,
conventional, common
curled: (adj) coiled, curling, having
curls, round, braided, twisted,
bowed, wreathy, Crull, curled up,
tressed
curly: (adj) crinkly, kinky, curled,
crimped, frizzed, permed, curved;
(adv) wavily, kinkily, curledly,
curlingly. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unbent, uncoiled, flat
curses: (n) abuse
curtain: (n, v) cover; (n) barrier,
drapery, blind, screen, mantle,
mask, shade, pall, shroud; (v) hide
customary: (adj, n) accustomed,
usual, habitual; (adj) conventional,
ordinary, commonplace, traditional,
average, wonted, regular, standard.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unusual,
abnormal, exceptional,
unconventional, offbeat, irregular,
innovative, different, unfamiliar,
extraordinary, rare
custom-made: (adj) tailor-made,
custom-built
cutting: (adj) biting, keen, caustic,
bitter, acrimonious, incisive, raw;
(adj, n) acute; (n) cut, slip; (adj, v)
satirical. ANTONYMS: (adj) blunt,
complimentary, flattering, kind,
pleasant, hot, consoling; (n)
extension, freedom, expansion,
addition
dagger: (n) bodkin, sword, blade,
obelisk, knife, stiletto, dirk, cutlass,
grapheme, saber, skean
damn: (adj, adv, v) bloody; (v) curse,
imprecate, beshrew, blaspheme,
cuss, slam, convict; (adj) blasted,
cursed; (n) damnation.
ANTONYMS: (v) bless, laud,
glorify, exalt, commend, praise
damp: (adj) moist, muggy, clammy,
cool, dank; (v) check, chill, deaden,
break; (n) moisture, dampness.
ANTONYMS: (n) dryness; (adj)
parched, arid, dried, fresh, hard
dance: (v) caper, bop, to dance,
cavort, play, skip, to show courage,
step; (n, v) hop, jump, shake
dancing: (n) choreography,
Terpsichore, saltation, break
dancing, ceremonial dance,
galloping, hoofing, Pavan; (adj)
morrice; (adv) adance; (v) saltant
danger: (n) risk, peril, hazard, chance,
jeopardy, threat, trouble,

Winesburg, Ohio
precariousness, slipperiness,
disaster, insecurity. ANTONYMS:
(n) security, ease, privilege
dangerous: (adj, n) critical; (adj)
severe, serious, grave, adventurous,
unhealthy, precarious, hazardous,
perilous, threatening, chancy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) stable, secure,
protected, unhazardous, slight,
weak, harmless, friendly, favorable,
calm, pleasant
dangerously: (adv) hazardously,
precariously, unsafely, riskily,
seriously, insecurely, harmfully,
parlously, severely, fatally; (adj,
adv) gravely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
safely, securely, carefully, slightly
dangling: (adj) suspended, pendent,
pendant, limp, floppy, pendulous;
(n) suspension, abeyance, break,
abatement; (adv) adangle.
ANTONYM: (adj) upright
dare: (n, v) venture; (v) defy, brave,
hazard, confront, risk, resist, make
bold; (n) adventure, daring,
defiance. ANTONYMS: (v) avoid,
flee, pass, refrain, retreat, obey
daring: (adj, n) bold, courageous,
adventurous; (adj) audacious,
venturesome, intrepid; (n) bravery,
audacity, boldness, courage,
adventurousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
cowardice, timidity; (adj) timid,
cautious, dull, afraid, chicken,
fearful, unadventurous, wimpy
darkened: (adj) darkens, obscured,
old, obfuscate, murky, cloudy,
opaque, overcast
darkness: (n) dark, shade, shadow,
blindness, gloom, blackness,
duskiness, murk, cloud, blackout,
dimness. ANTONYMS: (n)
brightness, lightness, glow,
comprehension, knowledge, day,
clearness
dashed: (v) ashamed, cut up, sunk;
(adj) broken, done for, dejected,
discouraged, dotted
dated: (adj) archaic, outmoded,
obsolete, outdated, old-fashioned,
dowdy, behind the times,
antediluvian, ancient,
unfashionable, old. ANTONYMS:
(adj) contemporary, new, trendy,
fresh, fashionable, chic, modern, in
dawn: (adj, n) break of day,
daybreak; (n) beginning,
commencement, cockcrow, onset,
morning, prime, aurora; (v) break,
begin. ANTONYMS: (n) twilight,
sunset, nightfall, close, departure,
demise, conclusion, ending; (n, v)

end, finish; (v) set
dawning: (n) daybreak, sunrise, start,
beginning, aurora, cockcrow,
dayspring, morning, birth, first
light, break of day. ANTONYM: (n)
sunset
dazed: (adj) bewildered, stunned,
dumbfounded, muzzy, stupefied,
dizzy, stupid, groggy, amazed,
astounded, bleary. ANTONYMS:
(adj) indifferent, unimpressed,
conscious
deaf: (adj) earless, hard of hearing,
blind, unhearing, indifferent,
deafened, regardless, surd; (v)
deafen, desensitize; (n) deafness.
ANTONYMS: (adj) listening, aware,
attentive
dearly: (adv) affectionately,
preciously, darlingly, sweetly, petly,
expensively, belovedly, intimately,
highly, heartfeltly, lovely
debauch: (v) corrupt, debase,
deprave, demoralize, vitiate, violate,
whore, pollute; (n) Saturnalia, orgy;
(n, v) riot. ANTONYMS: (v)
upgrade, praise, laud, elevate, honor
debris: (adj, n) waste, trash, refuse,
rubble; (n) detritus, junk, rubbish,
wreck, garbage, remains, ruins
decade: (n) ten, decennium,
decennary, tenner, day, x, lifetime,
quinquennium, period, generation,
Adam
decay: (adj, n, v) decline; (v)
decompose, crumble, corrupt; (n, v)
blight, ebb, rust, collapse; (n)
decomposition, corruption,
disintegration. ANTONYMS: (v)
flourish, grow, thrive, strengthen,
ripen, develop; (n) vigor,
development
decayed: (adj) spoiled, corrupt,
dilapidated, rank, rusty, rotting,
decaying, rotted, putrid; (adj, v)
wasted; (v) stale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
matured, restored, strengthened
decaying: (adj) rotten, decayed,
rotting, stale, decadent, stinking,
decomposed, smelly, shabby, seedy;
(n) fading. ANTONYM: (adj)
pristine
deception: (n, v) cheat; (n) illusion,
trick, pretense, delusion, betrayal,
fake, flam, bluff, gammon, cheating.
ANTONYMS: (n) honesty,
candidness, sincerity, openness,
correction, integrity, genuine,
truthfulness
declaration: (n) affirmation,
assertion, expression,
pronouncement, statement,

Sherwood Anderson
allegation, enunciation,
acknowledgment, predication; (n, v)
claim, avowal. ANTONYMS: (n)
denial, disavowal, retraction,
request
declare: (v) advertise, assert, allege,
attest, aver, admit, acknowledge,
proclaim, avow; (n, v) affirm, say.
ANTONYMS: (v) conceal, revoke,
suppress, retract, repress, disclaim,
withhold, request, refute, block
declared: (adj) stated, apparent, state,
public, professed, proclaimed,
explicit, ostensible, expressed,
confirmed, alleged
declaring: (adj) affirming, predicant
decline: (n, v) wane, fall, dip,
decrease, ebb; (v) reject, refuse, fail;
(adj, n, v) drop; (adj, v) sink; (n)
declension. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
increase; (v) accept, flourish,
improve; (n) improvement,
recovery, development, growth,
rebirth, ascent, upturn
deepened: (adj) concentrated,
gathered
deepening: (n) amplification,
aggravation
deeply: (adv) strongly, heavily,
intensely, deep, thickly, highly,
soundly, greatly, gravely, extremely,
richly. ANTONYMS: (adv) slightly,
mildly, unemotionally, fitfully,
moderately, thinly, hardly, barely,
lightly
defeat: (v) overcome, conquer, beat,
rout, abolish; (n, v) ruin, foil; (n)
frustration, beating; (adj, n, v)
repulse; (adj, n) rebuff.
ANTONYMS: (v) lose, surrender,
help, succumb, inspirit, encourage,
concede; (n) success, win, triumph,
conquest
defeated: (n) loser; (adj) frustrated,
beaten, broken, overcome, balked,
baffled, bested, thwarted,
unsuccessful; (adj, n) discomfited.
ANTONYM: (adj) victorious
defense: (n) apology, fortification,
justification, security, protection,
safeguard, excuse, defence, shield,
defend, advocacy. ANTONYMS: (n)
attack, offense, criticism, violence,
prosecution, destruction, aggression,
condemnation, accusation,
opposition
define: (v) characterize, explain,
clarify, bound, name, interpret,
limit, construe, restrict,
circumscribe, outline. ANTONYMS:
(v) obscure, confuse, confound,
conceal, tangle

definite: (adj) certain, clear, distinct,
concrete, plain, conclusive, specific,
precise, categorical, decisive; (adj, v)
absolute. ANTONYMS: (adj)
imprecise, unclear, vague,
undefined, doubtful, indeterminate,
qualified, evasive, indefinite,
indescribable, dubious
definitely: (adv) decidedly,
absolutely, precisely, clearly, surely,
specifically, positively,
determinately, distinctly,
particularly, finally. ANTONYMS:
(adv) maybe, doubtfully, vaguely,
possibly, questionably, uncertainly,
indefinitely, hesitantly, irresolutely,
unclearly
dejected: (adj) sad, depressed, low,
downhearted, gloomy, down,
unhappy, spiritless, sorrowful,
miserable, melancholy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) elated, happy,
euphoric, joyous, encouraged,
positive, enthusiastic, hopeful
dejectedly: (adv) despondently,
dispiritedly, gloomily, glumly,
downcastly, dismally,
downheartedly, depressedly,
disheartenedly, melancholy, lowly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) cheerfully,
enthusiastically
delayed: (adj) belated, tardy,
protracted, deferred, slow, retarded,
held up, backward, back, prolonged;
(adv) behind. ANTONYMS: (adj)
early, expedited, prompt
deliberately: (adv) consciously,
intentionally, designedly,
knowingly, carefully, on purpose,
purposely, willfully, slowly,
premeditatedly, purposefully.
ANTONYMS: (adv) accidentally,
involuntarily, furtively, arbitrarily,
automatically, naively, secretly,
unconsciously, unwittingly,
innocently, covertly
delicate: (adj) accurate, tender,
dainty, refined, breakable, fragile,
beautiful, brittle, soft, nice, frail.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inelegant,
robust, heavy, sturdy, tough,
careless, inaccurate, rough, well,
substantial, unscrupulous
delicately: (adv) exquisitely, softly,
tenderly, gracefully, subtlely,
sensitively, daintily, precisely,
elegantly, ticklishly, weakly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) inelegantly,
tactlessly, thickly, imprecisely,
clumsily, ungracefully, unsubtly,
heavily, carelessly, roughly, severely
delicious: (adj, v) delicate; (adj)

239
tasteful, pleasing, delightful,
appetizing, agreeable, sweet,
toothsome, savory, enjoyable,
dainty. ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteless,
distasteful, yucky, unsavory,
unpleasant, unappetizing, revolting,
nauseating, inedible, gross, dry
delight: (n) joy, pleasure, amusement,
rejoicing, gladness; (v) ravish,
amuse, please, captivate, transport,
enrapture. ANTONYMS: (n) misery,
dismay, dissatisfaction, sadness,
nuisance, discontent; (v) depress,
displease, sadden, irk; (n, v) bore
delighted: (adj) glad, cheerful,
blissful, jubilant, happy, overjoyed,
joyful, captivated, pleasant; (adj, v)
pleased, elated. ANTONYMS: (adj)
shocked, unhappy, sorrowful,
depressed, melancholy, miserable,
desolate, sorry, sad, down
delightful: (adj) delicious, delectable,
charming, pleasing, grateful,
blissful, amiable, adorable, lovely,
nice, gorgeous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unpleasant, unwelcome, hateful,
miserable, unhappy, unappealing,
horrific, horrible, disagreeable,
depressing, annoying
delightfully: (adv) pleasantly,
enchantingly, exquisitely, gladly,
charmingly, finely, sweetly,
deliciously, beautifully, merrily;
(adv, v) happily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) unattractively, horribly,
disagreeably
deliver: (v) consign, bear, carry, save,
rescue, abandon, send, pronounce,
hand over, bring; (adj, v) utter.
ANTONYMS: (v) capture, confine,
imprison, hold, oppress, enslave,
restrain, retain, collect, withhold,
shackle
deliverance: (n) salvation, rescue,
release, freedom, escape,
emancipation, delivery, relief,
liberation, liberty, salvage.
ANTONYMS: (n) downfall,
suppression
delivery: (n, v) birth, address; (n)
consignment, discharge, rescue,
surrender, distribution, elocution,
issue, communication, deliverance.
ANTONYMS: (n) dispatch,
collection, holding, keeping, capture
delusion: (n) hallucination,
deception, cheat, chimera,
misunderstanding, mirage, trick,
fallacy, error, aberration, falsehood.
ANTONYMS: (n) comprehension,
fact, truth
delve: (v) burrow, investigate,

240
excavate, rummage, grub, mine, cut
into, tunnel, root, unearth, lop and
top. ANTONYM: (v) fill
delving: (n) inquest, probe, quest,
research, inquiry, investigation
demanded: (adj) urgent, popular,
requisitory
demands: (n) strain, weight, stress,
anxiety
democrat: (n) roturier, republican,
proletary, proletaire, plebeian,
democrats, Mr, democratist,
populist, one of the people
dense: (adj, v) compact, close; (adj)
thick, crowded, deep, heavy, stupid,
impenetrable, solid, crass, dim.
ANTONYMS: (adj) insightful,
bright, loose, sparse, simple,
readable, clever, intelligent, sharp,
thin, alert
dentist: (n) dental surgeon,
endodontist, exodontist,
orthodontist, tooth doctor,
toothdrawer
depart: (v) go, deviate, decease,
diverge, start, stray, wander, leave,
die, vary, part. ANTONYMS: (v)
stay, arrive, enter, come, abide,
conform, continue, remain, appear,
converge, return
departed: (adj) dead, bygone, late,
former, bypast, defunct, past, left;
(adj, v) gone, extinct; (n) decedent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) remaining, alive
departing: (adj, v) parting; (adj, n)
leaving, going away; (adj) outgoing,
outbound, outward, passing,
decedent, valedictory, retiring; (v)
depart. ANTONYM: (n) arrival
departure: (n, v) decease, demise; (n)
exit, leave, deviation, divergence,
depart, parting, aberration, passing,
takeoff. ANTONYMS: (n)
appearance, conformity, greeting,
ingress, influx, homecoming,
regularity, entrance, birth, coming,
advance
depend: (adj, v) hang; (v) dangle,
count, rely, stay, reckon, confide,
suspend, calculate, attend, pivot.
ANTONYM: (v) distrust
dependents: (n) clientele
depot: (n) store, depository, arsenal,
warehouse, station, storehouse,
godown, storeroom, stop, cache,
entrepot
depressed: (adj) low, blue, dejected,
sad, dispirited, downhearted,
downcast, down, gloomy, hollow,
disappointed. ANTONYMS: (adj)
cheerful, happy, convex, booming,
elated, encouraged, euphoric,

Winesburg, Ohio
exhilarated, flourishing, optimistic,
prospering
depression: (n) cavity, dejection,
blues, trough, trench, dip, hole,
dent, impression, decline, slump.
ANTONYMS: (n) happiness,
outcrop, encouragement, boom,
inflation, elation, recovery, hump,
joy, bulge, optimism
depths: (n) bottom, abyss, depth,
lowest point, low point, depression,
bowels, rock bottom, slump, midst,
nadir. ANTONYM: (n) peak
descended: (v) extraught
describe: (v) represent, report,
delineate, state, depict, outline,
relate, draw, qualify, designate,
name
deserted: (adj) desert, solitary, empty,
lonely, isolated, forsaken, lonesome,
desolate, bleak, vacant; (adj, v)
forlorn. ANTONYMS: (adj)
occupied, packed, crowded,
mobbed, populated, populous,
overcrowded
desire: (n) ambition, aspiration,
craving, dream; (adv, n, v) will; (n,
v) fancy, wish, aim; (v) want, aspire,
seek. ANTONYMS: (n, v) dislike,
hate; (n) aversion, reality, revulsion,
apathy; (v) spurn, abhor, answer,
command, insist
desires: (n) requirements, needs
desk: (n) bench, box, coffer, table,
secretary, bureau, writing desk,
escritoire, caisson, caddy, case
despair: (n) disappointment,
desolation, dejection, melancholy,
gloom, desperation, depression,
dismay, discouragement,
pessimism, sorrow. ANTONYMS:
(n) happiness, hopefulness,
expectation, joy, cheer, cheerfulness,
resilience, elation, joyfulness
desperate: (adj) despairing, dire,
critical, abject, dangerous, in
despair, grave, awful, despondent,
drastic; (adj, v) forlorn.
ANTONYMS: (adj) hopeful,
optimistic, rational, promising,
minor, cautious, casual, careful,
trivial, secure, satisfied
desperation: (adj, n) despair, fury,
rage; (n) recklessness, foolhardiness,
desperateness, burst, confusion,
trouble, misery; (adj) raving.
ANTONYMS: (n) optimism,
confidence, hopefulness, hope,
happiness, caution, prudence,
calmness
despicable: (adj) vile, base,
abominable, mean, abject, miserable,

dishonorable, filthy, dirty, hateful,
ignoble. ANTONYMS: (adj)
honorable, creditable, praiseworthy,
worthy, noble, loveable, likable,
laudable, endearing, commendable,
lovable
despised: (adj) scorned, despicable,
hated, abject, disparaged, mean,
attaching disgrace, unpopular,
unloved, reviled, opprobrious
destined: (adj, v) bound, fated; (adj)
predetermined, sure, inescapable,
intended, predestined, inevitable,
prepared, foreordained, appointed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unscheduled,
unlikely
destiny: (n) fate, chance, fortune,
kismet, luck, lot, destination,
portion, weird, life; (n, v) doom.
ANTONYMS: (n) chance, design
destroy: (v) demolish, blight, despoil,
subvert, dismantle, devour, wreck,
devastate; (adj, v) desolate, abolish;
(n, v) murder. ANTONYMS: (v)
preserve, create, make, construct,
protect, repair, restore, uphold,
sustain, submit, revive
destroyed: (adj) ruined, lost, desolate,
shattered, desolated, broken,
depressed, dead, damaged, undone,
fallen. ANTONYMS: (adj)
preserved, living
destroying: (v) destroy; (adj) deadly,
deleterious, murderous; (n) disposal
destruction: (n, v) defeat; (n) death,
ruin, collapse, demolition,
devastation, downfall, abolition,
damage, desolation, end.
ANTONYMS: (n) preservation,
protection, creation, reparation,
formation, conservation, restoration,
building, help, making, order
detached: (adj) separate, cool, aloof,
distinct, impartial, neutral,
dispassionate, objective,
unconnected, remote, unconcerned.
ANTONYMS: (adj) involved, warm,
engrossed, partial, connected,
biased, linked, united, impassioned,
interested, personal
detail: (v) describe, enumerate, relate,
appoint, itemize, recite, cast, assign;
(n) point, feature, item.
ANTONYMS: (v) keep, withhold,
generalize, guess, approximate; (n)
total, sum, emptiness, aggregate
determination: (n) conclusion,
definition, resolution, decisiveness,
resolve, will, tenacity, appointment,
assessment, constancy; (v) award.
ANTONYMS: (n) weakness,
compliance, indecisiveness,

Sherwood Anderson
feebleness, vacillation, irresolution,
cowardice, indetermination,
hesitation, flexibility, rashness
determined: (adj) constant, definite,
decided, stubborn, certain,
inflexible, decisive, determinate,
ambitious, set; (adj, v) resolved.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uncertain,
irresolute, unmotivated, feeble,
indecisive, waffling, undetermined,
undecided, wavering, vacillating,
fickle
deviant: (adj) abnormal, atypical,
irregular, anomalous, perverted,
odd, divergent; (n) degenerate,
deviate, pervert, miscreant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) regular,
representative, typical, Standard,
natural, usual
devices: (n) device, tactics, strategy,
plans
devil: (n) fiend, demon, ghost,
monster, Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub,
deuce, daemon; (v) torment, rag.
ANTONYM: (n) angel
devilment: (n) deviltry, devilry,
rascality, roguery, blaze,
misbehavior, misbehaviour,
misdeed, balefulness, badness,
shenanigan
devised: (adj) invented, trumped up,
formulated, fabulous
devoted: (adj, v) addicted, ardent,
fond; (adj) affectionate, constant,
loyal, pious, faithful, reliable,
zealous; (adj, prep) consecrated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disloyal,
indifferent, unfaithful, neglectful,
uncaring, unenthusiastic,
unattached, lukewarm, inconstant,
halfhearted, disobedient
devotee: (n) admirer, buff, enthusiast,
fan, addict, follower, lover,
adherent, groupie; (adj) convert,
Christian. ANTONYMS: (n) skeptic,
adversary, enemy, foe, opponent,
detractor
dial: (n) face, disc, control, selector,
gnomon, pendulum, hourglass,
clock, gauge; (v) telephone, operate
diffidence: (n) reserve, modesty,
shyness, pudency, coyness,
timorousness, doubt, humility,
timidity, uncertainty, constraint.
ANTONYMS: (n) approachability,
arrogance, security, brashness
diffused: (adj) spread, dispersed,
dim, distributed, softened
dignified: (adj) exalted, majestic,
noble, grand, lofty, respectable,
solemn, distinguished, lordly, high;
(adj, v) great. ANTONYMS: (adj)

undignified, foolish, dishonorable,
boisterous, unceremonious,
unseemly, vulgar, poor, lowly,
modest, base
dignity: (n) degree, prestige, glory,
decorum, face, distinction, honor,
majesty, eminence, solemnity; (adj,
n) decency. ANTONYMS: (n)
lowliness, indecency, impropriety,
simplicity, cheerfulness, austerity
diluted: (adj) thin, watery, weak,
insipid, tasteless, bland, sparse, rare,
cut, washy, tame. ANTONYMS:
(adj) straight, concentrated,
undiluted, thickened, strengthened,
enriched, thick
dimly: (adv) obscurely, darkly,
faintly, dully, duskily, vaguely,
shadowily, hazily, gloomily,
somberly; (adj, adv) palely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) clearly,
strongly, distinctly
dimmed: (adj) wan, soft, blurred,
vague, faint, dull, bleak, black,
dense
dining: (n) feeding, eating; (v) eat
dipped: (adj) immersed, unfit,
swaybacked, lordotic, curved in,
swayback
directed: (adj) oriented, manageable,
destined, concentrating, intent,
formal, absorbed, prescript,
focussed; (v) instruct; (adv) under
dirty: (adj, v) muddy, dirt; (v)
corrupt, contaminate; (n, v) soil,
defile; (adj) contemptible, bawdy,
contaminated, dingy, impure.
ANTONYMS: (adj) spotless,
hygienic, pure, immaculate,
sanitary, pleasant, sparkling, fair,
wholesome, washed; (v) purify
disappearance: (n) vanishing, loss,
going, fade, evaporation,
disappearing, departure, passing,
death, receding, ending.
ANTONYMS: (n) recurrence,
appearing, arrival, renaissance,
revitalization, show, emergence,
survival
disappeared: (adj) lost, missing,
extinct, vanished, left. ANTONYM:
(adj) remaining
disappointed: (adj) despondent,
disgruntled, regretful, dissatisfied,
depressed, sad, unhappy, frustrated,
disenchanted, dejected, disappoint.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pleased,
satisfied, composed, happy,
triumphant, fulfilled, cheerful,
idealistic
disappointment: (n) anticlimax,
failure, letdown, comedown,

241
frustration, shame, disillusionment,
annoyance, dismay, setback,
misfortune. ANTONYMS: (n)
satisfaction, boost, happiness,
pleasure, hopefulness, fulfillment,
comfort, idealism, climax, bonus,
gratification
disarranged: (adj) disheveled,
disorderly, untidy, deranged,
disturbed, delirious, disordered,
unkempt, tousled, topsy-turvy,
mussy. ANTONYM: (adj) neat
disbelief: (n) discredit, incredulity,
doubt, distrust, agnosticism,
atheism, misgiving, mistrust,
uncertainty, suspicion, wonder.
ANTONYMS: (n) trust, credulity,
faith, understanding, certainty
discarded: (adj) waste, junked, scrap,
unwanted, unnecessary, useless,
throwaway, surplus, superfluous,
unused, obsolete
discernible: (adj) observable,
apparent, visible, appreciable,
conspicuous, detectable, evident,
noticeable, obvious, audible,
palpable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indiscernible, unrecognizable,
indistinguishable, obscure,
obscured, unnoticeable, invisible,
undetectable
discharging: (n) unloading,
discharge, fulfillment, acquittal; (v)
unload
disconcerted: (adj) confused,
confounded, bewildered, blank,
embarrassed, disturbed, troubled,
worried, ashamed,
discombobulated, bemused.
ANTONYMS: (adj) composed,
soothed, unabashed, relaxed
disconnected: (adj) abrupt,
disjointed, desultory, fragmentary,
confused, incoherent, unconnected,
discontinuous, discrete, scrappy;
(adj, prep) separate. ANTONYMS:
(adj) connected, joined, continuous,
legato, entire, coherent
discouraged: (adj) despondent,
downhearted, downcast,
demoralized, dejected, dispirited,
disheartened, frustrated, crestfallen,
pessimistic, depressed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uplifted,
heartened, cheered, inspired,
cheerful, encouraged, hopeful,
happy, calm, positive, enthusiastic
discovered: (adj) revealed, disclosed,
exposed, naked, detected,
determined, observed, open,
unconcealed, bare. ANTONYM:
(adj) concealed

242
discovery: (n) detection, disclosure,
breakthrough, finding, revelation,
catching, revealing, invention, find,
development, exploration
disfavor: (n) disapproval,
displeasure, disaffection, aversion,
disrepute, disesteem; (n, v) disgrace,
disfavour, discredit; (v)
discountenance, hate. ANTONYMS:
(n) favor, liking, regard, respect,
service, kindness; (v) advantage
disgust: (n) antipathy, aversion,
abhorrence, abomination,
detestation, dislike, repugnance; (n,
v) shock, distaste; (v) nauseate,
displease. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
delight; (n) love, attraction, liking,
adoration; (v) attract, allure, charm,
entice, please
dish: (n) basin, disk, plate, meal,
platter, food, saucer, beauty, meat,
repast; (n, v) hollow
dishes: (n) food, meal, crockery,
dinner service, dishware, menu,
plates
dismal: (adj) cheerless, dejected,
dreary, gloomy, desolate,
disconsolate, depressing,
melancholy, black, dim, dull.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, happy,
lively, uplifting, sunny, pleasant,
light, cheery, strong, soulful,
wonderful
dismay: (adj, n, v) appall; (v) depress,
dishearten, discourage, horrify; (n)
consternation, discouragement; (n,
v) daunt, affright; (adj, n) terror,
dread. ANTONYMS: (n, v) delight;
(v) stimulate, assure, ensure,
encourage, elate; (n) spirit,
satisfaction, mettle, resolution,
assurance
dismissed: (adj) discharged,
unemployed, clear, convalescent
dismissing: (v) dismiss; (n) acquittal,
denial, dimission
disorderly: (adj) wild, disordered,
chaotic, boisterous, jumbled,
disorganized, unruly, rowdy,
untidy, irregular; (adj, v) lawless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) orderly, neat,
arranged, peaceful, organized,
systematized, conforming, ordered,
restrained, behaved, coherent
dispatcher: (n) sender, flight
operations officer, crank, messenger,
traffic controller, starter, courier,
train dispatcher. ANTONYM: (n)
recipient
displaying: (n) advertising
disposing: (adv) disposingly; (v)
dispose; (adj) decretive, dispositive;

Winesburg, Ohio
(n) distribution
dissatisfied: (adj) discontent,
disgruntled, disappointed, put out,
displeased, malcontent, grumpy,
annoyed, disaffected; (adj, v)
querulous, complaining.
ANTONYMS: (adj) content,
contented, happy, fulfilled, gratified,
pleased, idealistic
dissipation: (n) waste, dissolution,
licentiousness, extravagance, excess,
profligacy, consumption,
decomposition, disintegration; (n, v)
diffusion, dissemination.
ANTONYMS: (n) appearance,
growth, restraint, moderation,
decency, uprightness
distant: (adj) remote, aloof, chill,
detached, far, reserved, cool, long,
icy, removed; (adv) afar.
ANTONYMS: (adj) close,
neighboring, adjacent, friendly,
near, nearby, warm, pending,
intimate, involved, alert
distinction: (n) discrimination,
contrast, difference, rank,
dissimilarity, demarcation, prestige,
celebrity, reputation, consequence,
variation. ANTONYMS: (n)
mediocrity, resemblance, likeness,
indistinction, insult, disgrace,
commonness, obscurity
distinctly: (adv) clearly, particularly,
evidently, expressly, obviously,
markedly, definitely, precisely,
manifestly, separately, decidedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) inaudibly,
faintly, vaguely, silently,
imperceptibly, poorly
distinguished: (adj) dignified,
celebrated, illustrious, renowned,
conspicuous, important, reputable,
great, noble, high, well-known.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ordinary,
insignificant, undignified, Standard,
pedestrian, low, common, coarse,
base, undistinguished, modest
distinguishing: (adj) distinctive,
identifying, typical, discriminating,
specific, distinct, peculiar; (adv)
distinguishingly; (adj, v)
discriminative; (v) distinguish; (n)
hearing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
common, typical
distracted: (adj) demented,
inattentive, abstracted, crazy,
frenzied, distraught, preoccupied,
distressed, confused; (adj, v) mad,
disconcerted. ANTONYMS: (adj)
attentive, alert, assured, calm,
mellow
distraught: (adj) distressed, crazy,

demented, frantic, upset, wild,
frenzied, mad, anxious, frenetic,
delirious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
composed, calm, tranquil, relaxed,
serene, untroubled, sane, content
disturb: (v) trouble, disorder,
disconcert, distress, perturb,
disquiet, distract, discompose,
disrupt, upset, concern.
ANTONYMS: (v) calm, please,
soothe, smooth, order, reassure, sort,
settle, respect, quiet, organize
disturbed: (adj, v) concerned; (adj)
anxious, disquieted, upset,
confused, worried, restless,
disordered, unsettled, distressed,
turbulent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
rational, relaxed, calm, sane,
unaffected, unbroken, peaceful,
stable, carefree, unconcerned,
untroubled
disturbing: (adj) disquieting,
alarming, disconcerting, worrying,
bothersome, worrisome, upsetting,
unsettling, troubling, troublesome,
distressful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
soothing, comforting, pleasing,
pleasant
ditch: (n) canal, channel, dike; (v)
desert, dump, chuck, abandon,
discard, cut, leave; (n, v) moat.
ANTONYMS: (v) accept, take,
adopt, maintain; (n) ridge
divine: (adj) sacred, wonderful,
blessed, holy, exquisite; (n)
clergyman; (v) guess, conjecture,
augur, anticipate; (adj, n) almighty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) imperfect,
profane, earthly, dreadful, physical,
ugly, secular
diving: (n) immersion, dives, belly
whopper, skin diving, belly flopper,
belly whop, diving event, gainer;
(adv) headlong, headfirst; (v)
submerge
dizzy: (adj) giddy, silly, faint,
frivolous, light, vertiginous,
brainsick, featherbrained, flighty,
muzzy; (v) daze. ANTONYMS: (adj)
alert, balanced, intelligent, poised,
rational, steady, sober, serious
doggedly: (adv) stubbornly, firmly,
tenaciously, persistently, resolutely,
pertinaciously, perseveringly,
obdurately, steadfastly, untiringly,
steadily. ANTONYM: (adv)
hesitantly
dogs: (n) foxes, Canidae, Carnivora,
cats, family Canidae, forceps, order
Carnivora, bears; (adj) dogging
dollar: (n) greenback, note, coin,
cartwheel, clam, bill, dollars, silver

Sherwood Anderson
dollar, sterling coin, symbol,
currency
dollars: (n) bread
domineering: (adj) dictatorial,
overbearing, autocratic, arbitrary,
dominant, lordly, imperious,
commanding, masterful, bossy,
authoritative. ANTONYMS: (adj)
subservient, yielding, meek,
surrendering, weak, libertarian,
reasonable
don't: (adv) not; (n) taboo,
prohibition
doorknob: (n) handle, doorhandle,
door handle
doorway: (n) door, entrance, entry,
passage, entryway, way in, access,
driveway, gate, gateway, lobby
doubt: (n, v) suspicion, question,
query, dispute; (n) disbelief,
misgiving, incertitude,
apprehension, uncertainty; (adj, n)
skepticism; (v) suspect.
ANTONYMS: (n) certainty,
confidence, conclusiveness, belief,
certitude, faith, approval; (v) accept,
believe, consider, swallow
doubtful: (adj) dubious, debatable,
distrustful, questionable, queer,
suspicious, tentative, disputable,
diffident, unsettled, unsure.
ANTONYMS: (adj) trusting,
convinced, reliable, confident,
persuaded, provable, sure, hopeful,
promising, likely, indubitable
doubtfully: (adj, adv) hesitantly,
distrustfully; (adv) suspiciously,
uncertainly, doubtingly, tentatively,
indecisively, unsurely, skeptically,
precariously, shadily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) indisputably, surely,
trustingly, inevitably, confidently,
optimistically, plausibly
doubts: (adj) doubting
downstairs: (adv) beneath, below,
underneath, down the stairs,
downward, infra, at a lower place,
downhill, on a lower floor; (adj)
downstair; (n) floor. ANTONYMS:
(adj, adv) upstairs
downward: (adv) underneath, under,
below, downwards, downwardly,
beneath, down below; (adj)
downcast, sloping, depressed,
downright. ANTONYMS: (adv) up;
(adj) rising
downy: (adj) flossy, fuzzy, soft, hairy,
fleecy, silken, nappy, furry,
downlike; (v) flocculent, flaccid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) coarse, hard
dozen: (adj, n) XII; (n) dozens,
boxcars

dozing: (adj) drowsy, dozy, nodding,
napping, asleep, sleepy, tired
drab: (adj) dreary, gloomy, dingy,
cheerless, somber, boring, dowdy,
dark, colorless, dull, depressing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) colorful, vivid,
brilliant, chic, flashy, interesting,
cheerful, distinctive, smart, strong
drag: (v) attract, draw, lug, cart,
heave, tow; (n, v) pull, puff; (adv, v)
trail; (n) bother; (adj) dragging.
ANTONYMS: (n) pleasure; (v)
hasten, hurry, shove, speed, rush,
propel, fly
dragged: (adj) depressed, dejected,
upset, unhappy, spent, dispirited,
somber, melancholy, gloomy,
joyless, low
dragging: (n) pulled wire, stemming,
haulage; (adj) slow, sickly, slack,
unfit, sluggish, tardy, tedious; (v)
involve. ANTONYMS: (adj)
energetic, energizing, exciting,
prompt, short
drain: (v) deplete, bleed, leak,
consume; (adj, v) waste, exhaust,
spill; (n) culvert, dike; (adj) cloaca,
dissipate. ANTONYMS: (v) fill,
replenish, renew, supply, replace,
refresh, increase, conserve, enrich,
invigorate; (n) ridge
drained: (adj) tired, weary, spent,
dead, wiped out, beat, pooped,
depleted, effete, run-down; (adj, v)
dry. ANTONYMS: (adj) undrained,
bouncy, lively, energized, relaxed,
vigorous, zippy, refreshed, fresh,
strong
dramatic: (adj) spectacular,
impressive, scenic, stagy, sudden,
sensational, striking, exciting,
thespian, moving, tense.
ANTONYMS: (adj) undramatic,
prosaic, normal, unexciting,
unmoving, lyric, dull, blah, modest,
natural, restrained
dramatize: (v) overstate, exaggerate,
aggrandize, blow up, embroider,
adopt, amplify, stage, play up,
write, represent. ANTONYMS: (v)
reduce, understate
drank: (v) absorb
drawer: (n) draftsman, drawers, till,
designer, box car, cartoonist,
commode, engraver, chest, case,
locker
drawing: (n) draft, delineation,
picture, plan, cartoon, depiction,
draught, draw, draftsmanship,
painting, image
dread: (n, v) apprehension, fear,
panic; (n) anxiety, awe,

243
consternation, alarm, trepidation,
dismay, foreboding, terror.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pleasing,
welcomed, pleasant; (v) welcome,
want; (n) reassurance, fearlessness,
confidence, security, ease, calm
dreadful: (adj) bad, awful, alarming,
atrocious, fearful, terrible,
abominable, appalling, direful,
grisly; (adj, v) dread. ANTONYMS:
(adj) wonderful, great, lovely,
fantastic, marvelous, admirable,
successful, nice, joyous, honorable,
fair
dream: (n) aspiration, ambition,
reverie, desire, fantasy, figment,
nightmare; (n, v) vision, sleep; (v)
muse, imagine. ANTONYMS: (n)
alertness, nightmare
dreamer: (n) romancer, visionary,
daydreamer, woolgatherer, seer,
sleeper, slumberer, illusionist,
logician, philosopher, escapist
dreaming: (n) reverie, ambition,
nightmare, conception, castle in the
air; (adj) absent-minded, asleep,
visionary, vacant, wistful, rapt
dreiser: (n) Theodore Dreiser,
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser
dress: (n, v) attire, costume, clothe,
apparel, clothing, array, trim, garb,
rig, cover; (n) dressing.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) undress; (v)
uncover, disrobe, rumple, strip,
wrinkle
dressed: (adj) attired, clad, garbed,
appareled, spruced up, spiffed up,
covered, polished, garmented; (v)
clothed, habited
dressing: (n) bandage, stuffing,
fertilization, binding, bandaging,
scolding, fertilizer, manure,
compress, preparation, farce
drew: (n) move, John Drew
dried: (adj) arid, desiccated,
dehydrated, shriveled, shrunken,
drained, torrid, parched, withered;
(n) drier, dryer
drifting: (adj, adv) aimless,
wandering; (adv) adrift; (adj)
floating, nomadic, vagabond,
rootless, roaming, wayfaring,
migratory; (n) running with the
regulator closed. ANTONYM: (adj)
resident
drinking: (n) consumption, ingestion,
intake, potation, drunkenness,
crapulence, boozing, drinkable,
uptake, intemperateness, booze
drinks: (n) refreshments, food and
drink
dripping: (adj) wet, damp, drenched,

244
sodden, soaked, soggy; (adj, adv)
sopping, soaking; (adj, v) reeking;
(n) dribble, a drop. ANTONYM:
(adj) lacking
driven: (v) drive, impel, operate,
propel; (adj) impelled, compulsive,
motivated, involuntary, dynamic,
successful; (n) drove
driver: (n) drive, carter, chauffeur,
conductor, device driver, cabman,
drayman, teamster, wagoner,
charioteer, Jehu. ANTONYM: (n)
nondriver
driveway: (n) doorway, cellarway,
gangway, gateway, hatchway, route,
access road, road, access, campaign,
cause
driving: (adj) energetic, impulsive,
enterprising, pushing, vigorous; (n)
drive, travel, drove, direction,
motoring, push. ANTONYMS: (adj)
lethargic, weak, light
drizzly: (adj) drippy, wet, damp,
showery, rainy, raining, drizzling,
clammy, moist. ANTONYM: (adj)
dry
droop: (adj, v) decline; (v) dangle,
wilt, hang, flag, sink, slump, loll,
collapse; (n, v) sag, pine.
ANTONYMS: (v) rise, bloom
drooping: (adj) flabby, pendulous,
limp, flaccid, cernuous, flagging,
languid, floppy, lax, tired; (n) droop.
ANTONYMS: (adj) taut, firm
dropped: (adj) dropping, fallen,
decreased, drop, fall, degraded,
dead, born, abandoned
dropping: (adj) dropped, down,
fatigued, plunging, plummeting,
dipping; (n) sagging, reducing,
sinking, dropping of the launcher
stages, dispatching
drops: (n) tear
drove: (adj, n) flock, swarm, shoal; (n)
horde, crowd, covey, mob, throng,
multitude; (adj) bevy, driven
drowned: (adj) prostrate, sunken; (v)
drenched, drent
drowsy: (adj, n) sleepy; (adj) lazy,
comatose, somnolent, slow,
lethargic, sluggish, dull, indolent,
soporific, listless. ANTONYMS:
(adj) energetic, awake, lively,
vigorous, vivacious, refreshed
drug: (n) cure, anesthetic, medication,
remedy, medicament, prescription;
(v) dose, anesthetize, medicate,
narcotize, potion
druggist: (n) apothecary, chemist,
pharmacy, pharmaceutist,
dispensatory, drug store,
pharmacopolist, pill roller, drugger,

Winesburg, Ohio
drugster, medical attendant
drumming: (n) roll, drums, sound,
thump, pulse, barrelling, percussion,
buzzing, stress, tapping, throb
drunk: (adj) tipsy, wet, tight, blotto,
drunken, inebriated; (adj, n)
inebriate; (n) boozer, dipsomaniac,
drunkard, drinker. ANTONYMS:
(adj) straight, clearheaded; (n)
teetotaler
drunkard: (n) alcoholic, drinker,
boozer, dipsomaniac, rummy,
inebriate, toper, sot, bibber, lush,
imbiber
drunken: (adj) boozy, sottish,
intoxicated, tipsy, tight, bibulous,
groggy, intemperate, blotto, canned,
pissed
drunkenness: (n) alcoholism,
inebriety, ebriety, drinking, drink,
intoxication, crapulence, grogginess,
insobriety, tipsiness, alcohol
addiction
dubious: (adj) uncertain,
questionable, debatable, ambiguous,
vague, unlikely, unsure, unreliable,
incredulous, skeptical, undecided.
ANTONYMS: (adj) trustworthy,
certain, definite, unambiguous, sure,
clear, positive, settled, unequivocal,
significant, decided
dull: (adj) dreary, dense, sluggish,
dismal, slack, torpid; (adj, v) blunt,
stupid; (v) deaden, dampen; (adj, n)
cold. ANTONYMS: (adj) lively,
sharp, stimulating, exciting,
lustrous, interesting, exhilarating,
varied, glossy, glittery, luminous
dullard: (n) dolt, dunce, duffer, oaf,
pudding head, stupid, bore, ass,
lout, half-wit, loon
dullness: (n) apathy, bluntness,
boredom, dreariness, flatness,
tedium, obtuseness, torpor,
monotony, lethargy; (adj, n) phlegm.
ANTONYMS: (n) brightness,
intensity, brilliance, excitement,
intelligence, shine, asperity,
animation, gloss, clarity, variation
dumb: (adj) mute, speechless, dense,
dim, silent, dull, slow, stupid,
inarticulate, foolish, obtuse.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright,
communicative, intelligent,
loquacious, sharp, smart, speaking,
brilliant, talkative
dumped: (adj) discarded, vacant,
derelict, deserted
dusk: (n) nightfall, twilight, darkness,
gloaming, sunset, gloom, night,
shade, shadow, sundown; (adj)
dusky. ANTONYMS: (n) dawn,

light, daybreak, morning, afternoon
dusky: (adj) dark, cloudy, gloomy,
black, swarthy, dull, murky,
obscure, dingy, sooty, somber.
ANTONYMS: (adj) light, bright,
sunny, radiant, clear
dust: (v) sprinkle, clean, spray, wipe,
spread; (n) dirt, earth, relics, grit,
remains, soil. ANTONYMS: (n)
newness; (v) dirty
duster: (n) rag, smock, dustcloth,
dust storm, dusting machine, spray,
dishcloth, dustrag; (v) doily, doyley,
sponge
dusty: (adj) dirty, sandy, mealy, dry,
unclean, pulverulent, branny,
uninteresting, vague, psammous;
(adj, v) sooty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
dusted, clean
duties: (n) service, occupation, place,
work, vocation, charge, diversion,
activities, avocation, registration fee
dwell: (adj, v) inhabit; (v) reside,
bide, live, stay, lodge, delay, occupy,
continue, be, settle. ANTONYM: (v)
wander
dying: (n) death, demise, decease,
mortality; (adj) vanishing,
moribund, last, final, ultimate,
failing, ebbing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
thriving, well, opening, aborning,
developing, flourishing, growing,
reviving, rejuvenating; (n) birth
eager: (adj) avid, ardent, agog, acute,
zealous, enthusiastic, keen,
ambitious, industrious, studious;
(adj, n) earnest. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indifferent, unconcerned, apathetic,
disinterested, unwilling,
unenthusiastic, lukewarm, patient,
reluctant, listless, bored
eagerly: (adv) zealously, readily,
keenly, fervently, avidly, greedily,
enthusiastically, intently, earnestly,
impatiently, actively. ANTONYMS:
(adv) apathetically, nonchalantly,
grudgingly, patiently, halfheartedly,
reluctantly, unenthusiastically
eagerness: (n, v) desire, aspiration;
(n) enthusiasm, avidity, cupidity,
readiness, passion, keenness,
ambition, fervor, avidness.
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
unwillingness, aloofness, disinterest,
lethargy, listlessness, patience,
gloom, reluctance
eagle: (n) bird of Jove, colors, double
eagle, oriflamme, oriflamb, raptor,
labarum, emblem, flag, dibs,
streamer
earn: (v) acquire, deserve, get, attain,
win, bring in, bring, achieve, bear,

Sherwood Anderson
merit, yield. ANTONYMS: (v)
spend, cost, scatter
earnest: (adj, v) devout; (adj) eager,
solemn, heartfelt, diligent, studious,
sincere, intense, ardent, staid; (n)
guarantee. ANTONYMS: (adj)
flippant, halfhearted, uncertain,
insincere, unimportant, nonchalant,
lethargic, apathetic, unenthusiastic,
indifferent, frivolous
earnestly: (adj, adv) seriously; (adv)
eagerly, intently, zealously,
solemnly, ardently, fervently,
heartily, gravely, warmly,
passionately. ANTONYMS: (adv)
indifferently, insincerely,
unconcernedly, jokingly
earnestness: (n) seriousness,
sincerity, gravity, fervor, devotion,
graveness, staidness, honesty; (adj,
n) ardor, zeal, intentness.
ANTONYMS: (n) slackness,
lightness, carelessness,
frivolousness, cheerfulness,
insincerity, flippancy
earnings: (n) salary, emolument,
income, pay, wage, revenue, profits,
yield, proceeds, lucre,
compensation. ANTONYMS: (n)
payment, expenditure
ears: (n) antenna
earthly: (adj, n) terrestrial; (adj)
carnal, worldly, conceivable,
human, geotic, secular, terrene,
temporal, telluric, sublunary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) spiritual, divine,
ethereal, immortal, impossible,
improbable, inconceivable, celestial
ease: (v) alleviate, assuage, relieve,
allay; (n) convenience, rest, leisure,
relief, satisfaction; (adj, v) facilitate;
(n, v) relax. ANTONYMS: (n)
discomfort, formality,
awkwardness, worry, toil, problem,
pain, maladroitness; (v) aggravate,
worsen, impede
eastern: (adj) easterly, orient,
orientals, oriental, eastward, eastern
countries, ortive, bright, Levant.
ANTONYM: (adj) western
eaten: (v) eat
eaves: (n) arch, balcony, cupola,
dome, penthouse, eave, overhang,
attic, loft, projection, roof space
ebenezer: (n) virginal
eccentricity: (n) abnormality,
idiosyncrasy, oddness, peculiarity,
anomaly, crankiness, irregularity,
quirk, strangeness, weirdness,
curiousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
usualness, normalcy,
conventionality, concentricity,

conformity
ecstatically: (adv) happily, blissfully,
ravishingly, raptly, elatedly,
enrapturedly, joyfully, joyously,
overjoyedly, gladly, cheerily
edges: (n) boundaries
edging: (n) border, edge, brim, brink,
lace, trimming, boundary, galloon,
hem, list, frame
editor: (n) publisher, redactor, writer,
copyreader, copy editor, anthologist,
edit, editor in chief, application
program, applications programme,
editor program
effusively: (adv) expansively,
emotionally, gushily, sentimentally,
profusely, extravagantly,
demonstratively, ebulliently,
garrulously, talkatively,
unreservedly
egotism: (n) vanity, ego, pride,
conceit, narcissism, egocentricity,
selfishness, arrogance, pridefulness,
self-esteem, solipsism.
ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
selflessness
egotist: (n) blowhard, cynic,
misanthrope, boaster, braggart, man
hater, egocentric, introvert, bragger;
(adj) monopolist, nepotist
elaborate: (v) develop, specify,
amplify, work out, expand,
expound, detail; (adj) careful,
complicated, complex, involved.
ANTONYMS: (adj) plain, simple,
modest, common, stark,
straightforward, uncomplicated,
uninvolved; (v) simplify, condense,
contract
elbow: (n, v) poke, nudge, jolt; (n)
cubitus, elbow joint, angle,
articulation; (v) jostle, push, shove,
crowd
element: (n) ingredient, constituent,
substance, factor, basis,
fundamental, matter, feature,
foundation, chemical element, origin
elevate: (v) advance, lift, hoist, erect,
exalt, boost, rear, cheer, promote,
dignify, uphold. ANTONYMS: (v)
demote, drop, downgrade, depress,
decrease, reduce
elevation: (n) height, highness,
exaltation, ascent, climb, hill,
aggrandizement, raise, El, Alt,
stature. ANTONYMS: (n)
degradation, descent, levelness,
depression, downgrading,
demotion, drop, depth
eleven: (adj, n) xi; (n) eight, squad,
football team, team
eliot: (n) Thomas Stearns Eliot, Mary

245
Ann Evans, George Eliot
elizabeth: (n) Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II
elusive: (adj) evasive, intangible,
shifty, slippery, fugitive,
ambiguous, artful, impalpable,
cramped, indefinable; (adj, v)
insidious. ANTONYMS: (adj) actual,
tangible, definite, concrete,
overpowering
embarrass: (v) baffle, bother,
confound, hinder, disconcert, block,
complicate, impede, discomfit; (adj,
v) bewilder, encumber.
ANTONYMS: (v) comfort, please,
soothe, relieve
embarrassed: (adj) awkward,
abashed, uncomfortable,
disconcerted, bashful, sheepish, shy,
shamefaced, mortified, discomfited,
chagrined. ANTONYMS: (adj)
relaxed, unabashed, natural,
talkative
embarrassment: (n) abashment,
difficulty, quandary, discomfiture,
humiliation, bewilderment,
mortification, uneasiness, shame; (n,
v) distress; (adj, n) dilemma.
ANTONYMS: (n) confidence, honor,
pride, shortage
embrace: (v) comprise, adopt,
comprehend, contain, admit,
espouse, include; (n, v) clasp, hug,
grip, bosom. ANTONYMS: (v)
reject, exclude, spurn, shun,
renounce, release, loose, disbelieve
embraced: (adj) popular
emerge: (v) come out, spring,
emanate, arise, transpire, surface,
rise, develop, come forth, issue,
occur. ANTONYMS: (v) leave, fade,
recede, sink
emotion: (n) love, feeling, passion,
heart, commotion, mood, pathos,
excitement, sensibility; (n, v)
sensation; (v) impression.
ANTONYMS: (n) detachment,
coldness, unfeelingness, calmness
emotional: (adj) dramatic, passionate,
poignant, sensitive, sensational,
affecting, affective, moving, effusive,
warm, affectional. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unemotional, unflappable,
cold, emotionless, cerebral,
dispassionate, insensitive, relaxed,
unfeeling, secretive, reserved
emotions: (n) reputation, emotion,
feeling, temperament, personality,
character, disposition, breast, bosom
emphasized: (adj) accentuated,
accented, stressed, emphatic
emphatically: (adv) decidedly,
definitely, positively, categorically,

246
flatly, distinctly, absolutely,
explicitly, forcefully, firmly,
expressly
employed: (adj) engaged, working,
occupied, hired, used, made use of,
rapt, affianced, earnest, betrothed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unemployed,
unoccupied, idle
employee: (n) laborer, worker,
officer, servant, personnel, hand,
member, functionary, attendant,
typist, workman. ANTONYMS: (n)
boss, owner, proprietor
employer: (n) master, owner, user,
chief, consumer, hirer, mistress,
employers, lord, principal, slave
driver. ANTONYMS: (n) personnel,
worker
empty: (adj, v) clear, discharge,
destitute, void; (adj) hollow, bare,
blank, barren, abandoned; (v)
deplete, pour. ANTONYMS: (adj)
crowded, meaningful, packed,
occupied, inhabited, swarming,
brimming, laden, filled, cultivated;
(v) fill
enamored: (adj) loving, smitten,
crazy, taken with, dotty, amorous,
besotted, captivated, hooked, mad,
enamoured. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sickened, repelled
endearing: (adj) adorable, lovable,
lovely, charming, sweet, attractive,
engaging, pretty, winning, pleasant,
cute. ANTONYMS: (adj) despicable,
repellent, detestable, unpleasant
ended: (adj) concluded, finished,
over, done, completed, closed,
through, terminated, consummate,
all over; (adj, v) past
ending: (n) conclusion, end, closure,
close, completion, finish,
termination, dissolution, death; (adj,
n) closing, last. ANTONYMS: (n)
beginning, middle, commencement,
inauguration, kickoff, prelude,
establishment; (adj) first
endless: (adj) constant, perpetual,
interminable, continuous, ceaseless,
eternal, uninterrupted, everlasting,
incessant, vast, unrelenting.
ANTONYMS: (adj) temporary,
restricted, limited, intermittent,
ending, finishing, sporadic, mortal,
inconstant, few, slight
ends: (n) tops, crook, band, bend,
bind, limits, clippings, curve,
trimmings, boundaries
engage: (v) contract, book, employ,
retain, absorb, charter, draw, rent;
(n, v) attract, enlist, betroth.
ANTONYMS: (v) disengage, release,

Winesburg, Ohio
evade, bore, can, discharge,
disconnect, dismiss, eject, terminate,
escape
engaged: (adj) occupied, betrothed,
employed, affianced, engrossed,
reserved, absorbed, working,
pledged, involved, committed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) free, unengaged,
unemployed, uncommitted,
unattached, single, detached, idle
engagements: (n) arrangements,
actions, activities, schedule, travels,
movements
engine: (n) locomotive, contrivance,
utensil, organ, mechanism, tool,
instrument, implement, device, tank
engine, gin
enormous: (adj) huge, big, colossal,
vast, prodigious, excessive,
exorbitant, great, large, tremendous,
stupendous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
small, minute, insignificant,
miniature, measly, diminutive,
affordable, little, slim, ordinary,
minor
enthusiasm: (adj, n) devotion; (n, v)
ardor, zeal; (adj, n, v) passion; (n)
ardour, animation, craze, ebullience,
gusto, inspiration, interest.
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
lethargy, passivity, unwillingness,
boredom, unconcern, detachment,
gloom, gloominess, patience,
reluctance
enthusiast: (n) addict, fanatic, fiend,
fan, admirer, freak, aficionado,
advocate, fancier, buff; (adj, n)
zealot. ANTONYMS: (n) skeptic,
depreciator, disparager, opponent
entire: (adj, n) absolute, complete;
(adj) total, all, integral, whole, utter,
perfect, clean, undivided, unbroken.
ANTONYMS: (adj) incomplete,
limited, part, unfinished, narrow,
imperfect
entrance: (v) enchant, charm,
captivate, bewitch, enrapture; (n)
access, entry, admittance, threshold,
arrival, door. ANTONYMS: (n)
departure, exit, egress, egression,
exiting, exclusion, retirement; (v)
bore, repel, repulse
entrepreneurial: (adj) enterprising
envelope: (n, v) covering, cloak,
blanket; (n) casing, container, pack,
case, coating, jacket, integument,
vesicle
envy: (v) begrudge, want; (n)
enviousness, desire, heartburning,
resentment, envies, heartburn,
jealousy, hatred; (adj) jealous.
ANTONYM: (n) generosity

episodic: (adj) incidental, temporary,
occasional, sporadic, impermanent,
casual, episodical, episodial, obiter
dicta, divided, ephemeral.
ANTONYMS: (adj) permanent,
recurrent, frequent, regular
equilibrium: (n, v) balance, poise,
counterweight; (n) counterpoise,
equipoise, symmetry,
counterbalance, steadiness, equality,
parity, par. ANTONYMS: (n)
unsteadiness, unevenness,
instability, imbalance, asymmetry
erect: (adj) upright, vertical,
straightforward; (v) build, raise,
rear, construct, assemble, lift, put
up, put together. ANTONYMS: (v)
dismantle, wreck, topple, level,
demolish, destroy; (adj) prostrate,
drooping, prone, flaccid, flat
erecting: (n) construction, building,
erection
erie: (n) Lake Erie
errand: (n) chore, mission, job, task,
assignment, embassy, duty, charge,
messenger, communication, work
errands: (n) everyday Jobs, farm
duties
escape: (v) elude, avoid, evade,
circumvent, bolt; (n, v) break,
dodge, leak, run; (n) avoidance,
evasion. ANTONYMS: (n, v) return;
(v) remain, catch, stay, face, block,
attend; (n) incarceration,
imprisonment, endurance, abidance
escaped: (adj) at large, at liberty,
loose, on the loose, runaway, easy,
wild; (n) freer; (v) escaping
escaping: (n) evasion, getaway,
break, breakout, running away,
running off, run-around; (adj)
fugitive
escort: (n, v) chaperon, attend,
convoy, guard, guide, conduct, date;
(v) accompany, see; (n) suite,
attendant. ANTONYMS: (v)
abandon, desert, leave, follow
espousal: (n) adoption, engagement,
bridal, acceptance, advocacy,
backing, aid, marriage, wedding,
assistance, rite. ANTONYM: (n)
opposition
essay: (n, v) endeavor, attempt, try,
assay, offer; (n) article, disquisition,
composition, effort, tentative; (v)
strive
essence: (n) core, perfume, being,
gist, aroma, crux, hypostasis,
extract, spirit, substance; (v) stuff.
ANTONYMS: (n) body, surface
establish: (v) prove, demonstrate,
constitute, build, base, appoint,

Sherwood Anderson
ascertain, fix, determine; (adj, n, v)
confirm, settle. ANTONYMS: (v)
disprove, terminate, abolish,
abrogate, change, disestablish,
eradicate, invalidate, repeal,
unsettle, rebut
estate: (n) land, order, demesne, rank,
domain, property, acres, substance,
state, asset, assets
estrangement: (n) disaffection,
separation, rift, coolness, isolation,
break, split, rupture, withdrawal,
breach; (v) estrange. ANTONYMS:
(n) reconciliation, propitiation,
conciliation
eternal: (adj) constant, perpetual,
ceaseless, everlasting, lasting,
continual, aeonian, immortal,
boundless, deathless, enduring.
ANTONYMS: (adj) mortal, finite,
brief, ephemeral, fleeting,
terminable, ending, fragile,
inconstant
euphonic: (adj) euphonical,
melodious, sweet
everlastingly: (adv) perpetually,
always, lastingly, continually,
endlessly, unendingly, incessantly,
permanently, constantly, undyingly;
(adj, adv) forever
everybody: (adv) each, any; (n, pron)
anyone, anybody; (n) every person,
world, everything, horde, throng;
(pron) any person, someone.
ANTONYMS: (n, pron) nobody
everyday: (adj, v) ordinary, usual;
(adj) familiar, customary, routine,
accustomed, average, regular,
casual, prosaic, commonplace.
ANTONYMS: (adj) extraordinary,
exquisite, special, rare, exciting,
different, exceptional, occasional,
uncommon, formal, imaginative
everywhere: (adv) everyplace, all
over, far and wide, overall,
somewhere, far and near, about,
where; (adv, pron) anywhere; (adv,
n) anyplace; (adj) throughout.
ANTONYM: (adv) nowhere
evil: (adj) bad, criminal, corrupt,
wicked, destructive, depraved; (adj,
n) ill, detriment; (n) adversity,
disaster, depravity. ANTONYMS:
(n) goodness, righteousness,
morality; (adj) kindhearted,
righteous, benign, moral, pure,
upright, virtuous, sinless
exact: (adj, n) correct; (v) demand,
claim, command, ask; (n, v) require;
(adj, v) close, direct; (adj) precise,
detailed, faithful. ANTONYMS:
(adj) wrong, vague, imprecise,

approximate, inexact, rough,
careless, thoughtless, indeterminate;
(v) tender, give
exactitude: (n) precision, exactness,
correctness, punctuality, fidelity,
trueness, truth, veracity, rigor,
thoroughness, promptitude.
ANTONYMS: (n) vagueness,
inaccuracy, inexactness
exaggerated: (adj) extravagant,
theatrical, immoderate, inflated,
overdone, hyperbolic, magnified,
pretentious, overstated, excessive;
(adj, v) hypertrophied.
ANTONYMS: (adj) restrained,
unembellished, minimized
exaltation: (n) elation, ecstasy,
apotheosis, worship, praise, rapture,
deification, grandeur, adoration; (n,
v) sublimation; (v) laud.
ANTONYMS: (n) abasement,
belittlement, debasement,
degradation, humiliation, sorrow,
derogation, disparagement
examine: (v) assay, audit, overhaul,
try, consider, control, check, search,
survey, ask, ascertain. ANTONYMS:
(v) reply, skim, glance
except: (adj, conj, prep) save; (v)
exclude, demur, omit, elide; (adv,
conj, prep) but; (adv, prep) besides;
(prep) excepting, excluding, aside
from; (conj, n) without.
ANTONYMS: (prep) including; (v)
receive, admit
excessively: (adj, adv) immoderately,
exorbitantly, inordinately; (adv)
extremely, enormously, exceedingly,
very, profusely, overly,
exaggeratedly, intemperately.
ANTONYMS: (adv) justifiably,
moderately, insufficiently
excited: (adj, v) animated, ardent;
(adj) ablaze, enthusiastic, emotional,
frantic, warm, heated, delirious,
fervent, passionate. ANTONYMS:
(adj) cool, unexcited, bored,
tranquil, easygoing, disappointed,
despairing, comatose, apathetic,
sedate, composed
excitedly: (adv) passionately,
feverishly, wildly, frantically,
nervously, ardently,
enthusiastically, eagerly,
animatedly, fervently, cheerfully.
ANTONYMS: (adv) lifelessly,
patiently, peacefully, nonchalantly,
indifferently, despondently,
unenthusiastically
excitement: (n) commotion, emotion,
animation, agitation, disturbance,
elation, enthusiasm, eagerness,

247
taking, excitation, tumult.
ANTONYMS: (n) dullness,
boredom, tediousness, desolation,
apathy, bore, dormancy,
indifference, somnolence,
despondency, lifelessness
exclusive: (adj) sole, particular,
individual, special, single, private,
peculiar, select, choice, undivided;
(n) scoop. ANTONYMS: (adj)
common, public, vague,
unrestricted, shared, open, inferior,
collective, cheap, available,
admissive
exhibit: (adj, n, v) display; (v) evince,
evidence, expose, demonstrate,
disclose, flaunt, announce, present,
show, produce. ANTONYMS: (v)
hide, cover; (n) concealment, hiding
exist: (v) lie, be, endure, abide,
consist, belong, continue, occur,
come, breathe, live. ANTONYMS:
(v) expire, fail, perish
expanded: (adj) wide, extensive,
open, dilated, prolonged, enlarged,
lengthened, swollen, ample, broad,
displayed. ANTONYMS: (adj) brief,
condensed, contracted
expectancy: (n) anticipation,
expectation, suspense, hope,
reversion, prospect, trust, wait,
probability, prediction, waiting.
ANTONYMS: (n) despair,
discouragement
expectantly: (adv) optimistically,
expectingly, pregnantly,
anticipatively, hopefully,
confidently, bigly, watchfully,
heavily, largely
expecting: (adj) pregnant, confident,
with child, heavy, hopeful; (n)
family way
expense: (n) disbursement,
expenditure, price, outlay, amount,
toll, fee, payment, costs; (n, v)
charge, detriment. ANTONYM: (n)
income
explanation: (n) annotation,
commentary, definition, description,
exposition, solution, justification,
interpretation, gloss, excuse, key.
ANTONYMS: (n) mystery,
cloudiness, confusion, problem
exposition: (n) comment, exhibition,
show, explanation, elucidation,
clarification, exhibit, description,
demonstration, dissertation, fair
express: (adj) explicit, direct, definite,
distinct, especial; (n, v) declare; (v)
demonstrate, convey, articulate,
display, mean. ANTONYMS: (v)
suppress, hide, retain; (adj) vague,

248
slow, unexpressed, roundabout,
unsaid, uncertain, indirect; (n) local
expressed: (adj) express, spoken,
phrased, explicit, voiced,
expresssed, verbal, verbalized,
verbalised, unequivocal, graphic
expressing: (adj) significant; (n)
speech
expressive: (adj) significant,
meaningful, descriptive, mobile,
revelatory, indicative, articulate,
graphic, emphatic, suggestive, vivid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unemotional,
undemonstrative, nondescript, cold,
expressionless, empty, emotionless,
inarticulate, innocent, impassive,
reserved
exquisite: (adj) beautiful, delicate,
excellent, dainty, gorgeous,
admirable, acute, heavenly, choice,
wonderful; (adj, v) delightful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) dull, inferior,
ugly, subdued, rough, poor, coarse,
mild, imperfect, horrible, flawed
extend: (v) enlarge, broaden, widen,
dilate, amplify, augment, go,
continue, spread, draw out; (adj, v)
stretch. ANTONYMS: (v) withdraw,
shorten, narrow, shrink, limit,
contract, curtail, hold, reduce,
abridge, keep
extended: (adj) broad, expanded,
ample, extensive, wide, long,
protracted, lengthened, prolonged,
elongated, enlarged. ANTONYMS:
(adj) brief, unextended, condensed,
contracted, shortened, reduced,
narrow, partial, abridged,
abbreviated, tiny
exterior: (adj, n) outside, surface,
outward; (n) appearance, skin, front;
(adj) external, superficial, outlying,
outer, outdoor. ANTONYMS: (adj,
n) interior, inside; (adj) inner,
internal, intrinsic, middle, deep
extraordinarily: (adv) singularly,
rarely, unusually, exceptionally,
extremely, peculiarly, remarkably,
phenomenally, uncommonly,
exceedingly, especially.
ANTONYMS: (adv) slightly,
unremarkably, ordinarily
extraordinary: (adj) odd, exceptional,
curious, rare, special, phenomenal,
amazing, astonishing, unusual,
strange, abnormal. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ordinary, normal, everyday,
usual, common, mundane, regular,
undistinguished, unremarkable,
insignificant, natural
extreme: (adj) deep, excessive,
enormous, supreme, terrible,

Winesburg, Ohio
uttermost, ultimate, utmost, intense,
immoderate; (n) edge. ANTONYMS:
(adj, n) mild, slight; (adj) middle,
reasonable, near, limited, close,
conventional, ordinary, normal,
insignificant
exultant: (adj, v) jubilant, triumphant;
(n) buoyant, buoyed up; (adj)
gleeful, joyful, triumphal, victorious,
exulting, ecstatic, glad.
ANTONYMS: (adj) miserable,
downhearted, depressed, sorrowful,
unhappy
eyelid: (n) lid, palpebra, chapeau
facing: (n) revetment, face, coating,
lining, veneer, cladding, front,
covering; (prep) against, before;
(adj) fronting
factory: (n) plant, mill, works, shop,
business, cannery, establishment,
studio, workshop, yard,
manufacturing plant
facts: (n) reality, details, proof,
grounds, premises, praecognita,
truth, testimony, particulars,
physical constraints, reasonableness
faculty: (adj, n) capacity, cleverness;
(n) aptitude, capability, bent, power,
staff, facility; (adj, n, v) talent; (n, v)
endowment, gift. ANTONYMS: (n)
students, pupils, ineptness,
incompetence, incapacity
faded: (adj) pale, bleached, dull,
exhausted, faint, washy, withered,
colorless, discoloured, attenuate;
(adj, v) dilapidated. ANTONYMS:
(adj) vivid, Colored, colorful, fresh,
vigorous, strong, bright
fail: (adj, v) fade, decline, cease; (v)
abort, die, break, bust, want,
disappoint, deteriorate, default.
ANTONYMS: (v) succeed, triumph,
win, thrive, procure, accomplish,
achieve, attain, boom, complete,
continue
failed: (adj) unsuccessful, failing,
abortive, bankrupt, fruitless, futile,
declining, deteriorating, ineffective,
insolvent
failing: (adj, n) deficiency, blemish,
imperfection; (n) fault, shortcoming,
failure, weakness, flaw, inadequacy,
foible; (adj) declining. ANTONYMS:
(adj) thriving, flourishing, well,
strong, growing, healthy; (n)
strength, virtue, specialty,
capability, passing
faint: (adj, n, v) swoon; (adj) dim,
feeble, dizzy, indistinct, vague, soft,
dull; (adj, v) weak; (v) languish, pass
out. ANTONYMS: (adj) distinct,
clear, obvious, loud, considerable,

pungent, invigorated, hearty,
energetic, defined; (v) revive
faintly: (adv) dimly, vaguely,
indistinctly, lightly, weakly, hazily,
slightly, softly, shadowily, infirmly,
palely. ANTONYMS: (adv) clearly,
intensely, distinctly,
overpoweringly, harshly,
considerably, powerfully, strongly,
brightly, obviously, audibly
faith: (n) confidence, belief,
conviction, trust, credence, credit,
creed, assurance, cult, expectation,
dependence. ANTONYMS: (n)
disbelief, distrust, dubiosity,
skepticism, despair, uncertainty,
doubt, independence
faithful: (adj, n) accurate, correct,
exact, true; (adj) close, unfailing,
dependable, devoted, sound,
devout; (adj, v) constant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unreliable, false,
inaccurate, unfaithful, unrealistic,
faithless, perfidious, backstabbing,
cheating, inexact, loose
fallen: (adj) drop, decline, prostrate,
flat, destroyed, down, lapsed, alight,
degenerate, lose, get. ANTONYMS:
(adj) esteemed, honorable, honored,
lauded, prestigious
falling: (n) descent, fall, downfall,
degradation, depreciation; (adj)
descending, decreasing, declining,
tumbling, ebb, down. ANTONYMS:
(adj) standing, increasing,
burgeoning
falls: (n) cataract, waterfall, chute,
angel, torrent, Victoria, twin, force,
body of water, Guaira, Niagara
false: (adj, n) bastard; (adj, adv)
counterfeit, deceitful; (adj) untrue,
dishonest, erroneous, sham,
assumed, artificial, fictitious,
deceptive. ANTONYMS: (adj) real,
genuine, faithful, factual, correct,
natural, truthful, honest, valid, just,
loyal
falsehood: (n) fable, fabrication,
deception, untruth, lie, fib, fiction,
invention, dishonesty; (adj, n)
deceit, falsity. ANTONYMS: (n) fact,
honesty, reality
fame: (n, v) credit, celebrity, report,
reputation, renown, cry; (n)
distinction, bruit, honor, prestige,
buzz. ANTONYMS: (n) infamy,
obscurity, anonymity, ignominy,
dishonor, commonness, oblivion,
criticism
familiar: (adj) conversant, everyday,
usual, ordinary, commonplace; (adj,
n) customary, common, intimate,

Sherwood Anderson
habitual, accustomed; (n)
companion. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unfamiliar, strange, foreign,
unaccustomed, new, unknown,
ignorant, formal, shy, rare, distant
fanatic: (n) devotee, bigot, fiend,
addict, maniac, aficionado; (adj, n)
extremist, sectarian; (adj) fanatical,
enthusiastic, partisan. ANTONYMS:
(n) naysayer, skeptic
fanaticism: (n) bigotry, intolerance,
zealotry, devotion, dedication,
iconoclasm; (n, v) zeal, passion; (adj,
n) monomania; (v) ardor; (adj)
fascination. ANTONYMS: (n)
apathy, moderation, tolerance
fancied: (adj) unreal, chimerical,
fictional, fanciful, fictitious,
fabricated, preferred, assumed,
illusory, imagined, ideal
fancy: (n, v) desire, fantasy, caprice,
dream, wish, daydream; (v)
imagine, consider; (adj, v) conceive;
(n) conception, conceit.
ANTONYMS: (n) reality, certainty,
actuality, conviction; (adj)
unadorned, common; (v) hate,
demonstrate, detest, disapprove, test
fantastic: (adj) bizarre, extraordinary,
antic, marvelous, fantastical,
grotesque, wonderful, extravagant,
terrific, strange, illusory.
ANTONYMS: (adj) awful, ordinary,
real, unpleasant, tiny, plausible,
normal, lousy, little, Lilliputian,
poor
fantasy: (n) dream, illusion, delusion,
mirage, desire, invention, vision,
maggot, fad, hallucination, fiction.
ANTONYMS: (adj) real; (n)
actuality, fact, existence
farce: (n) comedy, travesty, joke,
mockery, sham, play, charade,
caricature, dressing, forcemeat,
buffoonery. ANTONYMS: (n)
tragedy, drama
fare: (n, v) do; (n) food, aliment,
board, table, charge, chow, menu,
traveller; (v) come, eat. ANTONYM:
(v) stop
farmer: (n) rustic, agriculturist, tiller,
boor, cultivator, husbandman,
granger, planter, sodbuster,
yeoman, backwoodsman
farmhouse: (n) toft, farmstead,
hacienda, house, cottage, manor,
grange, homestead, building,
accommodation, bungalow
farming: (n) cultivation, husbandry,
culture, gardening, tillage, land,
arboriculture, dairying, animal
husbandry; (adj) agrarian,

agricultural
fascinated: (adj) captivated,
absorbed, gripped, engrossed,
interested, attentive, preoccupied,
entranced, attracted, enchanted,
enthralled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indifferent, disinterested,
disenchanted, detached
fashion: (n) mode, craze, fad,
manner, method, way; (n, v) cut,
construct, style; (v) contrive, make.
ANTONYM: (v) destroy
fast: (adj, v) firm; (adj) dissolute,
instant, agile, staunch, quick,
hurried, fixed, rapid; (adv) soon,
hard. ANTONYMS: (adv) slowly,
loosely, sluggishly; (n) binge; (adj)
sluggish, loose, unattached,
plodding; (adj, adv) leisurely; (v)
gorge, eat
fastened: (adj) tied, fast, buttoned,
closed, tight, secure, pinned,
binding, empight, steady, firm.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unfastened,
unbuttoned
fasteners: (n) bolting
faster: (adv) sooner, fleet, swift,
quick, express, earlier
fate: (n, v) doom; (n) chance, luck,
fatality, fortune, kismet, allotment,
portion, lot; (v) destine, designate.
ANTONYMS: (n) will, design,
choice, accident, chance
fates: (adj) book of fate, Parcae, sky;
(n) fortune, the fates
fathom: (n, v) plumb; (v) penetrate,
discern, bottom, understand,
comprehend, know, make out,
measure; (n) probe, gauge.
ANTONYMS: (v) confuse,
misunderstand, Miss
faulkner: (n) William Falkner,
William Cuthbert Faulkner, Falkner
fault: (adj, n, v) deficiency; (n) error,
blot, delinquency, flaw, break,
blunder; (adj, n) failing, blemish; (n,
v) blame, crime. ANTONYMS: (n)
strength, virtue, capability,
innocence, perfection, credit, ease;
(v) praise, absolve
favor: (n, v) countenance, aid, grace,
support, benefit, boon; (adj, n)
kindness; (n) advantage; (v)
befriend, encourage, patronize.
ANTONYMS: (v) hinder, contradict,
dislike, hurt, differ, thwart, reject,
demean; (n) derogation,
disapproval, unkindness
favorite: (adj, n) darling, favourite,
dear, number one; (adj) favored,
beloved, popular; (n) pet, choice,
pick, preference. ANTONYMS: (n)

249
indifference, superior, underdog;
(adj) unwanted, despised, disliked,
hated, unusual
fearfully: (adv) timidly, timorously,
awfully, apprehensively,
horrendously, hideously, anxiously,
appallingly, terribly; (adj, adv)
shockingly, dreadfully.
ANTONYMS: (adv) bravely, calmly,
confidently, wonderfully, rationally,
unconcernedly
fears: (n) worries, uncertainties,
doubts, qualms, misgivings
feature: (n) article, aspect, detail,
character, characteristic, peculiarity,
lineament, facet, appearance,
quality; (n, v) mark. ANTONYMS:
(v) disregard, ignore
feeble: (adj) delicate, decrepit, ailing,
helpless, powerless, poor, mild, lax,
thin; (adj, v) faint, debilitated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong, vigorous,
hearty, tough, effective, powerful,
unrelenting, robust, potent,
persuasive, able
feebly: (adv) faintly,
unenthusiastically, dimly,
hopelessly, unproductively,
unpersuasively, unconvincingly,
uncertainly, reluctantly,
powerlessly, insipidly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) robustly,
confidently, domineeringly,
vehemently, stubbornly, strongly,
effectively, convincingly,
competently, admirably,
wholeheartedly
feed: (v) eat, dine, browse,
encourage, board, diet, nourish,
fatten; (n, v) nurture, provender; (n)
aliment. ANTONYMS: (v) thwart,
crave, desire, sap
feelings: (n) emotions, opinion,
bosom, emotion, thought,
reputation, honor, feeling,
sentiments, thoughts, manner
fellow: (adj, n) comrade, associate;
(n) boy, equal, brother, peer, chap,
colleague, compeer, buddy; (adj, n,
v) concomitant. ANTONYMS: (n)
female, woman, girl, foe, enemy,
antagonist, competitor
fellows: (n) fellow, membership,
faculty
fence: (n, v) hedge, wall, bar; (n)
barrier, hurdle, pale, boundary; (v)
quibble, enclose, parry, contend.
ANTONYMS: (v) challenge, face,
confront
ferment: (n) agitation, excitement,
barm, tumult, unrest, disturbance;
(adj, v) stew, pother; (v) effervesce,

250
turn, brew. ANTONYMS: (v) quiet,
defuse, soothe
ferrets: (n) badgers, Mustelidae,
family Mustelidae
fertile: (adj) productive, fat, fecund,
abundant, fruitful, exuberant,
copious, affluent, bountiful,
generous; (adj, v) creative.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sterile,
unproductive, barren, fruitless, arid,
impotent, withering
fervor: (adj, n) devotion, passion; (n)
enthusiasm, zeal, eagerness,
fervency, energy, warmth,
earnestness, fervidness, ardour.
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
apathy, impassiveness, aloofness,
coolness, dejection, doubt
festering: (adj) rotten, infected,
rotting, pussy, septic; (n) pus,
festerment, suppuration, bodily
fluid, activity, sanies. ANTONYM:
(adj) healthy
fetish: (n) fetich, charm, fixation, juju,
idol, amulet, God, fetishism,
talisman, voodoo, fad.
ANTONYMS: (n) repugnance,
distaste, dislike, aversion
feud: (n) dispute, competition, blood
feud, conflict, disagreement, feoff;
(n, v) contest, quarrel, affray, fight;
(v) battle. ANTONYMS: (v) truce;
(n) peace, harmony, accord
fever: (n) malaria, delirium, pyrexia,
heat, frenzy, feverishness, febricity,
Bilious typhoid fever, Levant fever,
Hectic infantile fever, Typhoid fever
feverish: (adj) febrile, feverous, fiery,
frenzied, fevered, excited, sick,
fanatical; (adj, v) hot, flushed; (adj,
n) hysterical. ANTONYMS: (adj)
calm, afebrile, collected, composed,
mellow
feverishly: (adv) excitedly, hotly,
febrilely, hecticly, feverously,
hysterically, passionately,
frantically, fanatically, heatedly,
frenziedly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
indifferently, peacefully, sluggishly
fewer: (n) not as much as, negative
amount, deficiency, defect, lesser
amount
fiction: (n) falsehood, fable,
invention, story, lie, fantasy,
romance, falsity, figment, novel,
sham. ANTONYMS: (adj) factual;
(n) fact
fields: (n) field, domains, plain,
notification fields, rotation,
alternation of crops, grounds
fierce: (adj) bitter, acute, cruel,
ferocious, brutal, grim, nasty,

Winesburg, Ohio
intense, ardent; (adj, v) savage,
furious. ANTONYMS: (adj) gentle,
mild, calm, quiet, tame, docile,
weak, peaceful, pleasant
fife: (n) flute, whistle, flageolet,
piccolo, pipe
fifth: (n) interval, twenty percent,
common fraction, fifth part; (adv)
fifthly; (v) decimate
fighting: (adj) belligerent, militant;
(n) fight, contest, combat, action,
affray, strife, engagement, war; (n,
v) conflict. ANTONYMS: (adj)
peaceful, meek; (n) calm,
withdrawal, retreat, friendliness,
agreement, peace, surrender
fill: (v) block, clog, stuff, line, charge,
execute, accomplish, complete, brim,
fulfill; (n) crowd. ANTONYMS: (v)
empty, free, deplete, unpack,
unload, notch, deflate, desert
filled: (adj) replete, packed, fraught,
teeming, laden, abundant,
congested, charged, stuffed; (adj,
adv) crowded; (n) fuller.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lacking, clear
filling: (n) filler, weft, contents,
loading, plug, packing, pad,
replenishment, padding, impletion,
stuffing. ANTONYMS: (adj) light,
insufficient
finding: (n) detection, judgment,
determination, discovery, verdict,
ruling, breakthrough, resolution,
doom, decree, find
finer: (adj) superior, advanced,
bigger, higher, more, greater
finger: (v) feel, handle, touch, thumb,
indicate, point; (n) digit, dactyl,
forefinger, pointer; (n, v) hand.
ANTONYM: (v) clear
finish: (n, v) close, complete,
consummate; (v) achieve, execute,
discontinue, cease, accomplish,
determine; (n) conclusion, death.
ANTONYMS: (n) beginning,
opening, inception, middle, creation;
(v) begin, continue, sustain, save,
renew, conserve
fired: (adj) discharged, unemployed,
passionate, interested, heated,
enthusiastic, ablaze, zealous
firing: (n, v) discharge, explosion; (n)
dismissal, fire, combustion, sack,
lighting, dismission, release; (adj)
combustible; (v) burst
firmly: (adv) solidly, steadfastly,
securely, resolutely, strongly,
steadily, unwaveringly, stably,
fixedly, robustly, rigidly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) weakly, loosely,
uncertainly, halfheartedly, leniently,

unsteadily, shakily, yielding,
indefinitely, irresolutely, feebly
fisherman: (n) fisher, trawler, black
cat, fisher cat, piscator, troller,
Peterman; (v) sportsman, huntsman
fishing: (n) fishery, casting, fishing
job, piscary, piscation, rodding,
halieutics, sport fishing; (v)
coursing, hawking; (adj) halieutic
fist: (n, v) hand; (n) duke, clenched
fist, feist, manus, grip, index; (v)
finger, paw, neif, neaf
fits: (v) epilepsy, bustle, racket, fuss,
hubbub, megrims, rout, subsultus,
staggers
fixed: (adj, v) determined, durable;
(adj, adv, v) stable; (adj) definite,
intent, fast, determinate, certain, set;
(adj, adv, n) steady; (adj, n, v)
constant. ANTONYMS: (adj)
flexible, separate, adaptable,
adjustable, changeable, movable,
variable, compliant, temporary,
removable, portable
flame: (adj, n) fire, sweetheart; (adj,
v) burn, glow; (n, v) flash; (n)
ardour, burning, fervor, enthusiasm,
combustion, sheen
flames: (n) fire, blaze, firestorm,
hellhole
flaming: (adj, n) burning, ardent,
glowing, passionate; (adj) blazing,
ablaze, aflame, hot; (n) enthusiastic,
flame, fire. ANTONYMS: (adj)
extinguished, placid, gentle, quiet
flared: (adj) aflare, increasing
flashing: (adj) bright, sparkling,
blinking, meteoric, scintillating,
light, brilliant, dazzling, gleaming;
(n) flare, flashes
flashy: (adj) flamboyant, cheap, loud,
gaudy, brassy, glaring, flash,
tasteless, tawdry, garish; (adj, v)
showy. ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteful,
restrained, drab, unexceptional,
understated, dull, modest,
inconspicuous, muted
flat: (n) apartment; (adj) even, bland,
insipid, level, tasteless, dreary,
boring; (adj, n) plain, plane; (adj, v)
uninteresting. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bumpy, emotional, hilly, variable,
sharp, negative, natural, lively,
contrasty, choppy; (adv) indirectly
flattered: (adj) pleased
flattering: (adj) ingratiating,
complimentary, courtly, obsequious,
adulatory, fulsome, bland, candied,
smooth, encouraging; (n) flattery.
ANTONYMS: (adj) assertive,
critical, unflattering, unattractive,
wounding, uncomplimentary,

Sherwood Anderson
negative; (adv) partially
flavor: (n) relish, tang, smell, aroma,
salt; (n, v) taste, flavour, smack; (v)
spice, season, sauce. ANTONYMS:
(n) staleness, blandness, emptiness
flay: (v) excoriate, peel, skin,
decorticate, pare, lash, flog,
castigate, scalp, shell, batter
flecked: (adj) speckled, dappled,
spotted, mottled, stippled,
multicolored, stained, freckled,
variegated, rainbow; (v) fleckered.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unblemished,
plain, uniform
flee: (v) bolt, break out, fly, desert,
break, abscond, elope, elude, run
away, run, leave. ANTONYMS: (v)
appear, advance
fleece: (v) extort, bilk, pluck, deceive,
rip off, swindle, strip, pigeon, shear;
(adj, v) bleed; (n) wool
flight: (adj, n) herd, flying, bevy,
drove; (n) escape, run, exodus,
evasion, elopement, departure; (n, v)
avolation
flitting: (adj) fleeting, fugitive,
momentary, transient, ephemeral;
(v) migration
flock: (n, v) crowd, cluster, pack,
mass; (adj, n) bevy; (adj, n, v)
swarm; (n) band, horde,
congregation, herd; (v) assemble.
ANTONYM: (v) disperse
flood: (n, v) flow, torrent, pour,
stream, glut, rush, gush; (v) drench,
inundate, drown; (n, prep) tide.
ANTONYMS: (n) drought, shortage,
slump, deficit; (v) disperse, dry
floors: (adj) floored
flour: (adj) meal, bran, spore, sporule,
paddy, rice; (n) farina, foodstuff,
wheat flour, flower, semolina
flow: (n, v) stream, course, flux,
surge, run, jet; (n) current,
discharge; (v) float, emanate, well.
ANTONYMS: (n) drought; (v)
trickle
flush: (adj, n, v) blush, glow; (adj)
flat, affluent, rich; (adj, v) even,
smooth, level; (n) bloom; (n, v) color;
(v) redden. ANTONYMS: (n) pallor;
(v) blanch, blench; (adj) empty, low,
poor
fluttering: (adj) flying, palpitating,
flittering, flaring, aflare, waving; (n)
flutter, flapping, flicker, flitting;
(adv) flutteringly
flying: (adj) fast, quick, rapid, swift,
moving, flaring, aflare; (n) fly, flight,
aviation, ballooning
folding: (n) foldaway, plication,
foldable, bend, crease, bending,

flexure, pleating, collapsable,
collapsible, doubling
folds: (n) laps
folks: (n) people, folk, tribe, relations,
household, house, relatives, relative,
kindred, lineage, kin
fool: (n) blockhead, dunce, clown,
idiot, ass, booby, buffoon; (v)
deceive, bamboozle; (n, v) joke, gull.
ANTONYM: (n) savant
fooling: (n) farce, tomfoolery,
horseplay, joking, prank; (adj)
casual, accidental, everyday,
effortless, cursory
foolish: (adj) childish, fool, crazy,
dumb, daft, fatuous, stupid, unwise,
preposterous, dopey; (adj, n) silly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wise, sensible,
shrewd, prudent, visionary,
diplomatic, levelheaded, sane,
rational, mature, judicious
footing: (n) foothold, base, bottom,
foundation, status, rank, foot,
pedestal, situation, relation, root.
ANTONYM: (n) top
footsteps: (n) road, footprints, way,
trail, path, track, footpath
forbidding: (adj) grim, ominous,
dismal, dour, austere, abominable,
ugly, hard, repulsive, redoubtable;
(n) banning. ANTONYMS: (adj)
alluring, inviting, pleasant,
hospitable, friendly, favorable,
comforting
forcing: (adj) pressing, constraining,
penetrating, compulsatory; (n) push
ford: (n, v) cross, pass; (n) crossing,
tunnel, rift, deep fording, crossway;
(v) surpass, span, defile, condition
forefinger: (n) index finger, index,
forefingers, paw, thumb, hand,
exponent, antenna, feeler
forehead: (n) brow, front, foreland,
lineament, mut, phiz, physiognomy,
visage, eyebrow, skull; (adv)
foremost
forests: (n) country
forever: (adv) always, eternally,
evermore, everlastingly, continually,
permanently; (adj) eternal,
permanent; (n) eternity; (adj, adv)
interminably, ad infinitum.
ANTONYMS: (adj) occasionally,
never, sporadically; (adv) briefly,
intermittently
forget: (v) leave, miss, blank out,
bury, to forget, overlook, neglect,
ignore, fail, unlearn, abandon.
ANTONYMS: (v) mind, attend
forgetful: (adj) oblivious, inattentive,
negligent, lax, absent-minded,
casual, unmindful, neglectful,

251
heedless, unaware; (adj, v) remiss.
ANTONYMS: (adj) mindful,
watchful, alert, remembering,
retentive
forgetting: (v) forget; (adj) oblivious;
(n) disregard
forgive: (v) absolve, excuse, acquit,
remit, pardon, justify, to forgive,
exonerate, overlook, clear, to excuse.
ANTONYMS: (v) condemn, punish,
castigate
forgiven: (v) conciliatory, placable
forgotten: (adj) lost, disregarded,
elapsed, past, abandoned, gone,
Gone With the Wind, irrecoverable,
lapsed, disoriented, no more.
ANTONYM: (adj) remembered
forked: (adj) bifurcate, divided,
branching, bifurcated, furcated,
biramous, double, forked road,
furcate, tined, forky
formative: (adj) inchoative,
constructive, demiurgic, creant,
shaping, original, limp, inventive;
(v) genial, genital, genetic
formed: (adj) shaped, settled,
defined, characterized, conceived,
affected, fashioned, established,
constructed, definite, firm
forming: (n) shaping, form, form
turning, organization, construction,
molding, conformation, synthesis;
(v) create, constitute; (adj)
constituent
forth: (adv) away, along, onward,
ahead, before, on, off, on the high
road, on the road, on the way, under
way
fortunate: (adj) favorable, lucky,
auspicious, advantageous, favored,
happy, prosperous, fortuitous, well,
successful; (adj, n) blessed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unlucky,
disadvantaged, disastrous,
unfavorable, underprivileged,
inauspicious, unenviable,
unsatisfactory
fortunes: (n) adventures, fortune,
personal narrative, life, journal
foster: (v) cultivate, encourage, bring
up, advance, cherish, breed, foment,
boost, rear, nurture, support.
ANTONYMS: (v) neglect, destroy,
suppress, decrease, thwart, prevent,
discourage
foul: (adj, v) nasty, base, corrupt,
coarse; (adj) filthy, disgusting, evil,
unclean, putrid; (n, v) defile, soil.
ANTONYMS: (adj, v) clean, pure;
(adj) pleasant, fair, inoffensive,
humane, attractive, honest, pleasing,
fragrant; (v) unclog

252
fourteen: (adj, n) XIV
fourth: (adv) fourthly; (n) interval,
third, after part, common fraction,
fourth part, quartern, second; (adj)
quaternary
fragile: (adj, v) frail; (adj) delicate,
dainty, breakable, flimsy, brittle,
weak, faint, slim, fine, feeble.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong,
substantial, sturdy, permanent,
robust, indestructible, stable
fragrance: (n, v) aroma, perfume,
scent, smell; (n) bouquet, odor,
essence, odour, redolence,
sweetness; (adj) fragrant.
ANTONYMS: (n) stink, stench
fragrant: (adj) spicy, odorous, balmy,
sweet, odorant, scented, redolent,
savory, fragrance, odoriferous,
scent. ANTONYMS: (adj) smelly,
putrid, malodorous, odorless
frame: (n, v) construct, design,
fabricate, make, fashion, border,
build, forge; (v) draft, erect, contrive
frames: (n) framework, ribs
framework: (n) fabric, framing,
chassis, shell, form, architecture,
setting, structure, rack, carcass,
cadre
frantically: (adv) frenziedly,
desperately, wildly, distractedly,
furiously, excitedly, deliriously,
ravingly, distraughtly, fiercely,
crazily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
sensibly, cautiously, peacefully,
sluggishly
fraternal: (adj) brotherly, brotherlike,
biovular, sympathetic, kind, hearty,
amicable, unhostile, affectionate,
thick, related. ANTONYM: (adj)
identical
frayed: (adj) threadbare, shabby,
ragged, tattered, thin, torn; (adj, v)
dilapidated; (v) secondhand, wilted,
shaken, stale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pristine, new, smart
freed: (adj) disentangled,
emancipated, disengaged, liberated,
extricated, freer, unchained, untied,
loosened, disillusioned, not tied up
freedom: (adj, n) franchise,
immunity; (n) deliverance,
autonomy, release, discharge,
emancipation, escape, liberty, right;
(adj) frankness. ANTONYMS: (n)
imprisonment, restriction, captivity,
suppression, dependence, restraint,
capture, chance, conformity,
inclusion
freely: (adv) loosely, frankly, openly,
generously, independently,
gratuitously, voluntarily, liberally,

Winesburg, Ohio
free, sparely; (adj, adv)
spontaneously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
reluctantly, deceitfully, accurately,
meagerly, parsimoniously, secretly,
stingily, unwillingly; (adj) restricted
freight: (n) cargo, lading, burden,
portage, consignment, freightage,
carriage; (n, v) load, shipment; (v)
carry, convey
freshness: (adj) coolness; (n)
impertinence, gall, greenness,
impudence, insolence, newness,
viridity, originality, crust, crispness.
ANTONYMS: (n) oldness, clutter,
humidity, mustiness
friday: (n) Man Friday
friendly: (adj, n) favorable; (adj)
amiable, affectionate, decent, goodnatured, kind, convivial,
companionable, benevolent,
amicable; (adj, adv) comradely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unfriendly,
distant, disagreeable, aggressive,
aloof, formal, frosty, belligerent,
curt, reserved, impersonal
friendship: (n) association,
familiarity, affection,
companionship, friendliness,
intimacy, company, attachment,
relationship; (n, v) amity, concord.
ANTONYMS: (n) hostility,
animosity, antagonism, conflict,
formality, rivalry, hatred,
detachment, distance, isolation
fright: (n, v) dismay, alarm, scare,
affright; (n) awe, fear, dread, terror,
horror, consternation, apprehension.
ANTONYMS: (n) calm, fearlessness,
courage, confidence, security
frighten: (v) cow, alarm, daunt,
terrify, appall, scare, affright,
intimidate, terrorize, appal; (n, v)
fright. ANTONYMS: (v) comfort,
reassure, soothe, calm
frightened: (adj) fearful, timid,
startled, terrified, scared, alarmed,
anxious, apprehensive, horrified,
intimidated, restless. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unimpressed, confident, brave,
fearless, reassured
frightful: (adj, v) fearful; (adj)
formidable, awful, fearsome,
appalling, gruesome, horrible,
terrible, dread, frightening, grim.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wonderful,
calming, soothing, pleasant, lovely,
fair
frontier: (n) border, edge, line,
boundary, limit, brink, barrier,
bound, bourn, borderland; (v)
confine
frost: (n, v) freeze, chill; (n) cold,

hoarfrost, icing, hoar, Robert lee
frost, failure; (adj, n) rime; (v) ice;
(adj) frozen. ANTONYMS: (n) hot,
heat, warmth
frosted: (adj) rimy, frozen, nacreous,
opaque, iced, icy, white, pearly,
milky, frigid, crisp
frozen: (adj) cold, frosty, frigid,
wintry, glacial, arctic, icy, freezing,
stiff, congealed, iced. ANTONYMS:
(adj) moving, hot, warm, boiling,
fluid, liquid, melted, unfrozen,
thawed, tropical, soft
fruit: (n) crop, outgrowth, product,
fruitage, progeny, acorn,
production, yield, aftermath; (n, v)
result; (v) return
fruition: (n) enjoyment, pleasure,
gratification, delight,
accomplishment, realization,
realisation, consummation, success,
completion, achievement
fruits: (n) revenue
fuel: (n) firing, petrol, combustible,
gasoline; (v) fire, arouse, encourage,
excite, kindle, provoke, stimulate.
ANTONYMS: (v) decrease, dampen
fullness: (n) completeness, breadth,
entirety, abundance,
comprehensiveness, ampleness,
largeness, repletion, wholeness,
totality, richness. ANTONYMS: (n)
narrowness, incompleteness,
thinness, weakness
fumbling: (adj) clumsy, fumble,
butterfingered, awkward, bumbling,
bunglesome, clunky, cumbersome,
incompetent, left-handed, unskilled
funny: (adj) amusing, strange,
peculiar, facetious, droll, eccentric,
fishy, diverting, queer, suspicious,
unusual. ANTONYMS: (adj) serious,
grave, obvious, tragic, ordinary,
normal, easy, dull
furious: (adj, v) fierce, violent,
vehement, wild, rampant; (adj)
frantic, enraged, ferocious,
boisterous, raging, frenzied.
ANTONYMS: (adj) happy, mild,
gentle, pleased, mellow, quiet, slow
furiously: (adv) irately, angrily,
fiercely, wildly, violently, ragingly,
wrathfully, infuriatedly, rabidly,
impetuously, frantically.
ANTONYM: (adv) sluggishly
furnished: (adj) fitted, arranged,
privileged, instruct, carrying
weapons, equipt, enlightened; (v)
provide, furnish, begone, beset
furniture: (n) fitment, equipment,
appliance, fixture, appointments,
furnishings, goods, dresser, article

Sherwood Anderson
of furniture, cabinet; (v) stuff
fury: (n) anger, exasperation, force,
resentment, delirium, furor, frenzy,
indignation, craze; (adj, n) wrath,
ferocity. ANTONYMS: (n)
composure, calmness, mildness,
calm, pleasure, serenity
fuss: (n, v) flurry, bicker, fidget,
hubbub; (adj, n) stir; (n) flap,
commotion, ado, bother,
disturbance; (v) fret. ANTONYM:
(n) peace
futile: (adj) useless, empty,
ineffective, frivolous, idle, abortive,
bootless, hopeless, meaningless,
vain, hollow. ANTONYMS: (adj)
successful, useful, fruitful,
meaningful, worthwhile, promising,
productive, effective
gaiety: (n) fun, cheerfulness,
exhilaration, mirth, glee, merriment,
hilarity, happiness, joy, joviality,
jollity. ANTONYMS: (n)
seriousness, misery, sadness
gangs: (n) Ganges
gardens: (n) garden, grounds, grove,
residences, private grounds,
precincts
garment: (n, v) garb, apparel; (n)
habiliment, habit, gown, vest,
things, guise; (v) clothe, tog, raiment
gasp: (n, v) pant; (v) puff, blow,
breathe, sigh, heave, wheeze,
breathe heavily, gag; (n) inhalation,
breath
gate: (n) door, mouth, entry,
doorway, port, exit, goal, barrier,
approach, inlet, threshold
gates: (n) bill Gates
gather: (n, v) fold, tuck; (v) convene,
garner, congregate, compile,
assemble, accumulate, collect, meet,
flock. ANTONYMS: (v) disperse,
scatter, spread, distribute, disband,
decrease, part, smooth
gathered: (adj) deepened,
congregated, accumulated, amassed,
assembled, concentrated,
equanimous, congregate, collective
gathering: (n) collection,
accumulation, concourse,
congregation, assemblage, crowd,
compilation, meeting, crew, gather,
throng. ANTONYMS: (n)
dismantling, scattering
gaunt: (adj) lean, thin, cadaverous,
desolate, bleak, dreary, meager,
bony, angular, lanky, sullen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fresh, rounded,
obese
gawky: (adj) awkward, clumsy,
gauche, ungainly, bungling,

unwieldy, uncouth, maladroit,
inelegant, inept, lumbering.
ANTONYMS: (adj) graceful, elegant
gaze: (n, v) stare, regard, look,
behold; (v) gape, see, contemplate,
face, pry, view, glance.
ANTONYMS: (v) glance, peek
generations: (n) generation, family
genius: (adj, n) capacity, ability,
endowment, faculty, gift, cleverness;
(n) flair, brain, prodigy, bent,
aptitude. ANTONYM: (n) amateur
gentle: (adj) easy, friendly, soft, kind,
affable, balmy, mild, feeble,
compassionate; (adj, adv) calm; (adj,
v) tame. ANTONYMS: (adj) harsh,
loud, fierce, caustic, violent, rough,
hardhearted, abrupt, heavy, steep,
sheer
gentleness: (adj, n) kindness,
courtesy, benignity, compassion; (n)
kindliness, lenity, mildness,
sweetness, softness, benevolence,
mercy. ANTONYMS: (n) severity,
harshness, fierceness, cruelty,
ferocity, brusqueness, abruptness,
rage, callousness, sharpness,
roughness
gently: (adv) tenderly, slowly,
mildly, soft, slow, kindly, delicately,
softly, lightly, meekly, quietly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) sharply,
fiercely, forcefully, harshly,
abruptly, violently, severely,
roughly, intensely, meanly, heavily
gesticulating: (adj) communicative
gesture: (n, v) sign, signal, motion;
(n) beck, gesticulation, indication,
movement; (v) gesticulate, beckon,
wave, bless
get-up: (n) outfit, garb, costume,
clothing, guise, disguise, attire,
apparel
ghost: (n, v) apparition, specter; (n)
shade, spirit, demon, soul, spook,
spectre, goblin, appearance, monster
ghostly: (adj) uncanny, eerie, weird,
spiritual, spectral, ghostlike,
supernatural, macabre, phantasmal;
(adj, adv) ghastly; (adv) spectrally.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tangible, natural
giant: (adj) gigantic, colossal, jumbo,
gargantuan, elephantine, huge,
immense, large; (n) behemoth,
Goliath, colossus. ANTONYMS:
(adj) tiny, miniature, insignificant,
short; (n) dwarf
gift: (adj, n, v) endowment, faculty,
ability, talent; (n) donation, flair,
bestowal; (n, v) award, present,
boon; (adj, n) capacity.
ANTONYMS: (n) penalty, forfeiture,

253
failing
gigantic: (adj) colossal, enormous,
large, huge, giant, stupendous,
monstrous, vast, big, immense,
massive. ANTONYMS: (adj) small,
tiny, little, insignificant, short,
miniature
giggle: (n, v) laugh, chuckle, titter,
twitter, guffaw, gurgle, snort, hoot;
(v) cackle, snicker, snigger
giggling: (n) laughter
gingham: (n) cloth
girlhood: (n) adolescence, boyhood,
maidenhood, youth, babyhood,
youthhood, maidhood, age
girlish: (adj) boyish, childish,
kittenish, juvenile, adolescent,
innocent, schoolgirlish, babyish,
immature, youthful, female
girth: (n) width, belt, circumference,
fatness, bellyband; (n, v) cinch; (v)
begird, girdle, gird, encircle, enclose
glad: (adj) jubilant, cheerful, gay,
blithe, delighted, festive, content,
delightful, genial, bright, willing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhappy,
apologetic, dismayed, unwilling,
disappointed, sorry
glance: (n, v) look, peek, flash, peep;
(n) gaze, glimpse, coup d'oeil,
gander; (v) bounce, glint, ricochet.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) study; (n)
examination, perusal; (v) stick, stare
glaring: (adj) conspicuous, bright,
blatant, egregious, obvious, plain,
flaming, garish, crying, gross, glary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soft,
inconspicuous, dull, minor
glibly: (adv) smoothly, slipperily,
easily, fluently, superficially,
frivolously, eloquently, flippantly,
effortlessly, confidently, facetiously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) hesitantly,
awkwardly
glisten: (n, v) gleam, sparkle, flash,
glance, shimmer, glitter, glister; (v)
glimmer, beam, coruscate, glint
gloom: (n) desolation, dark, darkness,
blackness, depression, dimness,
dusk, dreariness, despair, dejection;
(n, v) cloud. ANTONYMS: (n)
brightness, happiness, cheerfulness,
glee, ecstasy, joy, optimism, cheer
gloomily: (adv) murkily, obscurely,
drearily, darkly, somberly,
morosely, sadly, sorrowfully,
despondently, unhappily, glumly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) brightly,
favorably, happily, optimistically,
contentedly; (adj) auspiciously
gloomy: (adj) black, desolate,
dejected, cheerless, depressing,

254
dismal, downcast, disconsolate,
melancholy, funereal, downhearted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) encouraging,
cheery, cheerful, bright, hopeful,
light, promising, uplifting, joyful,
sunny, clear
gloriously: (adv) brilliantly, grandly,
magnificently, illustriously,
marvelously, superbly, wonderfully,
gorgeously, radiantly, greatly,
renownedly
glory: (n) celebrity, brightness, honor,
distinction, glorification, eclat,
dignity; (n, v) halo, pride; (v) exult,
boast. ANTONYMS: (v) blasphemy,
lament, profanity; (n) dishonor,
disrepute, ugliness, blame, criticism
glow: (n, v) flush, gleam, shine,
glimmer, glare, color, sparkle, beam;
(v) burn, flare, kindle. ANTONYMS:
(n) wanness, darkness, paleness; (v)
pale, struggle
glowing: (adj, n) enthusiastic, cordial,
passionate; (adj) burning, fervent,
blazing, flaming, fiery, dazzling;
(adj, v) warm; (adj, adv) aglow.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pale, wan,
unhappy, unenthusiastic,
derogatory, dispassionate, unwell
gnarled: (adj) knotty, knotted, gnarly,
asperous, crisp, deformed, crabbed,
roughhewn, wrinkled, unsmooth,
unpolished. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, unknotted, straight
goddess: (n) divinity, God, beauty,
nymph; (adj, n) idol; (adj) duck,
darling, angel, Dulcinea, ladylove,
inamorata
godly: (adj, adv) holy, saintly; (adj)
religious, pious, divine, devotional,
reverent, pure; (adv) piously,
righteously, devoutly. ANTONYM:
(adj) earthly
gods: (n) gallery
gold: (n) Au, money, riches, wealth,
bullion, treasure, yellow, amber;
(adj) aureate, gilt, golden
golden: (adj) aureate, fortunate,
gilded, auspicious, gold, gilt, lucky,
advantageous, fair, favorable,
favored. ANTONYM: (adj)
inauspicious
goliath: (n) colossus, monster,
behemoth, titan, devil, demon; (adj)
Cyclops, Brobdingnagian, atlas,
Antaeus, mammoth
good-naturedly: (adv) friendly,
obligingly, graciously, nicely, kindheartedly, genially, agreeably
gospel: (n) creed, dogma, tenet,
gospels, evangel, truth, doctrine,
church doctrine, gospel truth,

Winesburg, Ohio
veracity; (adj) pope
gossiping: (adj) gabby, garrulous,
scandalous; (n) gossipmongering
gotten: (v) receive, seize, get, acquire
governor: (n) chief, manager,
regulator, administrator, lord,
superintendent, ruler, controller,
leader, president, protector
gowned: (adj) clothed, togated
grab: (n, v) catch, arrest, snatch,
capture; (v) get, grapple, clutch,
clasp, seize, fascinate, appropriate.
ANTONYMS: (v) surrender, baulk,
repel
grace: (adj, v) adorn; (v) garnish,
deck, embellish, beautify, decorate,
embroider; (adj, n, v) favor; (n)
elegance, beauty; (adj, n) clemency.
ANTONYMS: (n) unseemliness,
awkwardness, disfavor, inelegance,
heaviness, unkindness; (v) deface,
demean
graceful: (adj) beautiful, delicate,
amiable, easy, fine, charming, fair,
airy, becoming, lovely, lithe.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inelegant,
stocky, awkward, vigorous, jerky,
ugly, stilted, heavy, coarse,
strenuous
gracious: (adj) genial, benign, good,
courteous, compassionate, kind,
accommodating, civil; (adj, n)
benevolent, congenial, gentle.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ungracious,
boorish, discourteous, reserved,
rude, abrupt, critical, unkind,
hardhearted, harsh, poor
grain: (adj, n) crumb; (n) bit, berry,
fragment, cereal, scrap, kernel,
speck, atom, grist, character.
ANTONYM: (n) lot
grandfather: (n) gramps, grandad,
grandpapa, grandpa, grandsire,
granddaddy, ancestor, father's
father, paternal grandfather, father,
forefather
grandmother: (n) grandma, granny,
crone, grannie, grandam, mother,
dam, grandmamma, father's mother,
paternal grandmother, hag
grasp: (adj, n, v) catch; (n, v) clutch,
clasp, hold, clinch; (v) comprehend,
embrace, grapple, apprehend,
conceive, cling. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
Miss; (v) overlook, lose, give; (n)
ignorance
grass: (v) denounce, betray; (n)
forage, cannabis, hay, pasture, fink,
sward, pasturage; (adj, n) green,
marijuana. ANTONYM: (n) patriot
grassy: (adj) verdant, gramineous,
weedy, herby, woody, fertile,

blossoming, abundant, leafy, lush,
flourishing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
grassless, urban, withering
grateful: (adj, n) welcome; (adj)
agreeable, appreciative, beholden,
pleasing, pleasant, acceptable,
indebted, obliged, pleasurable; (v)
appreciate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
ungrateful, unwelcome,
unappreciative
gratefully: (adv) appreciatively,
indebtedly, obligedly, gratifyingly,
delightfully, beholdenly, pleasingly,
pleasantly, welcomely, goodly,
deliciously
gratitude: (n) appreciation, thanks,
thank, acknowledgement,
acknowledgment, appreciativeness,
feeling, appreciate, grateful,
thanksgiving, kindness.
ANTONYMS: (n) ingratitude,
ungratefulness
gravel: (adj, v) nonplus, bother; (v)
bedevil, rag, chevy, flummox,
bewilder, puzzle; (adj) grating; (adj,
n) dirt; (n) grit
graveled: (adj) dirt, graded, unpaved,
improved, grating; (n) stranded,
nonplussed; (adv) aground
gravely: (adv) seriously, soberly,
severely, solemnly, badly, staidly,
momentously, heavily, earnestly,
weightily, grievously. ANTONYMS:
(adv) lightheartedly, mildly,
slightly; (adj) soft
grayback: (n) rebel, reb, sandpiper,
air mile, burl, dowitcher, freedom
fighter, gnarl, knot, Johnny Reb
grazing: (n) pasturage, feeding,
shaving, farming, Estancia, eating,
skimming
grease: (n, v) oil, lubricating oil; (n)
bribe, butter, ointment, soil, stain;
(v) boodle, anoint, graft, lubricate
greasy: (adj) fatty, dirty, oily, tallowy,
slick, sebaceous, unclean, unctuous,
slippery, adipose, oleaginous.
ANTONYM: (adj) lean
greatest: (adj) top, superlative,
biggest, utmost, largest, extreme,
first; (adj, n) maximum, most; (adj,
v) paramount, supreme.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inferior,
secondary
greedily: (adv) covetously, avidly,
voraciously, ravenously,
rapaciously, acquisitively,
gluttonously, hungrily, graspingly,
eagerly, enviously. ANTONYM:
(adv) sparingly
greediness: (n) avarice, cupidity,
covetousness, eagerness, gluttony,

Sherwood Anderson
selfishness, avidity, miserliness,
hunger, stinginess, voracity.
ANTONYM: (n) moderation
greedy: (adj) avid, gluttonous,
desirous, grasping, acquisitive,
glutton, piggish, voracious, selfish;
(adj, v) avaricious, covetous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) temperate,
ascetic, unconcerned, abstemious,
moderate
greek: (adj, n) Grecian; (n) Hellene,
Greece, Achaian, blackleg, welsher,
leg, eolian, drivel; (adj) Hebrew,
incomprehensible
greenhorn: (n) apprentice, cub,
novice, fledgling, recruit, freshman,
tenderfoot, newcomer, neophyte,
rookie, sucker. ANTONYM: (n)
professional
greet: (n, v) receive; (v) address,
acknowledge, hail, welcome, cry,
salute, bid, weep, meet, recognize
grew: (v) become, develop; (adj)
grown
grey: (adj) ashen, dim, dull, cloudy,
bleak, dismal, drab, gloomy,
greyish, leaden; (n) grayness
grief: (adj, n, v) affliction; (n) dolor,
anguish, distress, agony, pain,
wound, chagrin, concern; (n, v)
regret; (adj) sore. ANTONYMS: (n)
joy, happiness, comfort, content,
peace
grim: (adj) austere, glum, cheerless,
dour, ghastly, dreary, forbidding,
dark, dire, hard, dismal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cheerful, bright,
funny, kindly, hospitable, pleasant,
promising, simple, wonderful
gripped: (adj) obsessed, engrossed,
held, seized, captivated, fanatical,
absorbed, occupied, preoccupied,
rapt, spellbound. ANTONYM: (adj)
uninterested
gripping: (adj) fascinating, absorbing,
interesting, riveting, thrilling,
enchanting, enthralling, exciting,
captivating; (n) grip; (v) seize.
ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
unconvincing
gritty: (adj) spirited, game, grainy,
courageous, granular, fearless,
brave, mettlesome, resolute, rough,
sandy. ANTONYMS: (adj) clean,
cowardly, fainthearted, irresolute,
romantic
groan: (n, v) grumble, murmur, cry,
sigh, mutter, squeak, rumble, scrape;
(v) howl, complain; (n) complaint
groaning: (adj) moaning, groaningly,
inarticulate
groceries: (n) foodstuff, provisions,

chow, victuals, grocery,
compensation, earnings, essential,
fare, fundamental, heart
grocery: (n) foodstuff, marketplace,
grocery store, preserve,
supermarket, julep, jam, mart, food
market, confiture, consumer goods
grooming: (n) drill, discipline,
dressing, exercise, fecundation,
toilet, schooling, reprimand,
preparation, practice, formulation
grope: (v) fumble, finger, grabble,
search, handle, scrabble, paw,
mishandle; (n, v) touch; (adj)
groping; (adv) gropingly
groping: (adj) fumbling, gropingly,
investigative, incertain, blind,
probing, tentative, uncertain,
unsure, hesitant, exploratory
gross: (adj) coarse, boorish, big,
crude, fat, common, blunt,
disgusting, bulky; (n) aggregate;
(adj, v) foul. ANTONYMS: (adj)
attractive, small, remaining, refined,
tiny, partial, delicate, cultivated,
chaste, sensitive; (v) lose
grotesque: (adj) fantastic, bizarre,
funny, antic, absurd, droll, strange,
baroque, weird, ugly, hideous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lovely, normal,
commonplace, attractive
grotesqueness: (n) grotesquery,
grotesquerie
groundless: (adj) unfounded,
gratuitous, unwarranted, false,
wanton, idle, vain, ungrounded,
unjustifiable, unjustified, unreal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) proven, true,
justified, rational, sound
grounds: (n) cause, reason, account,
basis, motive, justification,
foundation, evidence, field,
rationale; (adj, n) dregs.
ANTONYM: (n) effect
grove: (n) forest, orchard, thicket,
coppice, wood, gardens, residences,
Holt, bosquet, park, Hurst
grow: (v) expand, advance, augment,
enlarge, come, emerge, spring,
become, farm, turn, get.
ANTONYMS: (v) decrease, weaken,
shrink, decline, drop, collapse,
struggle, wane, plummet, dwindle,
deteriorate
grown: (adj) mature, big, growed,
grown-up, developed, ripe,
grownup, fully grown, full-grown,
growth, become. ANTONYM: (adj)
unripe
grunting: (n) inarticulate, grunting
respiration, growl, grunt
guard: (n) defense, protection, escort,

255
bulwark, watchman, custody,
fender; (n, v) care, shield, cover;
(adj, n, v) ward. ANTONYMS: (v)
endanger, expose, neglect, reveal;
(n) attacker
guess: (n, v) surmise, estimate,
forecast; (v) suppose, deem, reckon,
divine, believe, foretell; (n)
assumption, supposition
guest: (n) caller, visitor, customer,
alien, foreigner, client, invite,
foreign, company, guests,
houseguest
guests: (n) guest, visitors
guffaw: (n, v) laugh, chuckle, snicker,
hoot, giggle, cackle; (n) belly laugh,
horselaugh, laughter; (v) cachinnate,
roar. ANTONYM: (v) cry
guiltily: (adv) blameworthily,
criminally, hangdogly, wickedly,
faultily, sheepishly, delinquently,
sinfully, awkwardly, sorrily,
ashamedly
guinea: (n) greaseball, Republic of
Guinea, poultry, change, shilling,
penny, doit, domestic fowl, farthing,
fowl, French Guinea
guns: (n) weapons, weaponry, arms,
arsenal, armaments, artillery
gusto: (n) relish, enjoyment, zest,
pleasure, gust, taste, enthusiasm,
delight, delicacy, flavour; (n, v)
glow. ANTONYMS: (n) apathy,
sluggishness
habit: (n) clothing, practice, dress,
garb, attire, convention, character,
ritual, addiction, clothes; (n, v) use.
ANTONYM: (n) innovation
habits: (n) behavior, decorum,
pratique
habitual: (adj, n) common, frequent,
usual; (adj) chronic, conventional,
confirmed, accustomed, natural,
commonplace, everyday, ordinary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) occasional,
infrequent, mild, irregular,
exceptional, erratic, abnormal,
innovative
habitually: (adv) usually, ordinarily,
normally, generally, regularly,
frequently, commonly, routinely,
wontedly, conventionally,
commonplacely. ANTONYMS:
(adv) unusually, seldom, erratically,
exceptionally, occasionally
hairless: (adj) tonsured, glabrous,
shorn, balding, smooth, beardless,
depilous, depilated
half-wit: (n) dunce
half-witted: (adj) imbecile, idiotic,
foolish, weak-minded, simple, halfbaked, dull, retarded, dense

256
hallway: (n) entrance hall, porch,
foyer, corridor, lobby, passage,
antechamber, aisle, vestibule,
passageway, concourse.
ANTONYM: (n) room
halo: (n) halation, aura, glory, ring,
circle, corona, nimbus, hoop,
aureola, band, anchor ring
handful: (n) smattering, armful,
mouthful, capful, containerful,
lump; (adj) thimbleful, company,
several, maniple, strong
handicap: (n) drawback, balk, hurdle,
barrier, disablement, disadvantage,
obstacle; (v) block, hamper,
embarrass, hinder. ANTONYMS: (n,
v) benefit; (n) disadvantage
handkerchief: (n) hankie, kerchief,
bandanna, cravat, hanky, wipe,
bandana, collar, shawl; (n, v)
napkin; (v) sudary
handle: (n, v) conduct, administer; (v)
feel, wield, deal, treat, touch,
control, manipulate, direct; (n)
clutch. ANTONYMS: (n) blade,
head; (v) mishandle, bungle,
conceal, crumble, avoid
handling: (n) treatment,
management, administration,
dealing, conduct, transaction, use,
running, touch, fielding,
employment
handsome: (adj) fair, beautiful, fine,
generous, charming, comely,
attractive, bountiful, considerable,
bonny, prepossessing. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ugly, unattractive, meager,
ungenerous, measly, plain
hang: (adj, n, v) suspend; (v) dangle,
depend, drape, float, fall, hover,
append, string up; (n, v) delay; (adj)
hung
hanging: (n) execution, curtain, arras,
wall hanging; (adj) suspended,
pendent, pendant, pendulous, hung,
pending; (n, v) suspension
haphazard: (adj, n) chance; (adj)
careless, fortuitous, contingent,
random, casual, indiscriminate,
occasional, slipshod, adventitious;
(adv) casually. ANTONYMS: (adj)
methodical, discerning, planned,
organized, meticulous, regular,
careful, deliberate
happening: (n) incident, episode,
circumstance, contingency, affair,
event, fact, occurrence, experience,
occasion, eventuality
happily: (adv) fortunately, joyously,
joyfully, merrily, luckily, gladly,
blissfully, cheerfully, felicitously,
providentially, successfully.

Winesburg, Ohio
ANTONYMS: (adv) miserably,
unhappily, sadly, unfortunately,
unsuccessfully, reluctantly,
gloomily, discontentedly,
despondently, negatively,
grudgingly
happiness: (n) delight, merriment,
ecstasy, welfare, gladness, luck,
cheerfulness, blessedness, bliss,
felicity, contentment. ANTONYMS:
(n) sadness, despair, grief, misery,
dissatisfaction, seriousness,
dullness, discontent, dejection,
gloominess, displeasure
harangue: (v) declaim; (n) rant,
screed, address, tirade, oration,
diatribe, sermon; (n, v) lecture,
discourse, stump
harder: (adj) serious
hardship: (n) adversity, calamity,
affliction, trouble, difficulty,
disaster, deprivation, asperity,
destitution; (n, v) grievance, burden.
ANTONYMS: (n) privilege, ease,
prosperity, wealth, luxury,
advantage, opportunity
hardware: (n) ironmongery, arms,
computer hardware,
instrumentality, munition,
instrumentation, gun, armament,
medal, weaponry, gem
hardy: (adj, n) hard, fearless, rugged,
daring; (adj) sturdy, manly,
audacious, brave, strong, robust,
gallant. ANTONYMS: (adj) weak,
delicate, tender, feeble
harm: (adj, n, v) damage, hurt; (adj,
n) evil, detriment, injury; (n, v)
abuse, wound, blemish,
disadvantage; (n) bruise; (adj, v)
injure. ANTONYMS: (n, v) benefit,
respect, help; (n) reparation, service;
(v) enable, spoil, protect, defend,
repair
harmless: (adj) safe, benign,
inoffensive, hurtless, innocent,
innoxious, intact, simple; (n) silly;
(adj, n) foolish; (v) weaponless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lethal,
damaging, destructive, poisonous,
toxic, serious, offensive, malicious,
hurtful, noxious, unpleasant
harness: (adj, n) strap, tether; (n, v)
yoke, rein, couple, check; (adj, v)
hitch; (v) wear, equip, limit, use.
ANTONYM: (v) undo
harping: (n) run, recurrence,
reiteration, iteration, repetition; (v)
iterative, unvaried, monotonous
harry: (v) plague, badger, disturb,
afflict, bother, hassle, maraud,
pester, devastate; (adj, v) molest,

worry
harsh: (adj, v) sharp, bitter; (adj, n)
grating, coarse, austere, discordant;
(adj) grim, cruel, crude, unkind,
stern. ANTONYMS: (adj) gentle,
soft, harmonious, pleasant, lenient,
kind, melodious, sweet, mild, lush,
friendly
harshly: (adv) roughly, severely,
sternly, sharply, cruelly, hoarsely,
strictly, pitilessly, rigorously,
rigidly; (adj, adv) piercingly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) softly,
harmoniously, quietly, gently,
elaborately, leniently, smoothly,
tolerantly, cheerfully, loosely,
pleasantly
harvest: (n, v) fruit; (v) gain, glean,
gather, amass, get, reap, pick; (n)
ingathering, profit, produce
harvesting: (n) gathering, gather,
harvest home, crop, reap, plucking,
harvests, ingathering, reaping,
farming, harvest time
hate: (v) abhor, detest, loathe,
abominate; (n) enmity, abhorrence,
detestation, hatred, animosity,
antipathy, aversion. ANTONYMS:
(n, v) like; (v) adore, cherish,
admire; (n) attraction, liking,
delight, adoration
hated: (adj) despised, disliked, not
liked, reviled, scorned, unloved,
unpopular. ANTONYM: (adj)
precious
hatred: (n, v) detestation, enmity,
animosity; (n) aversion, antipathy,
disgust, abhorrence, grudge, anger,
abomination, hostility.
ANTONYMS: (n) liking, adoration,
affection, attraction, goodwill,
kindness, delight, friendliness,
admiration
haul: (v) tow, drag, cart, carry, lug,
draught, tug, transport; (n, v) pull,
heave; (n) freight
haunt: (n, v) resort, ghost; (n) den,
hangout, home; (v) pursue, follow,
stalk, afflict, persecute; (adj) harass
haunting: (adj) moving, memorable,
unforgettable, beguiling, attractive,
ominous, weird, treasured,
evocative, etched in your mind,
deep. ANTONYMS: (adj)
forgettable, unremarkable
haze: (n) fog, cloud, confusion, vapor,
blur, daze, film, cloudiness,
turbidity; (n, v) mist; (v) dim.
ANTONYMS: (n) clarity, brightness
hazy: (adj) fuzzy, cloudy, vague,
blurred, foggy, nebulous, misty,
indistinct, blurry, faint, dull.

Sherwood Anderson
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, distinct,
precise, sunny, thick, detailed,
definite, strong
headlong: (adj, adv) headfirst; (adv)
directly, hastily, precipitately; (adj)
rash, hurried, desperate,
precipitous, impetuous, sudden,
precipitate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
cautiously, considered; (adv)
carefully
heads: (n) conspectus, contents,
prospectus, syllabus, synopsis,
public, textbook, people, outlines,
head stick
heady: (adj) hot, intoxicating,
exciting, keen, headstrong, strong,
acute, quick, rude, vehement, brash.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bored, cautious,
dull, mild, weak, bland
heap: (n, v) pile, aggregate, amass; (n)
collection, accumulation, mound,
mass, group, lot; (v) bank, collect.
ANTONYM: (v) tidy
hearing: (n) audition, ear, auditory
sense, trial, consultation, reach,
auscultation, inquiry; (n, v) earshot,
sound; (adj, n) audience
hears: (v) hear
heartbroken: (adj) disconsolate, sad,
sorrowful, heartsick, inconsolable,
miserable, distressed, sorry,
crushed, desolate, despondent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) happy, euphoric
heartily: (adv) cordially, sincerely,
enthusiastically, warmly, strongly,
earnestly, vigorously, ardently,
soundly, devoutly, eagerly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) feebly,
languorously
hearts: (n) Black Maria, spades
heat: (adj, n) fever, excitement,
passion; (v) bake, burn; (n) warmth,
fervor, summer, estrus; (n, v) fire;
(adj) flush. ANTONYMS: (n) cold,
chill, coldness, anestrus, apathy,
coolness, dryness, indifference
heating: (n) warming, heat, warm,
utility, overheating, thawing,
burning; (adj) calefactive,
calefactory, hot, calorific
heavily: (adv) seriously, weightily,
severely, ponderously, hard, firmly,
thickly, grievously, sadly, strongly,
compactly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
gently, nimbly, briskly, sparsely,
thinly, slightly
hedge: (v) fudge, dodge, elude,
evade, skirt, duck, avoid,
circumvent, equivocate; (n) barrier,
hedging. ANTONYM: (v) confront
heel: (n) blackguard, dog, counter,
cad, villain, scoundrel, shoe, sole,

bounder, tree rest; (v) lean
helen: (n) Helen of Troy
hell: (n) blaze, Hades, underworld,
perdition, inferno, pandemonium,
netherworld, Abaddon, Gehenna,
purgatory, trial. ANTONYM: (n)
paradise
helped: (adj) aided, assisted; (v)
HALP
helpless: (adj, v) forlorn, destitute,
abandoned; (adj) powerless, weak,
defenseless, disabled, impotent,
feeble, hopeless, unable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong,
independent, capable, invulnerable,
armed, powerful, impervious
helplessly: (adv) weakly,
powerlessly, lostly, destitutely,
shiftlessly, defenselessly,
unprotectedly, ineffectively,
wretchedly, incompetently,
disabledly. ANTONYM: (adv)
powerfully
helplessness: (n) powerlessness,
defenselessness, dependence,
impotency, impotence, inability,
impuissance, incapability,
incapacity, defencelessness, failing.
ANTONYMS: (n) resistance,
capacity, strength
heroic: (adj) courageous, brave,
fearless, chivalrous, dauntless,
valiant, grand, intrepid, gallant,
impressive, heroical. ANTONYMS:
(adj) fearful, normal, despicable,
lowly
hers: (pron) she, his; (adj) own
hesitantly: (adv) irresolutely,
uncertainly, doubtfully,
indecisively, waveringly,
undecidedly, reluctantly,
diffidently, unsurely, tentatively,
vacillatingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
frankly, persuasively,
unhesitatingly, firmly, decisively,
boldly, determinedly, certainly,
brashly
hesitate: (adj, n, v) pause, delay; (adj,
v) linger; (v) fluctuate, halt, waver,
vacillate, demur, boggle,
procrastinate; (n, v) doubt.
ANTONYMS: (v) rush, decide
hesitating: (adj) indecisive, irresolute,
undecided, doubtful, hesitate,
reluctant, faltering, unwilling,
hesitancy, backward, hesitatingly
hidden: (adj) clandestine, concealed,
obscure, dark, secret, latent, covert,
invisible, arcane, covered; (adj, v)
confidential. ANTONYMS: (adj)
exposed, open, active, noticeable,
overt, revealing, known, explicit,

257
mainstream, transparent, visible
hide: (n, v) cover, disguise, shelter,
veil; (adj, v) obscure; (n) fur, fell,
coat; (v) bury, mask; (adj, n, v)
darken. ANTONYMS: (v) show,
expose, express, divulge, unearth,
amplify, advertise, clarify
hideous: (adj) dreadful, frightful,
fearful, ghastly, horrid, ugly,
repulsive, lurid, horrible, grisly,
grim. ANTONYMS: (adj) lovely,
pleasant, beautiful, wonderful
hiding: (n) covering, concealment,
concealing, beating, screening,
thrashing, flogging, rout, burial,
drubbing, ambush
highway: (n) highroad, way, path,
route, street, thoroughfare, course,
main road, expressway, bus,
freeway
hills: (n) home, dry land, foothills,
earth, ground
hillside: (n) acclivity, slope, bank,
declivity, hill, gradient, hill-side,
mountain waist, the area half way
up a mountain, mountainside, side
hinge: (n, v) joint; (n) axis, axle,
articulation, spindle, crux, fulcrum,
arbor, flexible joint; (v) depend,
juncture
hint: (v) suggest; (adj, n) trace; (n)
suggestion, intimation, inkling, cue,
allusion; (n, v) tip, touch, dash; (adj,
v) intimate. ANTONYM: (n)
overtone
hired: (adj) leased, chartered,
mercenary, hackneyed, hack; (v)
contented, compensated, paid
hitting: (n) striking, collision, header,
grounder, smash, beating, thrashing,
contact, contusion, drumming; (adj)
convincing. ANTONYM: (n) victory
hoarse: (adj) gruff, husky, raucous,
grating, strident, guttural, rough,
throaty; (v) coarse; (adj, v) hollow,
sepulchral. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, mellow, velvety, high
hoarsely: (adv) roughly, huskily,
raucously, gruffly, throatily,
gratingly, stridently, gutturally,
thickly, croakily, raggedly.
ANTONYM: (adv) smoothly
holdings: (n) property, estate, assets,
resources, means, possessions,
affluence, prosperity, funds, capital,
material goods
hole: (adj, n) gap; (n) aperture, den,
hollow, crack, pocket, break, lair,
pit, fix, depression. ANTONYMS:
(n) mansion, mend
holes: (n) cavity, holes tow
homage: (n) allegiance, obeisance,

258
fealty, accolade, honor, loyalty,
worship, veneration, deference,
devotion, compliment
homeward: (adj) oriented, orientated
honestly: (adj, adv) justly, sincerely,
candidly, fairly, genuinely, really;
(adv) openly, directly, faithfully,
plainly, truthfully. ANTONYMS:
(adv) misleadingly, deceitfully,
unfairly, insincerely, hesitantly,
untruthfully, guardedly,
ambiguously, politely
honey: (n) dear, love, beloved, nectar,
sweetheart, dearest, duck, molasses,
sugar, baby; (v) sweeten
hook: (n, v) crook, catch, draw, bend,
trap, lure; (n) fishhook, claw,
crotchet; (v) fasten, hitch.
ANTONYMS: (v) undercharge,
detach, undo
hopefully: (adv) confidently,
optimistically, brightly, cheerfully,
positively, auspiciously,
expectantly, rosily, encouragingly,
promisingly, buoyantly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) hopelessly,
despairingly, pessimistically
hopelessness: (n) despair,
despondency, discouragement,
depression, desolation, sadness,
dismay, hopeless, gloominess,
gloom, dissatisfaction.
ANTONYMS: (n) capability, power,
worth, cheerfulness, effectiveness,
joy, possibility, competence,
happiness
hoping: (adj) desirous, expectant,
optimistic, eager
horizon: (n) ambit, reach, purview,
vista, view, perspective, prospect,
skyline, arena, celestial horizon,
amphitheater
horrible: (adj) awful, fearful,
frightful, abominable, grisly,
formidable, dire, ghastly, dreadful,
fearsome; (adj, v) horrid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wonderful,
lovely, nice, lovable, fair, delightful,
slight, appealing, minor, attractive,
great
horribly: (adv) horrifically, awfully,
terrifically, hideously, atrociously,
appallingly; (adj, adv) frightfully,
terribly, fearfully, shockingly; (adj)
ghastly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
pleasantly, wonderfully, kindly,
sweetly
horror: (n) abomination, abhorrence,
dismay, fear, fright, revulsion,
alarm, repulsion, anxiety; (adj, n)
dread, terror. ANTONYMS: (n)
delight, attraction, proclivity,

Winesburg, Ohio
bravery, calm, confidence, security
horseman: (n) cavalier, rider, jockey,
horse fancier, horseback rider,
trooper, trainer, knight, cavalryman,
animal fancier, postilion
horses: (n) stock, equidae, domestic
animals, cattle, extinct animals,
asses, pigs, sheep, family equidae,
farm animals, force
household: (adj, n) house, home;
(adj) domestic; (adj, v) ordinary,
common; (n) folk, stock, clan,
menage; (v) everyday, usual.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unfamiliar,
public
housekeeper: (n) factotum, mistress,
shepherd, householder, housewife,
domestic, cleaning woman,
croupier, domestic help, seneschal,
house servant
housekeeping: (n) housewifery,
household, domestic science
housework: (n) housekeeping, chore,
work
hover: (v) fly, hang, float, poise,
vacillate, flutter, brood, drift, glide,
waver; (adj) boggle
howe: (n) Julia ward Howe
hugging: (n) caressing, fondling,
stimulation, embracing, kissing,
foreplay, gorgerin, necking,
smooching, snuggling, arousal
humanity: (n) benevolence, mankind,
flesh, human race, human,
humankind; (adj, n) compassion,
charity, kindness, benignity,
gentleness. ANTONYMS: (n)
severity, inhumanity, nastiness,
selfishness
humble: (v) demean, humiliate,
mortify; (n, v) disgrace, debase; (adj,
n, v) abase; (adj) base, lowly,
unassuming, docile, low.
ANTONYMS: (adj) impressive,
arrogant, haughty, imposing,
conceited, pompous, snooty,
overbearing, presumptuous, proud,
exalted
humdrum: (adj, v) dull, monotonous,
uninteresting, tedious, stupid; (adj)
banal, commonplace, flat, prosaic,
dreary, everyday. ANTONYMS:
(adj) exciting, surprising,
remarkable, stunning, romantic,
exotic, extraordinary, interesting
humiliated: (adj) humbled, mortified,
embarrassed, humble, broken,
abashed, crushed, miserable,
shamefaced, abject, feeling guilty
humiliation: (n) degradation,
disgrace, chagrin, abjection,
comedown, indignity,

embarrassment, mortification,
dishonor, discredit; (adj, n) shame.
ANTONYMS: (n) glorification,
aggrandizement, pride, success,
making
hummer: (n) bullet, heater, fastball,
gage, ganja, grass, smoke, dope;
(adj) rustler, hustler, live man
humming: (adj) droning, zippy,
reeking, bustling, grunting, stinking;
(n) buzzing, vocalizing, sound,
murmur, growling
hung: (n) hanging; (v) Heng; (adj)
fatigued, puzzled, decorated
hunger: (n, v) thirst, want, wish, itch;
(n) craving, appetite, eagerness,
famine; (v) crave, ache; (adj) hungry.
ANTONYMS: (n) moderation,
aversion, dislike, apathy
hungering: (adj) starving, famished;
(n) longing
hunt: (n, v) search; (v) course, follow,
hound, rummage, forage, prey, dog,
go after, persecute; (n) battue.
ANTONYMS: (v) find, precede
hunted: (adj) coursed, afraid, wanted,
required, sought, sought after; (n)
victim
hunting: (n, v) chase; (v) battue; (n)
exploration, pursuit, search,
ducking, beagling, coursing,
frisking, venery, shooting
hurling: (adj) moving; (n) field game
hurried: (adj) fast, sudden, speedy,
rapid, quick, swift, headlong,
abrupt, cursory, precipitate, prompt.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhurried,
leisurely, considered, patient,
meticulous, thorough
hurriedly: (adv) rapidly, quickly,
swiftly, abruptly, promptly, fast, in
haste, suddenly, speedily, rashly,
precipitately. ANTONYMS: (adv)
calmly, unhurriedly, patiently,
carefully, gradually, thoroughly
hurry: (n) haste; (n, v) bustle, hasten,
dispatch, flurry, rush; (v) scurry,
dash, accelerate, expedite, run.
ANTONYMS: (n) slowness,
calmness, patience, unimportance;
(v) dawdle, delay, linger, crawl,
amble; (intj) wait
hurrying: (n) hastening, speed,
quickening, rushing, early,
speeding, speeding up, stepping up,
amphetamine, forward, eager
hurt: (adj, n, v) damage, detriment;
(adj, n) evil; (n, v) wound, pain,
ache, distress; (n) disadvantage,
lesion; (v) afflict; (adj, v) injure.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhurt,
unaffected, healed; (v) encourage,

Sherwood Anderson
please, protect, repair, defend; (n, v)
help; (n) reparation, pleasure
hurtful: (adj) harmful, destructive,
evil, detrimental, deleterious, bad,
injurious, cutting, baneful, baleful,
noisome. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pleasing, harmless, pleasant,
comforting, complimentary,
merciful, helpful, advantageous,
flattering, benign, generous
hush: (adj, n, v) calm, silence, quiet,
still, lull; (n) peace; (v) shut up, gag,
quieten, muffle; (adj, v) soothe.
ANTONYMS: (n) noise, turmoil; (v)
Louden
husk: (n) crust, bran, cortex,
covering, rind, chaff, shell, coat,
peel; (n, v) hull, skin
husking: (n) stripping, baring,
denudation, disforestation,
remotion, removal, cornhusking,
find, discovery, uncovering,
deforestation
hustle: (n, v) bustle, hurry, elbow,
flurry; (v) hasten, shove; (n) haste,
ado, con, commotion, cheat.
ANTONYMS: (n) slowness,
lethargy; (v) dawdle, delay, crawl
hypnotized: (adj, v) mesmerized,
rapt, transfixed; (adj) fascinated,
mesmerised, captive, enchanted,
spellbound; (v) engrossed in,
riveted, absorbed
hypocrite: (n) impostor, pretender,
trickster, fraud, deceiver, fake, cheat,
charmer, bigot, whited sepulcher,
smoothie
hysterical: (adj, n) feverish; (adj)
wild, violent, eccentric, frenzied,
emotional, fitful, febrile, erratic; (n)
fanatical, hysterics. ANTONYMS:
(adj) relaxed, composed, restrained
hysterically: (adv) feverishly,
frantically, agitatedly, worriedly,
wildly, violently, turbulently,
excitedly, emotionally, passionately,
stormily. ANTONYM: (adv)
peacefully
identity: (n) unity, identicalness,
sameness, individuality, personality,
identification, character, identity
operator, similarity, equality, person
idly: (adj, adv) foolishly; (adv) vainly,
vaguely, listlessly, forgetfully,
distractedly; (adj) thoughtlessly.
ANTONYM: (adv) energetically
ignominiously: (adv) disgracefully,
shamefully, discreditably,
dishonorably, scandalously,
dishonourably, opprobriously,
infamously, basely, vilely, foully
ignorance: (n) illiteracy, nescience,

folly, unwisdom, innocence,
denseness, ignorancy, stupidity,
obtuseness, tabula rasa,
unawareness. ANTONYMS: (n)
intelligence, acquaintance, education
illinois: (n) IL, land of Lincoln,
prairie state; (adj) Midwestern
illness: (n, v) ailment, disorder,
distemper; (n) sickness, complaint,
malady, attack, affliction, pain, bug,
trouble. ANTONYMS: (n) wellness,
health
illuminated: (adj) lit, lighted,
luminous, enlightened, clear, light,
shining, irradiated, lighter, Lighty,
irradiate
illusion: (n, v) delusion; (n) fantasy,
apparition, deception, magic, fancy,
deceit, dissimulation, phantom,
trick, vision. ANTONYMS: (n)
reality, fact
imaginable: (adj) conceivable,
possible, thinkable, plausible,
earthly, believable, credible, feasible,
immediate, likely, near.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unimaginable,
implausible
imaginary: (adj) fictitious, unreal,
false, mythical, illusory, ideal,
hypothetical, visionary, fictional,
notional, chimerical. ANTONYMS:
(adj) real, palpable, actual, concrete,
prosaic, normal, true
imagination: (n) vision, fancy, image,
dream, conceit, imagery, originality,
invention, resource, reflection,
phantasy
imaginative: (adj) inventive,
ingenious, original, clever, fanciful,
fantastic, resourceful, artistic,
imaginal, whimsical, imaginary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unimaginative,
logical, dull, pedestrian, trite,
unoriginal
imagine: (v) believe, conjecture,
fancy, conceive, daydream, assume,
guess, consider, fantasize; (conj, v)
suppose; (n, v) dream
imagined: (adj) fanciful, notional,
unreal, fancied, fictitious,
nonexistent, unseen, hypothetical,
feigned, dubious, doubtful
imagining: (n) conception,
daydream, fantasy, opinion; (v)
imagine; (adj) imaginant
imitate: (n, v) duplicate; (v) forge,
ape, emulate, follow, feign,
counterfeit, mimic, mock, assume,
act
imitating: (adj) imitative; (n)
emulation, mimicry, forgery, acting
imitation: (adj, n) fake, sham,

259
reproduction; (n) dummy, forgery,
mockery, copy, emulation; (n, v)
parody; (adj) false, bogus.
ANTONYMS: (adj) genuine, real,
natural; (n) original, formalism
immeasurably: (adv) boundlessly,
endlessly, immensely, greatly,
much; (adj) exceedingly, extremely,
exquisitely, acutely, ultra, intensely.
ANTONYM: (adv) slightly
immediate: (adj) close, sudden,
direct, near, quick, present, fast,
proximate, forthwith, instant,
immediately. ANTONYMS: (adj)
slow, gradual, deliberate,
consecutive, mediate, delayed,
remote, far, distant, vague,
considered
immense: (adj) vast, enormous, great,
gigantic, immeasurable, colossal,
boundless, big, large, giant, infinite.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tiny, small,
insignificant, miniature, slight,
negligible, compact, narrow, short,
minor
impatience: (n) annoyance,
eagerness, anger, intolerance,
restlessness, fidget, nervousness,
fidgetiness, enthusiasm, edginess;
(adj) nonendurance. ANTONYMS:
(n) calmness, endurance, apathy
impatient: (adj) eager, anxious,
petulant, fidgety, vexed, keen, edgy,
quick, avid, irritable, fretful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) patient,
enduring, unenthusiastic, calm,
happy, relaxed, slow
impatiently: (adv) petulantly,
restlessly, keenly, intolerantly,
hastily, avidly, uneasily,
enthusiastically, edgily, fidgetily,
restively. ANTONYMS: (adv)
uncomplainingly, calmly,
unenthusiastically, lightly
impersonal: (adj) neutral, objective,
detached, cold, impartial,
indifferent, aloof, personal,
equitable, remote, clinical.
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly, friend,
involved
import: (n, v) matter, sense, denote;
(n) meaning, effect, connotation,
implication, moment, significance,
value; (v) imply. ANTONYMS: (n,
v) export; (n) insignificance,
inconsequence, triviality
imposing: (adj, n, v) impressive; (adj,
n) noble, commanding, solemn; (adj)
dignified, grandiose, stately,
distinguished, regal, lofty, baronial.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unimpressive,
modest, unimposing, weak,

260
undignified, lowly
impress: (n, v) mark, print, stamp; (v)
move, affect, inscribe, instill, touch,
emboss, inculcate; (n) impression
impressed: (adj) touched,
bewildered, amazed, susceptible,
stupefied, stunned, confused,
bemused; (v) imprinted, stamped,
carved. ANTONYM: (adj)
unimpressed
impression: (n) feeling, idea, imprint,
conception, depression, notion,
mark, image, dent, feel, opinion.
ANTONYMS: (n) certainty, hump,
lump
impressions: (n) impersonation,
imitation
impressive: (adj) effective,
commanding, striking, powerful,
imposing, influential, exciting,
formidable, spectacular; (adj, n)
noble, grand. ANTONYMS: (adj)
humble, ordinary, weak,
unremarkable, insignificant, minor,
pathetic, tiny, uninteresting,
ineffective, average
imprisoned: (adj) confined, jailed,
fenced in, unfree, locked up,
incarcerate, deeply moved,
enraptured; (v) behind bars
impulse: (n) pulse, urge, impulsion,
force, motive, whim, drive, goad,
motivation, momentum, incentive.
ANTONYMS: (n) aversion,
disincentive, disinclination
impulsive: (adj) capricious, hasty,
driving, rash, instinctive,
changeable, hotheaded, quicktempered, impellent, headlong,
passionate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
cautious, considered, predictable,
unflappable, prepared, sensible,
gradual, overdue, patient, placid,
premeditated
inability: (n) disqualification,
insufficiency, incapacity,
incompetence, impotence,
impotency, feebleness, helplessness,
inadequacy, weakness, inaptitude.
ANTONYMS: (n) ability, capability,
power, capacity
inanimate: (adj) defunct, dull,
breathless, inorganic, inactive,
lifeless, exanimate, deceased,
extinct, unconscious, spiritless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) living, animate,
spirited
incapable: (adj) impotent,
inadequate, unable, helpless,
powerless, unqualified, inept,
insufficient, inapt, ineffectual, unfit.
ANTONYMS: (adj) able, competent,

Winesburg, Ohio
strong, powerful, effective
incessant: (adj) endless, continual,
everlasting, eternal, constant,
continuous, perpetual, unremitting,
interminable, persistent; (adj, v)
frequent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
intermittent, occasional, sporadic,
broken, finite
incident: (n) fact, experience,
circumstance, occasion, adventure,
happening, occurrence, episode,
instance, case, contingency.
ANTONYMS: (adj) basic; (n)
defense
inclination: (n, v) desire, bent; (n)
fancy, affection, tendency, leaning,
drift, appetite, dip, proclivity, bias.
ANTONYMS: (n) disinclination,
reluctance, aversion, indifference,
unwillingness, antipathy, dislike,
horror
incline: (v) cant, dispose, bend; (n, v)
slope, bias, dip, tilt; (n) ascent,
gradient, grade, inclination.
ANTONYMS: (v) indispose, level;
(n) hollow, descent
inclined: (adj, v) given; (adj) prone,
willing, oblique, apt, predisposed,
ready, minded, likely, liable, bowed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) reluctant,
unwilling, disinclined, horizontal,
unbiased, vertical, impervious
incoherent: (adj) disjointed,
disconnected, delirious, rambling,
confused, disordered, incompatible,
wandering, muddled, inconsistent,
contradictory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
clear, articulate, eloquent,
intelligible, lucid, sound, concise,
consistent
incoherently: (adv) unconnectedly,
disconnectedly, disjointedly,
loosely, confusedly, ramblingly,
inarticulately, deliriously,
disorderedly, incongruously,
wanderingly. ANTONYM: (adv)
clearly
incommunicable: (adj) unspeakable,
unutterable, ineffable, indescribable,
beyond description, inalienable,
noncommittal, undefinable,
beggaring description, beyond
words
indefinable: (adj) ineffable,
unspeakable, vague, indeterminate,
undefinable, inexpressible, elusive,
indefinite, undefined, nondescript,
equivocal. ANTONYMS: (adj)
concrete, precise
indefinitely: (adv) indistinctly,
indeterminately, unclearly,
uncertainly, undefinedly, unfixedly,

loosely, imprecisely,
undeterminedly, unsettledly,
obscurely. ANTONYM: (adv)
temporarily
indelible: (adj) ineffaceable,
memorable, fixed, ineradicable,
lasting, irrevocable, ingrained; (adj,
v) indestructible; (n) impressive,
deep; (v) incorruptible.
ANTONYMS: (adj) erasable, fleeting
indescribable: (adj) indefinable,
ineffable, unutterable, vague,
beyond expression, nameless,
inexpressible, nondescript, terrible,
intangible, termless. ANTONYMS:
(adj) explainable, conceivable,
concrete
india: (n) Indian, crotalaria
spectabilis, Africa, Bharat, Dovyalis,
genus Dovyalis, IND, Indian
rattlebox
indiana: (n) inch, Hoosier State; (adj)
Midwestern, Illinois
indicate: (v) direct, betoken, mark,
imply, show, augur, foretell,
foreshadow, evince, argue; (n, v)
designate. ANTONYMS: (v)
dismiss, disprove, reject
indicated: (adj) numbered
indifference: (adj, n) coldness,
phlegm; (n) detachment,
impassiveness, disregard, aloofness,
nonchalance, neglect, unconcern,
impassivity, disinterest.
ANTONYMS: (n) fervor, interest,
eagerness, dedication, sympathy,
favorite, compassion, anxiety,
responsiveness, forcefulness, care
indifferent: (adj) apathetic,
impassive, cold, cool, callous, fair,
insensible, unconcerned, careless,
dull, average. ANTONYMS: (adj)
enthusiastic, fervent, keen,
obsessive, energetic, eager,
involved, surprised, exceptional,
concerned, shocked
indigestion: (n) upset stomach,
symptom, heartburn, gripes,
stomach pain, stomach upset,
tummy ache, tummy pain,
bellyache, colic
indignant: (adj) angry, incensed,
furious, enraged, wrathful, hurt,
rage, provoked, hot, anger, irate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cool, content,
unaffected
indistinguishable: (adj) identical,
alike, imperceptible, obscure,
undistinguishable, same, equivalent,
equal, twin, like, indiscernible.
ANTONYMS: (adj) distinguishable,
different, clear, discernible, distinct,

Sherwood Anderson
visible, certain
individuality: (n) character,
individualism, personality,
originality, distinctiveness, identity,
peculiarity, selfhood, ego,
disposition, independence.
ANTONYMS: (n) commonality,
sameness, conformity
indoors: (adv) at home, inwards,
within, inwardly, internally, deep
down, at heart, at bottom, in reality,
arrived, here. ANTONYMS: (adv)
out, outdoors
indulging: (n) pampering, excess,
indulgence, orgy, folly, foolery,
gratification
industrialism: (n) capitalism,
business, economic system,
economy
ineffectual: (adj) ineffective, futile,
useless, feeble, abortive, powerless,
idle, weak, unable, void, vain.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong, effectual,
effective, useful, viable, competent,
invulnerable, helpful, decisive
ineffectuality: (n) impotence,
uselessness, emptiness, futility,
worthlessness, pointlessness,
ineffectualness, impotency.
ANTONYMS: (n) value,
effectiveness, usefulness,
competence, fruitfulness
inefficiency: (n) futility, inability,
incompetence, inefficacy,
uselessness, fruitlessness,
penetration, disability, failure,
ineptitude, impotence.
ANTONYMS: (n) efficiency,
competence, effectiveness
inescapable: (adj) ineluctable,
inevitable, destined, certain,
necessary, inexorable, imperative,
imminent, forthcoming, visible,
unstoppable. ANTONYM: (adj)
uncertain
inevitable: (adj) ineluctable,
unavoidable, inescapable, destined,
fatal, fated, necessary, obvious,
irrevocable, irresistible; (n)
ineluctability. ANTONYMS: (adj)
evitable, avoidable, optional,
preventable, unpredictable,
unlikely; (adv) surprisingly
inexperience: (adj) inexperienced,
indexterity, incomprehension,
inability; (adj, n) simplicity; (n)
freshness, innocence, ignorance,
newness, callowness, unfamiliarity.
ANTONYMS: (n) skillfulness,
sophistication, wisdom
inexpressive: (adj) expressionless,
empty, deadpan, vacant,

unexpressive, impassive, not
expressive, characterless,
unresponsive, unemotional,
undemonstrative. ANTONYMS:
(adj) emotional, soulful
infatuation: (adj) devotion,
fascination, enchantment, gross
credulity; (adj, n) passion, fervor,
fanaticism; (n) crush, idolatry, love,
hobby. ANTONYM: (n) indifference
inferior: (adj) secondary, bad,
humble, poor, junior, petty, lesser,
cheap, base, feeble, vulgar.
ANTONYMS: (adj) better, choice,
excellent, premium, adscript,
perfect, higher, quality, senior; (adj,
n) superscript; (n) boss
infinitely: (adv) greatly, vastly,
immensely, immeasurably,
boundlessly, enormously,
unboundedly, hugely, ceaselessly,
unendingly; (adj, adv) incalculably.
ANTONYM: (adv) finitely
inflamed: (adj) impassioned, excited,
angry, hot, flaming, ablaze, irritated,
passionate, painful, burning; (n) red
influenced: (adj) partial, unfair, acted
upon, convinced, persuaded,
susceptible, unjust, prejudiced.
ANTONYM: (adj) unbiased
influential: (adj) potent, dominant,
cogent, forcible, powerful,
predominant, prevailing, effective,
strong, impressive, efficacious.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unconvincing,
minor, unimportant, weak,
uninfluential, ineffective, frivolous
informed: (adj) cognizant, educated,
conscious, knowledgeable, familiar,
apprised, wise, conversant,
experienced, sensible; (adv) abreast.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uninformed,
unconcerned
infuriated: (adj, v) enraged; (adj)
furious, incensed, angered, mad,
exasperated, provoked, boiling,
livid, wrathful, annoyed.
ANTONYM: (adj) pleased
inhabitants: (n) population, citizens,
populace, folk, country, community,
abode, group, inhabitation, nation,
natives
inhabited: (v) populous, full of
people, arrayed, clothed, dressed,
accustomed, habited; (adj, v)
peopled; (adj) occupied, settled,
housing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unoccupied, uninhabited, business
inherited: (adj) inborn, genetic,
familial, ancestral, transmissible,
congenital, inherent, incarnate,
transmitted, instinctive, intuitive

261
initiatory: (adj) initiative, first,
inaugural, maiden, preliminary,
introductory, inceptive, incipient,
foremost, rudimentary, elementary
injured: (adj) hurt, broken, wounded,
affected, damaged, pained,
offended, insulted, defective,
prejudiced; (n) casualty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uninjured,
unaffected, well
inner: (adj) interior, mental, inward,
intrinsic, inside, central, middle,
within, in, privy, clandestine.
ANTONYMS: (adj) outer,
superficial, exterior
innocence: (n) blamelessness,
chastity, ignorance, ingenuousness,
purity, gullibility, artlessness,
innocent, simplicity, harmlessness,
guiltlessness. ANTONYMS: (n)
sophistication, experience, fault,
dirtiness, wariness, dishonesty
innocent: (adj) chaste, artless, clear,
ingenuous, innocuous, guileless,
guiltless, ignorant, unsophisticated,
spotless, naive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
culpable, responsible, wicked, wary,
experienced, corrupt, worldly,
unfair, meaningful, offensive, jaded
innovation: (n) alteration, invention,
novelty, variation, mutation,
creation, reform, contrivance,
improvement, vicissitude,
originality. ANTONYM: (n) decline
innumerable: (adj) countless,
numberless, incalculable,
multitudinous, infinite, innumerous,
unnumbered, uncounted, myriad,
immeasurable, untold. ANTONYM:
(adj) finite
inquiringly: (adv) enquiringly,
inquisitively, nosily, curiously,
pryingly, interestedly, searchingly,
inquiring, quizzically, intrusively
inquiry: (n, v) search; (n)
investigation, enquiry, query,
hearing, inquest, research,
exploration, trial, question, demand
insane: (adj) foolish, daft, demented,
mad, delirious, lunatic, fool,
moonstruck, frantic, idiotic, nutty.
ANTONYM: (adj) sensible
insanity: (adj, n) craziness,
derangement, frenzy, aberration; (n)
delirium, dementia, mania, folly,
lunacy, idiocy; (adj) madness.
ANTONYMS: (n) sanity, sense
insects: (n) Arthropoda, phylum
Arthropoda, Insecta, Hexapoda,
crustaceans, class Insecta, class
Hexapoda, centipedes
insecure: (adj) unsound, slippery,

262
doubtful, shaky, risky, rickety, bad,
uncertain, hazardous; (adj, v)
unstable, precarious. ANTONYMS:
(adj) confident, safe, overconfident,
steady, certain, firm, stable,
promising, brash
insignificance: (n) unimportance,
insignificancy, indifference,
immateriality, inconsiderableness,
slightness, smallness, meanness,
littleness, futility,
inconsequentiality. ANTONYMS:
(n) seriousness, importance, gravity,
appropriateness, value, fame
insistent: (adj) exigent, pressing,
emphatic, persistent, crying,
importunate, instant, clamant,
imperative, adamant, obstinate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) satisfied,
irresolute, gentle
insistently: (adv) stubbornly,
obstinately, forcefully,
unrelentingly, doggedly,
importunately, resolutely,
pressingly, assertively, urgently,
uncompromisingly
inspector: (n) supervisor, auditor,
controller, warden, superintendent,
surveyor, visitor, assessor, manager,
reviewer; (n, v) investigator.
ANTONYM: (n) underling
inspiration: (n) afflatus,
encouragement, idea, incentive,
revelation, breath, inhalation,
notion; (n, v) illumination, infusion;
(adj, n) genius
inspired: (adj) ingenious, adopted,
elysian, creative, imaginative,
elected, inventive, unearthly,
brilliant, stimulated, enthusiastic.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bland,
unimaginative, abysmal, mediocre
inspiring: (adj) rousing, provocative,
inspire, inspirational, inspiringly,
heartening, encourage, entertaining,
exhilarating, hopeful, imposing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ridiculous,
uninspiring, banal, boring, dull,
unimpressive
installment: (n) episode, deposit,
installing, portion, segment, share,
fascicle, instalment, part, section,
cliffhanger
instant: (adj, n) present; (adj)
immediate, prompt; (n) flash,
minute, jiffy, point, second; (adj, v)
exigent; (adj, n, v) pressing, urgent.
ANTONYMS: (n) age, eternity; (adj)
considered, delayed, slow
instinct: (n) impulse, urge, aptitude,
gift, feeling, sixth sense, inherent
aptitude, knack, inspiration, talent,

Winesburg, Ohio
genius
instinctively: (adv) involuntarily,
mechanically, spontaneously,
automatically, intuitively,
inherently, automaticly,
unconsciously, impulsively,
unthinkingly, instinctually.
ANTONYMS: (adv) consciously,
objectively
instructions: (n) direction, injunction,
directions, charge, instruction,
orders, book of instructions, guide,
instruction manual, commission,
directive
instructor: (n) trainer, coach,
preceptor, don, educator, tutor,
demonstrator, lecturer, master,
mentor, guru. ANTONYMS: (n)
student, pupil
instrument: (n) channel, deed, tool,
pawn, apparatus, agency,
document, expedient, appliance,
gear; (n, v) implement
intangible: (adj) immaterial,
incorporeal, ethereal, indefinite,
spiritual, elusive, imperceptible,
insubstantial, airy, indefinable; (n)
intangible asset. ANTONYMS: (adj)
concrete, palpable, touchable, actual
intellectual: (n) intellect, brain,
thinker, scholar; (adj) rational,
mental, cerebral, learned, spiritual;
(adj, n) mind, academic.
ANTONYMS: (adj) nonintellectual,
intuitive, emotional, dim, ignorant,
physical, thick, lowbrow; (n) dunce
intelligence: (n) cleverness, intellect,
news, tidings, understanding,
acumen, mentality, knowledge,
brains, comprehension, brainpower.
ANTONYMS: (n) stupidity,
emotion, slowness, foolishness,
ineptness
intelligently: (adv) brightly, wisely,
smartly, cleverly, shrewdly,
brilliantly, knowingly, quickly,
prudently, keenly, understandingly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) unintelligently,
foolishly
intend: (v) destine, design, mean,
aim, determine, denote,
contemplate, plan, purpose,
consider, believe. ANTONYM: (v)
improvise
intended: (adj) deliberate, calculated,
destined, knowing, meant, planned,
premeditated, prospective, willful,
designed; (adj, v) voluntary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) accidental,
involuntary, unintended,
spontaneous, unconscious
intense: (adj) acute, deep, brilliant,

fervent, fierce, ardent, burning,
severe, furious, extreme; (adj, v)
vivid. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull, calm,
weak, slight, imperceptible,
superficial, shallow, gentle, dim,
insignificant, relaxed
intensely: (adj, adv) extremely; (adv)
strongly, powerfully, severely,
violently, vehemently, acutely,
keenly, brightly, profoundly,
fiercely. ANTONYMS: (adv) mildly,
calmly, gently, dully, indifferently,
impassively, jokingly, slightly,
hardly, superficially,
unexceptionally
intensified: (adj) intense, resonant,
furious
intent: (n) idea, intention, design,
spirit, meaning, import, goal,
purpose; (adj, n) attentive; (adj)
absorbed, engrossed
intercede: (v) arbitrate, interfere,
negotiate, referee, reconcile,
intermediate, intervene, interpose,
intrude, negociate, bring together to
an agreement. ANTONYM: (v)
provoke
interfere: (n, v) interpose; (v)
intercede, obstruct, disturb, conflict,
impede, hinder, meddle, intervene;
(n) interference; (adj, v) intermeddle
interference: (n) hindrance,
disturbance, handicap, blocking,
intercession, inhibition,
encumbrance, barrier, intervention,
block; (v) interfere. ANTONYMS:
(n) nonintervention, help
intermingled: (adj) amalgamated,
integrated, coalesced, blended,
incorporated, assorted,
consolidated, incorporate,
amalgamate, fused
interpret: (v) clarify, understand,
elucidate, illustrate, read, construe,
comment, gloss, render, explain,
explicate
interpreted: (adj) exactly limited,
exact, drawn close, accurate, taken,
strict, confined
interrupted: (adj) discontinuous,
fitful, intermittent, discontinued,
disconnected, unsuccessive,
intervallic, episodic, gaping,
periodic; (prep) interrupt
intertwined: (prep) clasped together,
interlocked, interfolded; (adj)
related, matted, inseparable,
disheveled, tangled, entangled
intimacy: (adj, n) familiarity,
acquaintance; (n) closeness,
fellowship, association, friendship,
intercourse, affair, camaraderie,

Sherwood Anderson
conversance, confidence.
ANTONYMS: (n) distance, formality
intimate: (adj, adv, v) close; (n, v)
express, imply; (v) hint, indicate,
allude, suggest; (adj) informal,
inner, internal; (adj, v) confidential.
ANTONYMS: (adj) formal, cold,
unfriendly, external, outermost,
public, superficial
intimately: (adv) nearly, familiarly,
personally, secretly, internally,
privately, narrowly, thoroughly,
near, well, thickly. ANTONYM:
(adv) superficially
intoxicated: (adj) drunken, drunk,
inebriate, tipsy, elated, stimulated,
intoxicate, infatuated, fuddled,
loaded, plastered. ANTONYM: (adj)
sober
intoxicating: (adj) intoxicant, strong,
alcoholic, effective, exciting,
impetuous, inebriant, inebrious,
powerful, provocative, forcible.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soft, weak
introductory: (adj) elementary,
incipient, basic, opening, first,
prefatorial, preparatory, prelusive;
(adj, v) inceptive, preliminary,
prefatory
invade: (v) infringe, intrude, occupy,
overrun, impinge, encroach upon,
raid, infest; (n, v) assail, attack,
assault. ANTONYMS: (v) withdraw,
surrender
invading: (adj) invade, incursive,
attacking, impertinent, abhorrent,
abusive, aggressive, assailant,
disgusting, disagreeable, distasteful
invalid: (adj) false, illogical,
unreasonable, null, weak, void,
unhealthy, sick, flawed; (n) infirm;
(v) disable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
valid, legitimate, current, healthy,
true, watertight, correct
invent: (v) devise, form, create,
excogitate, concoct, imagine,
contrive; (n, v) forge, fabricate,
design, coin
invented: (adj) fictional, fabricated,
imaginary, unreal, fake, mythical,
legendary, fictive, fancied, fabulous,
ben trovato. ANTONYMS: (adj)
genuine, factual, true, actual
inventing: (adj) lying
invest: (n, v) empower, endow, vest,
dress; (v) clothe, commit, enthrone,
endue, crown, indue, adorn
investments: (n) funds, money,
assets, cash, savings, capital
invisible: (adj) obscure, hidden,
inconspicuous, intangible, sightless,
concealed, impalpable, occult,

indiscernible, inappreciable, unseen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) obvious,
conspicuous, noticeable, palpable
invitation: (n) call, bidding,
temptation, lure, asking, request,
attraction, enticement; (v) invite,
solicitation; (n, v) supplication
invited: (adj) welcomer, wanted,
cherished
inviting: (adj) attractive, alluring,
engaging, tempting, enticing,
appealing, magnetic, captivating,
prepossessing, seductive,
appetizing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
offensive, repellent, uninviting,
unappealing, unwelcoming, bleak,
uncomfortable
iron: (v) firm, flatten; (n) Fe, chain,
cast iron, irons; (adj) hard, adamant,
steel, harsh, tenacious
irregular: (adj) atypical, abnormal,
erratic, anomalous, eccentric,
broken, sporadic, disorderly,
strange, changeable; (adj, n) guerilla.
ANTONYMS: (adj) symmetrical,
normal, smooth, constant, even,
steady, compact, cyclic, equal,
frequent, permanent
irritated: (adj) annoyed, exasperated,
incensed, enraged, aggravated,
furious, irate, inflamed, sore,
displeased, provoked. ANTONYMS:
(adj) calm, pleased, patient,
contented
irritating: (adj) infuriating,
bothersome, annoying,
exasperating, irksome, irritative,
vexatious, aggravating,
troublesome, irritant; (v) stinging.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soothing,
calming, delightful, pleasant
irritation: (n) exasperation, anger,
annoyance, displeasure, bother,
excitation, temper, excitement,
irritability, vexation, annoying.
ANTONYMS: (n) satisfaction, balm,
calm, calmness, equanimity,
patience
irving: (n) Washington Irving
isolation: (n) estrangement, privacy,
alienation, insulation, dissociation,
secrecy, loneliness, solitude,
seclusion, insularity, desolation.
ANTONYMS: (n) companionship,
inclusion, unity, kinship, company,
cheerfulness, integration
israel: (n) Israels, Zion, Sion
jaded: (adj) tired, fatigued, worn,
weary, wearied, fed up, satiate,
worn-out, bored, satiated, sick.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fresh, innocent,
brilliant

263
jail: (v) imprison, incarcerate,
confine, detain, immure; (n) prison,
cell, clink, hoosegow; (n, v) cage,
jug. ANTONYMS: (v) acquit, free,
liberate; (n) freedom
jake: (n) clown, rustic
jammed: (adj) packed, congested,
full, overcrowded, fixed, wedged,
crammed, stuffed, blocked, clogged;
(adj, v) stuck. ANTONYMS: (adj)
free, loose
jauntily: (adv) cheerfully, airily,
brightly, sprucely, smartly, merrily,
dashingly, nattily, buoyantly,
breezily, lightly
jaws: (n) jaw, chops, fauces, chaps,
mandible, maw, lips, holding
device; (v) mazard
jehovah: (n) God, Yahveh, lord,
Yahwe, almighty, Yahweh, master,
jah, trinity, idol, creator
jerk: (n, v) jump, yank, shake, twitch,
jar, tug, bump, heave, pull; (v) fling,
flip. ANTONYM: (v) ease
jerky: (adj) uneven, abrupt, rough,
unsteady, jerking, arrhythmic,
spasmodic, shaky; (n) biltong, jerked
meat, meat. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, graceful
jerry: (n) kraut, Hun, German,
Krauthead, Boche
jeweler: (n) goldsmith, shaper,
merchandiser, maker, merchant,
silversmith, jewelry maker
jewish: (adj) Judaic, Hebrew,
Judaical, Jew
joined: (adj) coupled, united, allied,
connected, joint, associated, linked,
amalgamated, concerted,
incorporated; (n) joining.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disjointed, rival
joining: (n) connection, junction,
connexion, union, combination,
association, concatenation,
attachment, assembly, fastening;
(adj) connecting
joke: (n, v) banter; (n) hoax, fun,
quip, gag, caper, game, antic, prank,
humor; (v) tease
journey: (n, v) jaunt, go, travel,
cruise, fare; (n) excursion, way,
expedition, trip, passage, voyage.
ANTONYM: (v) settle
joyously: (adv, v) happily; (adv)
gaily, gleefully, mirthfully,
cheerfully, gladly, merrily, festively,
brightly, buoyantly, pleasantly.
ANTONYM: (adv) joylessly
jude: (n) St Jude, Judas Iscariot, saint
Jude, epistle of Jude, Judas
judgment: (n, v) decision, belief,
discernment, condemnation, sense,

264
discrimination; (n) determination,
discretion, opinion, assessment,
adjudication. ANTONYMS: (n)
clumsiness, request, tastelessness
jumble: (n, v) clutter, disorder, mix
up, mix; (v) confuse, embroil,
disturb, tumble; (n) hodgepodge,
confusion; (adj, n) disarray.
ANTONYMS: (n) neatness; (v)
organize, separate, tidy, disentangle
jumping: (n) saltation, leaping,
header, start, propulsion; (adj)
moving, festive; (v) bounding,
salient, dancing; (adv) leapingly
junior: (adj, n) inferior, subordinate,
minor, puisne; (adj) juvenile, young,
associate, secondary, petty, lower;
(n) boy. ANTONYMS: (adj) senior,
chief, advanced, major, higher
junk: (adj, n) rubbish, litter; (n, v)
trash, scrap, dump; (n) stuff, waste,
heroin, horse, refuse; (v) discard
kansas: (n) Kansa, Kaw river, Kansas
river, KS, sunflower state; (adj)
Midwestern, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois
keen: (adj, v) eager, fresh, biting,
brisk, avid; (adj) sharp, intense,
intelligent, enthusiastic, exquisite,
piercing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indifferent, apathetic,
unenthusiastic, blunt, unwilling,
reluctant, passive, stupid,
unconcerned, lukewarm,
disinterested
keenly: (adv) eagerly, zealously,
piercingly, acutely, cuttingly,
ardently, strongly, lively,
penetratingly, fervently, avidly.
ANTONYMS: (adv)
unenthusiastically, apathetically,
faintly, reluctantly, patiently,
passively, halfheartedly, vaguely
keeper: (n) curator, guardian, guard,
warden, janitor, jailer, gaoler,
warder, caretaker, sentry,
conservator
keeping: (n) care, conservation,
charge, guardianship, maintenance,
holding, observance, storage,
conformation, consistency,
conformity
kentucky: (n) Bluegrass state, KY
kerosene: (n) petroleum, kerosine,
oil, paraffin, petrol, fuel oil,
distillate, gas, diesel fuel; (n, v)
gasoline; (v) Naptha
kick: (v) grumble, complain; (n)
bitch, beef, thrill, gripe, charge,
excitement; (n, v) recoil, spurn,
protest. ANTONYMS: (v) start; (n)
bore
kidnapped: (adj) kidnaped

Winesburg, Ohio
kids: (n) progeny, flesh and blood,
brood
kill: (n, v) assassinate, destroy; (v)
erase, annihilate, eliminate,
extinguish, finish, blast, decimate,
execute, eradicate. ANTONYMS: (v)
revitalize, revive; (n) hunter
killing: (n) carnage, manslaughter,
murder, kill, cleanup, bloodshed,
assassination, massacre; (v)
captivating; (adj) fatal, draining.
ANTONYM: (n) preservation
kindly: (adj) kind, amiable, genial,
charitable; (adv) sympathetically,
benevolently, tenderly; (adj, n)
benign, gentle, sympathetic,
benevolent. ANTONYMS: (adv)
harshly, nastily, callously, cruelly,
sharply, disagreeably, grumpily,
malevolently; (adj) upsetting,
unfeeling, sour
kiss: (n, v) caress, brush, embrace,
touch; (n) osculation, salute, lip, Kiss
of peace, kiss hands; (v) osculate,
love
kissing: (n) hugging, cuddling,
fondling, arousal, foreplay, necking;
(adj) embracing, adhering closely,
billing, clinging, interosculant
knee: (n) bracket, articulation, joint,
kneel, knee joint, genu, articulatio
genus, scythe, zigzag, sickle, bend
kneel: (v) genuflect, cringe, stoop,
bob, cry for quarter, dip, duck,
humble oneself; (n) kneeling, knee,
movement
kneeling: (n) homage, kowtow,
kneelingly, prostration, genuflexion,
genuflection, curtsy, courtesy,
obeisance
knees: (n) knee
knife: (adj, n) blade; (adj) cutlery,
edge tool; (v) stab; (n) sword,
cleaver, whittle, cutter, tongue,
pocketknife, chopper
knight: (n) horseman, horse,
chevalier, banneret, warrior, steed,
knighthood, rider, heroin, h; (v) dub
knob: (n) button, swelling, hump,
knop, protuberance, grip, nub,
lump, node, bump; (adj, n) bulb
knocker: (n) boob, tit, breast,
doorknocker, nipple, knock, doorknocker, depreciator, disparager,
detractor, hatemonger
knowing: (adj, v) canny, crafty, wise;
(adj, n) clever; (adj) conscious,
aware, ingenious, intelligent, bright,
conversant, smart. ANTONYMS:
(adj) naive, uncomprehending,
unconscious
knuckles: (n) brass knuckles, knuckle

duster, weapon, arm, knucks, hand
labor: (n, v) toil, endeavor, drudgery,
travail, struggle, confinement,
childbirth, delivery, grind; (n) effort,
exertion. ANTONYMS: (n, v) rest;
(v) relax, ignore; (n) management,
leisure, death, relaxation
labored: (adj) elaborate, strained,
laborious, heavy, arduous, hard,
artificial, laboured, awkward,
unnatural, studied. ANTONYM:
(adj) easy
laborer: (n) hand, labourer, operative,
drudge, labor, employee, manual
laborer, peon, navvy, docker, day
laborer
lacking: (adj) incomplete, inadequate,
defective, absent, short, wanting,
destitute, empty, devoid,
insufficient; (adj, prep) without.
ANTONYMS: (adj) full, plentiful,
burdened, capable, adequate,
perfect, present, complete,
privileged; (prep) with, including
ladder: (n, v) run; (n) stair,
stepladder, steps, stairs, degree,
washboard, flight of stairs, stile,
stairway, staircase
ladders: (n) washboard
laid: (adj) layed, lay, place, placed,
put, situated, arranged, determined,
dictated, hardened, ordered
lain: (adj) artless, unsophisticated,
unaffected, naive, untutored,
simple, pure, natural, native,
inartificial
lake: (n) pond, pool, lagoon, puddle,
lough, reservoir, loke, bayou,
crimson, lagune, carmine
lamb: (n) sheep, lambkin, dear,
hogget, kid, mutton, inexperienced
person, honey, white meat, pork;
(adj) naive
lame: (adj) crippled, disabled,
halting, feeble, halt, weak, paralytic;
(adj, n) game; (adj, v) paralyze,
maim, becripple
lamp: (n) light, lantern, beacon,
headlight, flashbulb, flashgun, table
lamp, oil lamp, storm lantern; (n, v)
look; (v) behold
landlord: (n) laird, proprietor,
landlady, owner, landholder, land
holder, land owner, innkeeper,
property owner, slumlord, publican.
ANTONYM: (n) occupant
lands: (n) park, estate, kingdom
landscape: (n) sight, vista, scene,
scenery, outlook, view, ground,
lookout, landscape painting,
countryside, perspective
lane: (n) alley, road, path, passage,

Sherwood Anderson
avenue, way, track, aisle, side street,
line, artery
lantern: (n) beacon, light, dormer,
tube, lighting fitting, bedside light,
street light, street lamp, oil lamp,
lime light, lanthorn
lapel: (n) flap, collar, overlap, cuff,
neck, revers, lap, revere, rimple,
rivel, ruffle
lasting: (adj) abiding, everlasting,
firm, eternal, enduring, continuous,
permanent, constant, perpetual,
tough; (adj, v) fast. ANTONYMS:
(adj) fleeting, impermanent,
superficial, ephemeral, caducous,
unstable, occasional, insubstantial,
erratic, acute, fickle
laugh: (n, v) joke, giggle, chortle,
titter, snicker; (v) smile; (n) jest, gag,
jape, laughter, cackle. ANTONYM:
(v) weep
laughing: (adj) merry, smiling,
laughable, jolly, gay, lighthearted,
frolicsome, playful, pleased, dizzy;
(adv) laughingly. ANTONYM: (adj)
serious
laughs: (n) diversion, comedy,
amusement, sport, recreation,
merriment, entertainment, levity
laughter: (n) amusement, fun,
guffaw, merriment, chortle, chuckle,
mirth, hilarity, giggle, derision,
happiness. ANTONYMS: (n)
sadness, gloom, despair, boredom,
misery, despondency
laundered: (adj) clean
lawn: (n) grassplot, field, green, park,
meadow, grassplat, plot, lea, turfs,
turves, turf
lawyer: (n) counsel, barrister,
attorney, jurist, counsellor,
counselor, conveyancer, ambulance
chaser, adviser, trial lawyer, pleader
laying: (n) egg laying, placing,
parturition, place, repose, setting,
put, position, lay, oyster park,
oviposition
lazy: (adj) indolent, inert, idle,
inactive, shiftless, slothful, faineant,
slow, sluggish; (adj, n) drowsy, dull.
ANTONYMS: (adj) diligent, active,
prompt, vigorous, industrious, keen,
productive
leaded: (adj) fixed
leaf: (n) page, folio, foliage, petal,
frond, leafage, slip, verdure, leaflet;
(n, v) sheet; (v) leave
lean: (adj, v) gaunt; (adj) emaciated,
thin, bony, lank; (n, v) bend, tilt,
slant, list, careen; (n) inclination.
ANTONYMS: (adj) plump, rich,
chubby, greasy, stout; (v) straighten,

repel
leaned: (v) erudite, lettered; (adj)
tilted, inclined, educated
leaning: (adj, n) bent, disposition,
partiality; (n) propensity, bias,
tendency, incline, lean; (adj) tilted,
canted, inclined. ANTONYMS: (n)
antipathy, dislike; (adj) upright
leap: (n, v) bound, spring, bounce,
caper, dive, vault, lunge; (v) dance,
hop, start; (n) curvet. ANTONYMS:
(n, v) plummet; (v) surface, drop,
hesitate; (n) slump
learned: (adj) educated,
knowledgeable, scholarly, academic,
cultured, literary, bookish, lettered;
(adj, v) enlightened, wise, knowing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) innate,
unconditioned, foolish, unlearned
learning: (n, v) erudition,
enlightenment; (n) acquisition,
education, culture, scholarship,
wisdom, acquirement, letter,
literature; (v) learn
least: (n) minimum; (adj) smallest,
minimal, littlest, lowest,
insignificant, minutest, negligible;
(adj, n) smallest amount; (adv) at
least, fully. ANTONYMS: (adj)
maximum, greatest; (adj, adv) most
leather: (n) fur, fleece, skin, buckskin,
fell, pelt, doeskin; (v) drub, thresh,
thrash; (n, v) hit
leaves: (n) departure, leaving, plants,
trees, vegetation
ledge: (n) projection, bulge, jetty,
board, shelf, rack, bench, hummock,
protrusion, rim; (adj) escarpment.
ANTONYM: (n) depression
legislator: (n) lawgiver,
representative, congressman,
deputy, filibuster, frontbencher,
backbencher, crossbencher, statist,
statemonger, parliamentarian
legislature: (n) assembly, diet,
parliament, council, legislative
body, house, legislative, senate,
legislative assembly, general
assembly, convention
leisure: (n) idleness, convenience,
vacation, inactivity, rest, repose,
relaxation, recreation, pastime,
opportunity; (adj) idle. ANTONYM:
(n) work
lending: (n) lend, loaning,
borrowing, usury, disposal,
disposition
lessons: (n) classes, coaching, tuition,
schoolwork, revision, learning,
education, training
letting: (n) lease, rental, let, renting,
hire, leasing, rent, belongings,

265
permission; (adj) lenient
lewis: (n) Frederick Carleton Lewis,
harry Sinclair Lewis, Carl Lewis,
Jerry lee Lewis, Meriwether Lewis,
Sinclair Lewis, Clive Staples Lewis
liberated: (adj) freed, emancipated,
loose, released, exempt, liberal,
independent, clear, disengaged,
open, unattached. ANTONYMS:
(adj) constrained, conventional
liberation: (n) release, freedom,
emancipation, dismissal,
deliverance, freeing, salvation,
delivery; (n, v) rescue, acquittal,
dismission. ANTONYMS: (n)
suppression, captivity, downfall
lies: (n) fabrication, falsehood, lie,
lying, deceit, defamation,
denigration, dishonesty, slander,
libel, treachery. ANTONYM: (n)
truth
lift: (n, v) raise, rise, elevator, boost,
heave, hike, airlift, advance; (v)
elevate, erect, filch. ANTONYMS:
(v) lower, descend, drop, hinder,
put, return, impose; (n, v) knock
lifted: (adj) raised, elevated, lift, lofty,
upraised, steep
lighted: (adj) illuminated, lit, light,
ablaze, bright, ignited, burn,
burning, ignite, kindled, lighten
lighter: (n) light, flatboat, igniter,
cigarette lighter, wherry, primer,
scow, kindling, fuze, fuzee,
houseboat
lighting: (n) light, kindling, ignition,
firing, inflammation, burning,
combustion, setup, the illumination
supplied by lights, illume,
illuminate
lightning: (n) levin, electricity,
thunderbolt, Leven, ignis fatuus,
heat lightning, forked lightning,
fetter, dart, chain lightning; (adj)
wind
lights: (n) illumination, burn, lung,
spacing material
liked: (adj) popular, loved, favorite,
preferred. ANTONYM: (adj)
disliked
likes: (n) kind, sort, type
liking: (n, v) inclination; (n) fancy,
appetite, taste, fondness,
predilection, affection, partiality,
admiration, approval, appreciation.
ANTONYMS: (n) dislike, aversion,
hatred, indifference, detachment,
dissatisfaction, antipathy
limestone: (n) lyme, Warsaw
limestone, chalk, rock, limestones,
lime, mineral, lime stone, sandstone,
sedimentary rock, stone

266
limit: (v) restrict, circumscribe,
restrain, check; (n, v) border, curb,
confine, boundary, close; (n, prep, v)
extent; (n) edge. ANTONYMS: (v)
broaden, extend, increase, derestrict,
allow, encourage, express, promote;
(n) minimum, extension, freedom
limitless: (adj) boundless, immense,
endless, unlimited, measureless,
infinite, illimitable, interminable,
vast, bottomless, incalculable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) limited,
restricted, little, minor, small, few
limits: (n) confines, bounds, range,
frontier, area, circumference,
perimeter, field, margin, boundaries;
(v) confine. ANTONYM: (n) middle
lined: (adj) wrinkled, creased,
wrinkly, striped, streaked, ruled,
banded, paved, worn, with stripes,
windswept. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, plain, unlined, straight
linen: (n) fabric, flax, lingerie, doily,
doyley, doyly, cambric, underwear,
underclothes, hemp; (v) muslin
linger: (v) loiter, delay, dally, hover,
stay, hesitate, hang around,
procrastinate, dawdle, tarry,
saunter. ANTONYMS: (v) hurry,
end, rush, depart, lead
lips: (n) lip, inlet, logical inference
per second, chops, porch, portal,
portico, propylon, snout, door,
orifice
listed: (adj) recorded. ANTONYM:
(adj) unlisted
listen: (v) hear, heed, hearken, attend,
harken, list, listening, eavesdrop,
mind, concentrate, pay attention
listener: (n, v) auditor; (n)
eavesdropper, audience, observer,
perceiver, hearkener, attender,
attendee, attendant, beholder
listening: (v) listen, hear, obey; (n)
auscultation, perception, sensing,
audition, audience, earshot,
auditory modality; (adj) attentive
listless: (adj) indifferent, dull,
indolent, careless, languid, inert,
inattentive, dispirited, slow,
uninterested, spiritless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lively, animated,
energetic, strong, spirited
listlessly: (adv) sluggishly,
spiritlessly, indifferently, languidly,
slowly, weakly, indolently,
supinely, lazily, inanimately,
slackly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
brightly, nimbly
literary: (adj) bookish, cultured,
educated, erudite, literate, formal,
literature, writing, scholarly,

Winesburg, Ohio
knowledgeable, studious
literature: (n) letters, science, writing,
belles lettres, letter, printed matter,
muses, novel, polite literature,
republic of letters, profession
litter: (adj, n) brood, jumble; (n)
bedding, stretcher, waste, refuse,
junk, trash, mess; (n, v) clutter; (adj)
disarray. ANTONYMS: (v) clean; (n)
space
livable: (adj) endurable, inhabitable,
habitable, liveable, tolerable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uninhabitable,
unlivable
lively: (adj, adv) jolly, sprightly; (adj,
v) active, cheerful; (adj) energetic,
agile, keen, busy, gay, fresh, jovial.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lethargic,
listless, inactive, unexciting, lifeless,
awkward, sad, gentle, tired, insipid,
subdued
livery: (adj) liverish, bilious; (n)
clothing, accouterment, uniform,
complexion, legal transfer, color,
hue, dye, bailment
load: (adj, n, v) charge, fill; (n) cargo,
freight, weight, consignment; (n, v)
stack, heap, pack, pile; (v)
encumber. ANTONYMS: (v)
unpack, remove, eject, relieve,
empty, alleviate; (n) lightness
loaded: (adj) full, flush, moneyed,
wealthy, affluent, rich, tipsy, tight,
intoxicated, charged; (adj, prep)
burdened. ANTONYMS: (adj)
empty, lacking, unloaded, innocent,
impoverished
loading: (n) cargo, load, burden,
consignment, lading, charging, filler,
freightage, encumbrance, shipment,
burthen
loaf: (adj, v) lounge; (v) hang around,
loiter, loll, linger, laze, mess about,
be idle; (adj, n) block; (adj) lump,
poke. ANTONYM: (v) work
loafing: (n) idleness, dalliance, dolce
far niente, faineance, inaction,
inactivity; (adj) lazy, unemployed
locale: (n) position, scene, situation,
environment, region, district,
habitat, locus, venue, location,
locality
locate: (v) base, lay, localize, find,
discover, situate, set, determine,
install, unearth; (n, v) fix.
ANTONYM: (v) remove
lock: (n, v) bar, hug; (v) close, latch,
fasten, engage, hold; (adj, n) hair; (n)
curl, padlock, hook. ANTONYMS:
(v) open, undo, disengage, flex; (n)
key; (adv) partially, partly
locked: (adj) bolted, closed, fast,

barred, blocked, fixed, guaranteed,
barricaded, safe, protected, fastened
locking: (n) lockup, bolting,
interlocking, engagement,
cordoning off, closing off, binding,
guarding
locks: (n) hair, tresses, head of hair
lockup: (n) penitentiary, prison,
locking, gaol, jailhouse, dungeon,
protection, jug, Bastille, bridewell,
tollbooth
locomotive: (n, v) train; (adj)
locomotor, loco, mobile, movable;
(n) conductor, tank engine, iron
horse, steam locomotive; (v) motor
scooter, autobus
lodged: (adj) wedged, stuck fast,
stuck, jammed
lodging: (n) abode, apartment,
accommodation, housing, hostel,
residence, quarter, home,
lodgement, address, hospice
lodgings: (n) digs, accommodation,
domiciliation, lodging, billet,
housing, quarters, residence, pad,
living quarters, launchpad
loft: (n) garret, cockloft, hayloft,
upper story, story, storey,
farmhouse, igloo, cottage; (v)
propel, impel
loneliness: (n) desolation, aloneness,
isolation, solitariness, lonesomeness,
bleakness, forlornness, desolateness,
temperament, unhappiness; (adj, n)
solitude. ANTONYMS: (n)
inclusion, cheerfulness, hopefulness
lonely: (adj) deserted, lone, dreary,
solitary, forsaken, desert; (adj, n)
isolated, alone; (adv) lonesomely,
solely, solitarily. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sheltered, populous, cheerful,
nearby; (n) foe
longing: (n, v) desire, aspiration; (adj)
eager, wistful, nostalgic; (n)
nostalgia, wish, hankering, urge,
appetite; (adj, n) yearning.
ANTONYMS: (n) apathy,
disinclination; (adj) satisfied,
unconcerned
loom: (v) appear, threaten, emerge,
impend, overshadow, rise, menace,
bulk large, hulk, hover; (adj, v)
lower. ANTONYMS: (v) recede,
retreat
loose: (adj, v) lax, dissolute; (adj, n)
limp, liberal, licentious; (adj) light,
vague; (v) disengage, relax, release,
liberate. ANTONYMS: (adj) dense,
close, taut, compressed, strict,
compact, wedged, secure, strong,
similar; (v) confine
loosely: (adv) freely, vaguely,

Sherwood Anderson
wantonly, broadly, softly,
desultorily, laxly, relaxedly,
lasciviously, baggily, flabbily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) closely, firmly,
tight, strictly, narrowly, efficiently,
densely, accurately, precisely,
clearly
losing: (v) lose; (n) loss; (adv)
losingly, behind; (adj) unbeneficial.
ANTONYM: (adj) lucrative
losses: (n) loss, losings, damage,
detriment, victims, fatalities,
financial loss, harm, wounded, toll,
net loss
lots: (adj, n) plenty, heaps; (adj) a lot,
galore; (n) many, scores, scads,
oodles, much, masses; (adv) a great
deal. ANTONYM: (n) few
loud: (adj) flashy, garish, gaudy,
blatant, brassy, boisterous, high,
jazzy, brazen, piercing; (adj, adv)
forte. ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteful,
gentle, quiet, subtle, subdued, low,
muted, weak, tranquil, thin; (adv)
softly
loudly: (adv) vociferously, noisily,
loud, clamorously, showily,
strongly, flamboyantly,
obstreperously, luridly,
boisterously; (adj, adv) forte.
ANTONYMS: (adv) softly, thinly,
silently, piano, pleasantly
lovable: (adj) delightful, charming,
likable, engaging, sweet, taking,
adorable, friendly, kindly,
delectable, lovely. ANTONYMS:
(adj) horrible, unappealing,
unlovable, detestable, despicable
loved: (adj) beloved, pet, cherished,
precious, liked, adored, respected,
treasured, esteemed, valued; (n)
darling. ANTONYM: (adj) hated
loveliness: (n) comeliness, fairness,
grace, attractiveness, charm,
glamour, pulchritude,
beauteousness, good looks,
cuteness, fineness. ANTONYMS: (n)
unattractiveness, unpleasantness,
awkwardness
lover: (n) dear, darling, fan, devotee,
beau, buff, love, admirer, beloved,
amorist, man
loving: (adj) fond, devoted, amorous,
kind, friendly, ardent, attached,
admiring, gentle, fatherly; (adj, v)
tender. ANTONYMS: (adj) cold,
uncaring, malicious, cruel, unloving,
rough, paternal, indifferent, distant,
disapproving, callous
loyalty: (n) allegiance, faith, honesty,
devotion, fealty, faithfulness,
dedication, integrity, commitment,

attachment; (adj, n) fidelity.
ANTONYMS: (n) unfaithfulness,
disobedience, infidelity, treachery,
impoliteness, deceit, indifference,
doubt, dishonesty, unreliability
lucky: (adj, n) auspicious, happy,
favored; (adj) favorable, prosperous,
propitious, successful, favourable,
flourishing, fortuitous; (n) fortune.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unlucky,
hapless, unfortunate, unsuccessful,
disadvantaged, inauspicious,
underprivileged, unenviable,
unsatisfactory
ludicrous: (adj) absurd, ridiculous,
farcical, foolish, laughable, comical,
grotesque, derisory, droll,
preposterous, jocular. ANTONYMS:
(adj) sane, impressive
lunch: (v) dine, eat, take tea, sup; (n)
luncheon, tiffin, meal, dinner,
dejeuner, brunch, noon
lurking: (n) ambush; (adj) snaky,
backstair, backstairs, clandestine,
concealed, dormant, latent,
potential, skulking, sneaky
lust: (n, v) desire, hunger, itch; (n)
craving, greed, libido,
lecherousness, cupidity, lewdness;
(v) covet, crave
lustful: (adj, v) lascivious, lewd,
libidinous, wanton; (adj) licentious,
prurient, lickerish, concupiscent,
passionate, lusty; (adj, n, v)
lecherous. ANTONYM: (adj)
restrained
lustily: (adv) stoutly, energetically,
robustly, powerfully, vigorously,
mightily, halely, strappingly,
potently, sturdily, heartily
lying: (adj) false, deceptive,
mendacious, untrue, misleading,
fraudulent; (n) lie, falsehood,
fabrication, deceit, dishonesty.
ANTONYMS: (n) honesty,
truthfulness; (adj) truthful
machinery: (n) machine, apparatus,
enginery, equipment, plant, system,
gear, tackle, mechanism, work,
installation
maddened: (adj) angry, furious,
deranged, angered, enraged,
moonstruck, fierce, upset,
aggravated, ferocious; (v) frantic
maddening: (adj) exasperating,
annoying, aggravating, irritating,
galling, trying, vexing, madden,
bothersome, crazy, vexatious.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pleasing,
soothing, satisfying
madly: (adv) insanely, furiously,
sorely, frantically, wildly, devilishly,

267
deadly, dementedly, foolishly,
distractedly; (adj, adv) rabidly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) sensibly,
calmly, sanely, carefully; (adj)
slightly
madness: (n) frenzy, insanity, lunacy,
idiocy, folly, delirium, insaneness;
(adj, n) furor, rage, desperation,
furore. ANTONYMS: (n) sense,
calmness, order
magazine: (n) periodical, cartridge,
newspaper, entrepot, clip, mag,
book, comic, depository, arsenal; (n,
v) store
magistrate: (n) judge, jurist,
justiciary, adjudicator, beak, official,
provost, recorder, archon, doge,
chancellor
maid: (n) damsel, chambermaid, lass,
lassie, girl, domestic, amah, virgin,
maiden, housemaid, handmaid
maiden: (n) maid, girl, demoiselle,
damosel, wench, fille, lass, miss;
(adj) first, initiatory, unmarried
mail: (n, v) armor, shield; (v) send,
get off, remit, habergeon; (n)
hauberk, coat of mail, chain mail,
mailing; (adj) postal. ANTONYM:
(v) keep
maker: (n) creator, manufacturer,
author, architect, builder, producer,
inventor, constructor, father,
generator, designer
makeup: (n) composition, structure,
formation, character, texture,
construction, cosmetics,
organization, framework,
eyeshadow; (adj) cosmetic
manhood: (n) majority, maturity,
valor, resolution, personality,
humanity, integrity, bravery; (adj)
manliness, ripe age, maturity full
age
manifest: (adj) evident, distinct,
conspicuous, clear, patent, plain; (v)
display, demonstrate, exhibit,
evidence; (n, v) declare.
ANTONYMS: (v) hide; (adj) hidden,
obscure, secret, inconspicuous,
veiled, furtive, avoidable,
ambiguous; (adv) absent
mankind: (n) world, humanity,
humankind, human race, humans,
person, flesh, mortality, people,
human beings, humanness
manly: (adj) manlike, masculine,
manful, virile, brave, gallant; (adv)
manfully, boldly, hardily, virilely;
(adj, adv) stately. ANTONYMS:
(adj) weak, unmanly, cowardly;
(adv) unmanfully
manner: (adj, n) kind; (n) bearing,

268
demeanor, method, form,
appearance, carriage, way; (n, v)
custom, style, habit
mannerism: (n) airs, habit, foible,
characteristic, affectation, trick,
attitude, pose, affected manner,
manner; (adj) individuality
manservant: (n) man, butler, valet,
gentleman, lackey, domestic, men,
gillie, menial, servitor, servant
manufacturer: (n) Wright, builder,
creator, artificer, shaper, producer,
distiller, armourer, brewer, artist,
armorer. ANTONYM: (n) destroyer
manure: (n) compost, fertiliser,
fertilizer; (n, v) muck, soil; (v)
fertilize, cultivate, plough, weed,
plow; (adj) guano
maple: (n) box elder, full moon
maple, moosewood, hedge maple,
great maple, dwarf maple, goosefoot
maple, field maple
marathon: (n) endurance contest,
undertaking, foot race, footrace,
race, battle of marathon
marbles: (n) wit, sanity, mind,
reason, jackstones, jacks, cods
marching: (n) walking, mar, drill;
(adj) ongoing, moving
mare: (n) Maria, Money makes the
mare go, broodmare, doe, hen, bitch,
horse, region, part, jennet, roe
marked: (adj) conspicuous,
noticeable, pronounced, remarkable,
distinguished, apparent, definite,
notable, obvious, signal, striking.
ANTONYMS: (adj) plain,
imperceptible, unmarked, unclear,
obscure, inconspicuous, ordinary,
loose, slight
marking: (n) earmark, crisscross,
brand, marker, maculation, grading,
stamping, authentication, lineation,
cairn, cross
marks: (v) score; (n) first baron marks
of Broughton, footprint, imprints,
inscription, path, script, Simon
marks, symbols, trace, track
marry: (n, v) wed, espouse; (v) get
married, link, conjoin, wive, splice,
tie, unite, couple; (n) marriage.
ANTONYMS: (v) divorce, separate,
split
marrying: (adj) married
marshal: (v) dispose, rally, mobilize,
guide, group, muster, order, collect,
organize, arrange; (n) Marshall.
ANTONYMS: (v) disturb,
demobilize, disband, dismiss,
disperse
marshall: (n) field marshal, dowdy,
George Marshall, comte de Saxe,

Winesburg, Ohio
George Catlett Marshall, John
Marshall
marvel: (n, v) wonder; (n) prodigy,
curiosity, phenomenon, amazement,
miracle, portent, marl, surprise,
admiration; (v) admire.
ANTONYMS: (v) disregard; (n)
nightmare
masculine: (adj, v) male, not female;
(adj) manly, manlike, virile,
mannish, mankind, bold, manful;
(n) gender, he. ANTONYMS: (adj)
female, neuter
mass: (adj, n) bulk, lump, block; (n, v)
flock, crowd, cluster, pile, bunch; (n)
magnitude, collection, majority.
ANTONYMS: (n) lightness, few; (v)
disperse
master: (n) captain, instructor, lord;
(v) control, conquer, command,
dominate, defeat; (adj, n) original,
head, ace. ANTONYMS: (n)
underling, servant, novice, amateur
masterful: (adj) consummate,
imperious, dictatorial, overbearing,
masterly, Masterful beggar, skillful,
proficient, adept, perfect, expert.
ANTONYMS: (adj) incompetent,
meek, inept
mastering: (adj) victorious
masterpiece: (adj, n) tour de force; (n)
achievement, chef d'oeuvre,
standard, model, paragon, creation;
(adj) prime, pick, nonpareil,
nonesuch
masters: (n) Edgar lee Masters
materialism: (n) deism, dialectical
materialism, desire, Sabellianism,
Tractarianism, theism, Socinianism,
greed, Erastianism, Adventism,
anabaptism. ANTONYM: (n)
generosity
materialistic: (adj) mercenary,
commercial, conservative, worldly,
unspiritual, temporal, secular,
cautious, greedy, impersonal,
physical. ANTONYM: (adj)
generous
mature: (adj, v) ripe, ripen; (v)
develop, age, mellow, season; (adj)
complete, old, experienced, adult,
perfect. ANTONYMS: (adj) childish,
naive, young, unripe, sophomoric,
unfledged, green, unclear,
irresponsible, incomplete; (v)
growing
maturing: (adj) growing, budding,
green, payable; (n) maturation,
maturement, development, growth,
ripening, firing range, biological
process
maturity: (n) matureness, adulthood,

perfection, due date, majority,
development, age, readiness, prime,
state, culture. ANTONYMS: (n)
childhood, youth, immaturity,
childishness, infancy, coarseness,
decrease, inexperience
mckinley: (n) president Mckinley,
William Mckinley
meadow: (n) hayfield, lea, mead,
grassland, plain, lawn, sward,
grazing land, greensward,
pasturage, paddock
meal: (n) repast, farina, flour, feed,
banquet, dinner, luncheon, supper,
refection, collation; (n, v) spread
meandering: (adj) circuitous, indirect,
zigzag, tortuous, winding,
serpentine, sinuous, roundabout,
snaky, windy; (v) twirl.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight; (n)
directness
meaningless: (adj) empty, pointless,
hollow, useless, stupid, worthless,
futile, needless, inane, absurd, vain.
ANTONYMS: (adj) meaningful,
worthwhile, sensible, significant,
reasonable, purposeful, provoked,
offensive, justifiable, clear, useful
meaninglessness: (n) pointlessness,
inanity, incoherence, incoherency,
amphigory, flummery, bosh,
balderdash, baloney, gibberish,
absurdness. ANTONYMS: (n)
importance, meaningfulness,
sensibleness, worthiness
measured: (adj) careful, moderate,
calculated, temperate, reasonable,
regular, rhythmic, metrical, sober,
rhythmical, leisurely. ANTONYMS:
(adj) rushed, unmeasured, fast,
hurried, rapid, rash, thoughtless
meat: (n) food, gist, essence, core,
kernel, heart, substance, marrow,
crux, matter, beef
mechanic: (n) craftsman, mechanical,
machinist, artisan, artificer,
journeyman, grease monkey,
automobile mechanic, Wright,
worker, artist
medicine: (n) drug, medication,
medicament, therapy, physic,
treatment, remedy, cathartic,
medical science, preparation; (v)
medicate
medina: (n) Al Madinah
meditative: (adj, v) thoughtful,
pensive; (adj) wistful, reflective,
broody, museful, ruminative,
musing, brooding; (v) philosophical,
sedate
medium: (adj, n) mediocre, mean;
(adj) intermediate, fair, mid; (n)

Sherwood Anderson
instrument, vehicle, atmosphere, gobetween, means, agency
medley: (n) mixture, miscellany,
jumble, melange, potpourri,
hotchpotch, concoction, admixture,
hash; (adj) imbroglio, chaos
melt: (v) dissolve, deliquesce, vanish,
coalesce, relent, meld, fade, defrost;
(adj, v) run, liquefy; (n, v) thaw.
ANTONYMS: (v) freeze, solidify,
cool, set
memoirs: (n) reminiscences, memoir,
autobiography, essay, biography,
annals, chronicle, account, diary, life
story, memento Mori
memorable: (adj) extraordinary,
unforgettable, signal, eventful,
monumental, impressive,
noteworthy, momentous, striking,
catchy, lasting. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unremarkable, unfamiliar,
commonplace
memories: (n) recollections,
reminiscences, nostalgia, memento
Mori
mend: (adj, v) improve; (v) correct,
cure, heal, doctor, better, amend,
restore, convalesce; (n, v) fix, patch.
ANTONYMS: (v) worsen, tear,
smash, decline, deteriorate; (n)
fracture
mental: (adj) ideal, psychic, inner,
subjective, spiritual, psychical,
psychological, insane, genial,
cerebral, psychotic. ANTONYMS:
(adj) physical, bodily, sane
mention: (n, v) comment, name,
remark, call, hint; (v) cite, observe,
commend; (n) allusion, citation,
reference. ANTONYM: (v) conceal
mentioned: (adj) spoken
merchant: (n) trader, seller,
businessman, shopkeeper, vendor,
retailer, merchandiser, storekeeper,
broker, grocer; (n, v) chapman.
ANTONYM: (n) buyer
mere: (adj, n) entire; (adj) bare,
simple, pure; (n) loch, tarn,
boundary, absolute; (n, v)
downright; (adv) merely; (adj, v)
clear
mess: (n) jumble, clutter,
hodgepodge, jam, difficulty,
confusion, disorder, chaos; (v) soil,
botch; (adj, n) scrape. ANTONYMS:
(n) success, space, neatness, ease
messages: (n) correspondence,
communication, post, letters
messenger: (n, v) herald; (n)
harbinger, runner, emissary, bearer,
ambassador, precursor, courier,
carrier, apostle, errand

metal: (n) gallium, calcium,
europium, chromium, cm, cobalt,
curium, dysprosium, erbium,
caesium, cadmium. ANTONYM:
(adj) nonmetallic
methodist: (adj, n) Wesleyan; (adj)
pietist, precisian, puritan, religionist,
sabbatarian; (n) Lutheran, devotee,
Calvinist
midnight: (n) dark, noon, hour
midst: (adj, n) middle; (adv) mid,
between; (prep) among, amid; (n)
core, center, thick, interior, heart,
waist
midwestern: (adj) westerner, western
mighty: (adj) immense, huge, grand,
intense, high, big, forcible, strong,
large, great; (adj, adv) powerful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) puny, tiny,
weak, insignificant
mild: (adj, n) kindly, gracious; (adj)
easy, lenient, benign, docile,
humble, clement, sweet, balmy,
delicate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
extreme, pungent, spicy, sharp,
severe, scathing, incisive, hot,
powerful, great, passionate
mile: (n) MI, nautical mile, land mile,
knot, Swedish mile, international
nautical mile, Admiralty mile, air
mile, geographical mile, Roman
mile; (v) furlong
milk: (v) squeeze, drain, tap, bleed,
anodyne, balm; (n) buttermilk,
colostrum, foremilk; (adj) gluten,
chalk
milkweed: (n) chiggerflower,
Sonchus oleraceus, Asclepias, blood
flower, butterfly weed, genus
Asclepias, horsetail milkweed, milk
thistle, swallowwort
mill: (n) manufactory, grinder,
factory, machine, plant, gristmill,
foundry, engine, gin; (v) crush; (n, v)
notch
milliner: (n) sempstress, clothier,
fribble, hatmaker, snip, shaper,
merchandiser, tailor, costumier,
merchant, maker
millinery: (n) hat shop, store, shop,
turban, toque, tailoring, man
millinery, lid, hat, frippery, foppery
millions: (n) billions, jillions, trillions,
large indefinite amount, zillions,
myriad, large indefinite quantity
milton: (v) accomplish, achieve,
effect, execute, Keble, Macaulay; (n)
English poet
minded: (prep) inclined; (adj, prep)
disposed; (adj) willing, apt, ready,
prone, orientated, favorable,
oriented, prepared, partial

269
miniature: (adj) tiny, diminutive,
slight, wee, small, minute, midget,
dwarf, teeny; (adj, n) model; (n) toy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) large, enormous,
giant, gigantic, big
ministry: (n) government, clergy,
ministration, department, office,
administration, clericals, presbytery,
the desk, the cloth, prelacy
minor: (adj) little, lower,
insignificant, junior, small, lesser,
slight, petty; (adj, n) inferior; (n)
child, juvenile. ANTONYMS: (adj)
significant, important, overriding,
leading, superseding, main,
fundamental, chief, basic, serious;
(adj, n) senior
miracle: (adj, n) wonder, prodigy; (n)
phenomenon, mystery,
wonderwork, surprise, sensation,
event, theurgy, astonishment,
amazement
mirror: (v) imitate, reflect, reproduce,
represent; (n, v) copy, echo; (n)
looking glass, looking-glass; (adj, n)
standard, pattern, model
misbehaved: (adj) disrespectful
miserable: (adj, v) forlorn, wretched,
unhappy; (adj) mean, low, abject,
deplorable, downcast, bad, desolate;
(adj, adv) meager. ANTONYMS:
(adj) happy, generous, cheerful,
cheery, bright, fortunate, hopeful,
jubilant, luxurious, overjoyed,
heavenly
misery: (adj, n) grief; (n, v) distress;
(n) affliction, agony, anguish, woe,
hardship, evil, ill, infelicity,
suffering. ANTONYMS: (n) joy,
ecstasy, cheerfulness, fun,
hopefulness, peace, contentment,
pleasure, wealth, sport, cheer
missed: (adj) lost, irretrievable,
incomprehensible, bemused,
confounded, befuddled, baffled,
disoriented, helpless, at sea,
bewildered
missing: (adj) absent, wanting, gone,
deficient, away, nonexistent,
misplaced, vanished; (v) lost; (n)
omission; (adv) missingly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) found, real
mission: (n) job, delegation,
deputation, goal, legation,
assignment, duty, charge, chore,
errand, task
mistake: (n, v) miss, blunder, err,
slip; (n) failure, error,
misconception, misapprehension,
defect, demerit; (v) misapprehend.
ANTONYMS: (v) appreciate,
distinguish, interpret

270
mistaken: (adj) wrong, erroneous,
false, misguided, inaccurate,
fallacious, untrue, misleading,
confused, improper, error.
ANTONYMS: (adj) accurate, wise,
right
mistress: (n) dame, concubine,
madame, inamorata, lady, lover,
fancy woman, doxy, girl, kept
woman, missis
misunderstanding: (n)
misapprehension, disagreement,
misconception, misinterpretation,
error, misconstruction, dispute,
quarrel, mistaking; (n, v) dissension,
difference. ANTONYMS: (n)
harmony, fact, agreement,
understanding
mixture: (n) mix, alloy, concoction,
hodgepodge, blend, jumble, medley,
assortment, miscellany,
combination, commixture.
ANTONYMS: (n) agitation,
uniformity, likeness
mode: (n) means, method, form, way,
style, custom, condition, guise; (n, v)
manner, fashion, wise
modeled: (adj) sculpturesque,
sculptured, shapely, graven,
sculptural
modem: (n) electronic equipment
momentary: (adj) brief, fugitive,
transient, short, instantaneous,
ephemeral, passing, momentaneous,
temporary, impermanent, temporal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lasting, lengthy,
long
monday: (n) Sunday, Whitmonday
monkey: (n) imp, primate, scamp,
rascal, battering ram; (v) tinker,
meddle, tamper, trifle, cuckoo, echo
monomania: (adj, n) madness,
fanaticism, frenzy, derangement,
aberration, alienation, insanity,
lunacy; (adj) infatuation; (n) passion,
craze
monster: (n) beast, fiend, devil, freak,
brute, demon, ogre, leviathan,
behemoth, monstrosity; (adj) huge
monstrous: (adj) huge, atrocious,
heinous, monster, immense,
gigantic, grievous, ugly, flagitious,
dreadful; (adj, v) grotesque.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tiny, minute,
beautiful, good, small, lovely,
attractive
mood: (adj, n) humor, frame of mind;
(n) atmosphere, climate, disposition,
attitude, air, feeling, mode, temper,
temperament
moody: (adj) gloomy, dark, irritable,
morose, capricious, glum, grumpy,

Winesburg, Ohio
fickle, petulant, dour, sullen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) equable, happy,
reliable, stable, calm
moon: (adj) lunar; (n) month,
moonshine, satellite, moonlight,
luck, lunar month, GHURRY, epoch,
orb of night; (v) daydream
moonlight: (adj, n) moonshine; (n)
moonbeam, moonglade, occupation,
lunation, lunar month, labor; (n, v)
work; (v) pilfer, do work; (adj)
moonshiny
moral: (n) lesson, meaning; (adj)
good, decent, right, honest, virtuous,
proper, chaste, upright, righteous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bad,
unwholesome, unethical, amoral,
decadent, wrong, unjust, sinful,
irreverent, dishonorable, degenerate
morose: (adj) grim, dismal, glum,
dark, moody, grumpy, dour,
depressed, sullen, blue, dejected.
ANTONYMS: (adj) happy, cheery,
stable
mostly: (adv) generally, chiefly, for
the most part, ordinarily, in general,
above all, mainly, primarily,
principally, more often than not, by
and large. ANTONYM: (adv)
partially
motherly: (adj) tender, fatherly,
warm, sisterly, loving, affectionate;
(adv) maternally; (v) ardent, fond,
devoted, erotic. ANTONYM: (adj)
paternal
motif: (n) design, idea, reason, theme,
subject, pattern, motive, figure,
melodic theme, inducement,
thought
motionless: (adj) inactive, inert,
immobile, stationary, fixed,
unmoving, quiescent, dead, torpid;
(adj, adv) calm, at rest.
ANTONYMS: (adj) mobile, active,
alive, flowing
motor: (v) drive, ride, travel; (n)
automobile, machine, electric motor,
car, locomotive, conductor, auto;
(adj) motive
mould: (n, v) mildew, cast, form,
model; (v) make, frame, knead,
fashion, forge; (n) molding, matrix
mounted: (adj) equestrian, mounting,
mounts, set, firm, affixed, decorated.
ANTONYM: (adj) unmounted
mounting: (n, v) mount; (adj, n)
climbing; (n) ascent, setting, climb,
frame, assembly, chassis,
framework, ascension; (adj, adv)
rising
mouse: (v) sneak, creep, steal, snoop,
seek; (n) track, hunt, field mouse,

fieldmouse, trace; (adj) small fry
muddle: (adj, n) mess; (n, v) clutter,
disorder; (adj, v) confuse, fluster,
bewilder, perplex; (adj, n, v)
blunder; (v) addle, botch; (n)
disarray. ANTONYMS: (v)
enlighten, sharpen, soothe, organize,
disentangle, tidy, clarify; (n) space,
clarity, neatness
muddler: (n) bungler
muddy: (adj) turbid, filthy, boggy,
cloudy, dark, unclean, dingy, grimy,
miry; (adj, v) foul, sloppy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, dry; (v)
clarify, cleanse
multitude: (n) flock, horde, crowd,
host, throng, concourse, mob,
masses, mass, herd, swarm.
ANTONYM: (n) trickle
murder: (n, v) massacre, carnage,
slaughter, homicide, butcher; (v)
kill, slay, destroy, execute, dispatch,
assassinate
murmur: (n, v) grumble, mumble,
hum, whisper, mutter, whine,
babble, drone; (v) complain, bubble,
breathe
musical: (adj) harmonious, melodic,
sweet, canorous, tuneful, dulcet,
mellifluous, pleasing, lyrical; (n)
musical comedy, music.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unmusical,
grating, harsh, inharmonious,
unmelodious
musician: (n) singer, composer,
instrumentalist, minstrel,
clarinettist, lutenist, director,
choirmaster, accompanist,
harpsichordist, harpist
mustache: (n) mustachio, mastax,
moustachio, beard, whisker,
whiskers, toothbrush, hair,
handlebar mustache, body hair,
facial hair
mustard: (n) Chinese mustard,
charlock, Indian mustard, GAI Choi,
colza, eagerness, cruciferous
vegetable, rape, mustard greens,
field mustard, condiment
musty: (adj) fusty, rancid, stale,
mouldy, rank, bad, obsolete,
antiquated, stuffy, threadbare, trite.
ANTONYMS: (adj) airy, modern
muted: (adj) muffled, subdued, quiet,
silent, dim, hollow, low, faint,
restrained, hushed, soft.
ANTONYMS: (adj) upbeat, noisy,
lurid, vivid, warm, strong, dark,
clear, bright, audible, harsh
muttered: (adj) garbled, incoherent,
broken, inarticulate
muttering: (n) grumbling, mutter,

Sherwood Anderson
murmuring, grumble, murmuration,
murmur vowel, complaint, heart
murmur, cardiac murmur; (adj)
mumbling, faint
mutual: (adj) common, communal,
joint, bilateral, collective, public,
united, concerted, shared, alternate;
(adv) mutually. ANTONYMS: (adj)
individual, unilateral, private,
solitary
mysterious: (adj) inscrutable,
incomprehensible, deep, eerie,
inexplicable, obscure, abstruse, dark,
cryptic, secret, arcane. ANTONYMS:
(adj) known, apparent, normal,
open, explicable, facile, obvious,
simple, legible, familiar, transparent
mystery: (n) arcanum, enigma,
mysteriousness, secrecy, puzzle,
craft, perplexity, poser,
inscrutability, whodunit; (adj, n)
secret. ANTONYMS: (n)
explanation, openness
nail: (n, v) arrest, capture; (v) catch,
collar, apprehend, hook, strike, hit,
fasten, nab; (adj, n) pin.
ANTONYMS: (v) unfasten, detach
nailed: (adj) fixed, tight, stationary,
stable, secure, decided, firm,
immobile
naked: (adj, v) bare; (adj) nude,
exposed, open, barren, raw, bleak,
unclothed, defenseless, au naturel,
defenceless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
covered, concealed, hidden, dressed
named: (adj, v) called; (adj)
nominative, nominal, chosen,
appointed, nominated, designated,
titled, specified; (v) benempt,
ycleped
narration: (n) description, recital,
narrative, explanation, history, tale,
report, relation, story, recitation,
rehearsal
narrow: (adj, adv, v) close; (adj)
limited, insular, little, illiberal; (v)
limit, contract, lessen, constrict,
shrink; (adj, v) confined.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wide, broad,
comprehensive, extensive,
worldwide, substantial, deep; (v)
widen, extend, broaden, increase
narrowed: (adj) narrow, narrower,
pointed, lessened, contracted,
constricted, conical, angustate,
tapering
nasty: (adj) dirty, foul, filthy,
disgusting, awful, mean, repulsive,
raw, hurtful, coarse; (adj, n)
obnoxious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
agreeable, pleasant, nice, charitable,
lovely, delightful, friendly, tasty,

charming, safe, respectful
naturally: (adv, int) of course; (adv)
spontaneously, unaffectedly,
natively, openly, essentially, course,
by nature, understandably,
normally; (adj, adv) innately.
ANTONYMS: (adv) artificially,
surprisingly, uncharacteristically,
pretentiously, unusually,
abnormally, affectedly, shyly
nearby: (adj) close, contiguous,
adjoining, at hand, adjacent, nearest;
(prep) about, by; (adv) beside,
around; (adv, prep) next to.
ANTONYMS: (adj) remote,
inaccessible; (adj, adv) faraway, far
nearest: (adj) proximate, immediate,
close, near, next, adjoining, intimate,
direct, adjacent; (adj, adv) nighest;
(adv) fore. ANTONYM: (adj) distant
neat: (adj) elegant, tidy, clear, natty,
graceful, dainty, pretty, clever, pure,
straight, nifty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
messy, scruffy, unkempt, clumsy,
disordered, disorderly, diluted,
large, lax, impulsive, loose
necessity: (n) demand, need, lack,
exigency, essential, compulsion,
emergency, distress, must,
constraint, necessary. ANTONYMS:
(n) inessential, treat, unimportance,
luxury
neck: (n) cervix, nape, neckband,
neckline, isthmus; (v) make out, pet,
love, cut; (adj) stricture, middle
constriction
needless: (adj, v) unnecessary,
superfluous; (adj) futile,
dispensable, bootless, excessive,
preventable, meaningless, pointless,
wanton, unavailing. ANTONYMS:
(adj) essential, worthwhile,
inevitable, justifiable
negative: (v) gainsay, disavow,
negate, kill, deny; (adj) minus,
denying, adverse; (n, v) veto; (n)
negation, denial. ANTONYMS: (adj)
positive, optimistic, assenting,
constructive, useful, neutral,
hopeful, helpful, harmless,
flattering; (n) plus
neglected: (adj) dilapidated,
disregarded, ignored, deserted,
derelict, forsaken, obsolete,
antiquated, antique, shabby,
unnoticed. ANTONYM: (adj)
salubrious
negligence: (n) carelessness,
disregard, dereliction, inattention,
indifference, delinquency,
heedlessness, neglectfulness, laches,
inattentiveness, laxity.

271
ANTONYMS: (n) attention,
diligence, vigilance, caution,
carefulness, concern, exactness,
thoughtfulness, regard, decency,
concentration
neighbor: (v) abut, adjoin, populate,
touch; (n) acquaintance,
neighborhood, national; (adj)
neighborly, neighbouring,
neighboring, adjacent. ANTONYM:
(n) foreigner
neighborhood: (n) vicinity, district,
area, community, locality, place,
quarter, environs, section; (adj)
neighboring, local
neighboring: (adj, adv) adjacent,
near; (adj) adjoining, nearby,
contiguous, neighbor, abutting,
next, neighborly, nigh, next to.
ANTONYMS: (adj) distant, remote,
far, national
neighbors: (n) neighbourhood
nerve: (n) cheek, audacity, boldness,
brass, impudence, heart, mettle,
daring, courage, face, fortitude.
ANTONYMS: (n) cowardice,
timidity, reticence, respect
nerves: (n) nervousness, jitters,
jumpiness, jitteriness, restlessness,
tension, strain, screaming meemies,
apprehension, edginess, extreme
nervousness. ANTONYM: (n) calm
nervous: (adj) anxious, excitable,
afraid, uneasy, shy, fearful,
apprehensive, firm; (adj, v) tense;
(adj, adv) cowardly, excited.
ANTONYMS: (adj) brave, relaxed,
bold, composed, confident, fearless,
untroubled, unflappable, still,
unconcerned, carefree
nervously: (adv) edgily, anxiously,
timidly, worriedly, uneasily,
restlessly, timorously, skittishly,
excitedly, neurotically,
apprehensively. ANTONYMS: (adv)
confidently, boldly, fearlessly,
unconcernedly, nonchalantly,
trustingly
neurotic: (adj) unstable, jittery,
excitable, disturbed, neural,
overwrought, edgy, fussy; (adj, n)
psychoneurotic; (n) mental case,
sufferer. ANTONYMS: (adj)
modern, stable, unneurotic, rational,
calm
newly: (adv) freshly, recently, lately,
new, late, novelly, unusedly, anew,
fresh; (adj, adv) afresh; (adj) recent
newspaper: (n) magazine, paper,
gazette, news, periodical, print,
publisher, press, publication,
newsprint, weekly

272
newspapers: (n) press, papers, the
media, journalists, reporters
nibbling: (n) rate cutting, feeding,
eating
nicety: (n) detail, exactness,
fastidiousness, nuance, refinement,
exactitude, justness, precision,
correctness, daintiness, elegance
nightdress: (n) nightclothes, nightie,
nightwear, nightshirt, pajamas,
night robe, lingerie, night clothes
nightgown: (n) nightie, nightclothes,
nightwear, pajamas, bedgown,
nightshirt, night clothes, night robe,
lingerie
nights: (adj) nightly; (n) night
noise: (n, v) clatter, echo; (n) clamor,
hubbub, racket, sound, disturbance,
uproar, din, buzz, clang.
ANTONYMS: (n) silence, quiet,
quietness, sense
noiselessly: (adv) silently,
soundlessly, stilly, softly, mutely,
delicately, wordlessly, gently,
speechlessly; (adj, adv) stealthily;
(adj) noiseless. ANTONYMS: (adv)
heavily, audibly
noisily: (adv) clamorously,
boisterously, vociferously, riotously,
raucously, uproariously, loudly,
blatantly, rowdily, stridently,
vocally. ANTONYMS: (adv)
noiselessly, silently, calmly,
peacefully, softly
noisy: (adj) boisterous, loud,
vociferous, clamorous, turbulent,
tumultuous, strident, blatant, shrill,
rowdy, vocal. ANTONYMS: (adj)
silent, peaceful, tranquil, calm,
noiseless, soft, restrained, placid,
orderly, gentle
noon: (n) high noon, noonday,
noontide, afternoon, hour,
dinnertime, crest, twelve noon; (adj)
meridian, meridional; (adj, n)
culmination
nose: (n) hooter, neb, nozzle,
proboscis, honker, bow, odour; (v)
wind, pry, scent; (n, v) sniff
notable: (adj) conspicuous,
celebrated, illustrious, eminent,
memorable, extraordinary,
renowned, famous, remarkable; (n)
luminary, celebrity. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ordinary, unknown, obscure,
unimpressive, undistinguished; (n)
nobody, nonentity
noted: (adj) famous, illustrious,
glorious, conspicuous, well-known,
known, celebrated, eminent, famed,
renowned; (adj, v) notorious
notes: (n) data, commentary,

Winesburg, Ohio
currency, paper, comments,
remarks, annotation, information,
ready money, observations,
newspaper
nothingness: (n) nothing, void,
nullity, nihility, emptiness,
insignificance, nonentity, blankness,
vacuum, cipher; (adj) nonbeing.
ANTONYMS: (n) being, importance,
significance
noticed: (adj) noted
noting: (adj) conscious
notion: (n) belief, idea, impression,
fancy, image, imagination, opinion,
conception, concept; (adj, n, v)
judgment; (n, v) caprice.
ANTONYMS: (n) trust, certainty,
fact, reality
notions: (n) belief, thinking, thought,
sundries, opinion, concept, ideas,
ribbon, philosophy, odds and ends;
(adj) irrational
novel: (adj) fresh, curious, modern,
unprecedented, different, original,
newfangled, recent, strange; (n)
fiction, romance. ANTONYMS: (adj)
traditional, hackneyed, stale,
unoriginal, familiar
nowhere: (n) obscurity, limbo; (adv)
not anywhere, nowhither, without,
not anywhither; (adj) tiresome,
vapid, uninteresting, tasteless,
prosaic
nurse: (n, v) nourish, nurture; (v)
look after, entertain, attend, cherish,
lactate, harbor, foster, cultivate,
cradle
nursery: (n) greenhouse, cradle,
nursery school, hothouse, seminary,
seedbed, nest, day nursery, creche,
hotbed, glasshouse
nurseryman: (n) gardener,
transplanter, grower, horticulturist
nuts: (adj) crazy, insane, balmy,
nutty, crackers, loopy, batty, barmy,
loony, dotty, daft. ANTONYM: (adj)
sensible
oath: (n) expletive, malediction,
imprecation, promise, affidavit,
cuss, swearing, pledge, assurance,
asseveration; (v) swear
oats: (n) Avena, grain, millet, cereal,
cereal grass, common oats, genus
Avena, Haver, holder, maize,
buckwheat
object: (n) cause, intent, meaning,
mark, subject, objective, substance;
(n, v) aim, end, intention; (v) except.
ANTONYMS: (v) agree, approve,
praise; (n) notion
objects: (n) things, stuff, matter,
material, substance

obscure: (adj, n) cloudy, dark; (adj)
gloomy, mysterious,
incomprehensible, hidden,
ambiguous, concealed; (adj, v)
darken, muddy; (v) hide.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clear, noticeable,
simple, obvious, distinct,
mainstream, famous, definite, overt,
plain; (v) reveal
observed: (adj) ascertained,
empirical, discovered, viewed,
experimental, experiential,
determined, visual, disclosed
obsessed: (adj) possessed, infatuated,
enthusiastic, haunted, hooked,
gripped, berserk, anxious, amuck,
amok, ambitious. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unenthusiastic, trusting,
uninterested, apathetic
obstacle: (n, v) hindrance, difficulty,
block, check, interruption, delay; (n)
drawback, barrier, hitch,
obstruction, bar. ANTONYMS: (n)
asset, aid, advantage, boost,
incentive
occasion: (n, v) cause; (n) case, event,
juncture, episode, incident; (v) bring
about, create, beget, make, induce
occasional: (adj) accidental, irregular,
incidental, infrequent, episodic,
intermittent, fortuitous,
adventitious, contingent, rare, odd.
ANTONYMS: (adj) frequent,
recurrent, addicted, regular,
common, continuous
occasionally: (adv) now and then,
from time to time, accidentally,
every so often, now and again,
sometimes, irregularly,
uncommonly, casually, every now
and then, fortuitously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) regularly,
usually, often, recurrently,
constantly
occupied: (adj) busy, engaged,
employed, diligent, active,
absorbed, engrossed, working,
industrious, affianced, betrothed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) empty, vacant,
uninhabited, available, free, idle,
liberated, unoccupied
occupying: (n) commencement,
employment, moving in, occupation
occur: (v) happen, come, fall, befall,
betide, chance, be, materialize,
develop, come up, appear.
ANTONYM: (v) disappear
o'clock: (n) period, hours
oddly: (adv) curiously, peculiarly,
strangely, funnily, queerly,
unusually, grotesquely,
extraordinarily, uncommonly,

Sherwood Anderson
singularly, weirdly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) ordinarily, typically, sensibly,
harmoniously
odds: (n) likelihood, probability,
possibility, chance, advantage,
likeliness, chances, disparity,
prospect; (v) dissension; (adj) odd.
ANTONYM: (n) unlikelihood
odor: (n) aroma, scent, odour,
bouquet, flavour, perfume, flavor,
savor, stink; (n, v) smell, stench
offering: (n, v) gift, grant; (n)
oblation, contribution, donation,
presentation, offer, present,
endowment, gratuity, bestowal
ohio: (n) Buckeye State, Ohio river
old-fashioned: (adj) obsolete,
antiquated, archaic, outmoded,
outdated, ancient, old, musty, corny,
behind the times, superannuated
oneself: (n) herself, himself,
themselves, personal, private,
selfness, self, yourself, me, person,
own
onlooker: (n) beholder, bystander,
spectator, witness, looker-on,
eyewitness, viewer, watcher, passer
by, sightseer, curious person.
ANTONYM: (n) participant
opening: (n) gap, break, aperture,
beginning, door, commencement,
entrance, hole, occasion, cleft; (adj,
n) preliminary. ANTONYMS: (adj)
final, last; (adj, n) closing; (n) exit,
finale, finish, ending, shutting,
postscript, conclusion
opera: (n) opera house, bouffe,
drama, or movie script, opera
bouffe, operetta, theater, script,
dramatic work, dramatic
composition, theatre
operating: (adj) running, working,
functioning, acting, operative,
effective, functional, operational, in
commission; (n) exploitation, going
operator: (n) driver, hustler,
manipulator, agent, doer,
telegrapher, telegraphist, speculator,
operative, welding operator,
identity
opposing: (adj) conflicting,
antagonistic, opponent, contrary,
adverse, hostile, antithetical, anti,
contradictory, rival; (prep) against.
ANTONYMS: (adj) compatible,
consistent, allied, accepting
opposite: (adj, n) contrary,
contradictory, opponent; (adj)
adverse, different, opposing, hostile,
diametric, opposed; (adj, pron)
other; (adj, adv) counter.
ANTONYMS: (adj) allied, alternate,

identical, like, same, parallel; (n)
sameness, alikeness, confirmation
oppressive: (adj, v) onerous, close,
burdensome; (adj) sultry, stuffy,
tyrannical, muggy, despotic,
dictatorial, gloomy, domineering.
ANTONYMS: (adj) liberal,
democratic, humane, free, tolerant,
airy, freezing, libertarian
oral: (adj) spoken, verbal, unwritten,
not written, sonant, parol,
nuncupative; (n) oral examination,
viva voce, examination; (v)
outspoken. ANTONYMS: (adj) anal,
aboral, silent
orange: (n) orangeness, orange tree,
Methyl orange, bergamot, red and
yellow, lemon, marmalade orange,
orange river; (adj, n) reddish yellow;
(adj) amber, ocher
orchard: (n) park, garden, plantation,
arboretum, avenue, pinetum,
shrubbery, woodlet, parterre,
pinery, copse
ordered: (adj) regular, arranged,
methodical, trim, orderly, lawful,
logical, consistent, coherent,
commanded, organized.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disordered,
disarranged, inconsistent
orderly: (adj) neat, tidy, exact,
regular, ordered, systematic, logical,
coherent, businesslike; (adv)
systematically; (n) attendant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unmanageable,
rowdy, wild, disorganized, untidy,
disorderly, confused, lawless,
messy, defiant, haphazard
orders: (n) holy orders, information,
preparation, remit, briefing,
guidelines
ordinarily: (adv) generally, usually,
regularly, normally, frequently,
customarily, habitually, routinely,
middlingly, plainly, familiarly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) unusually,
rarely, strangely, exceptionally
organized: (adj) organic, systematic,
regular, shipshape, orderly,
arranged, methodical, ready,
efficient, neat, tidy. ANTONYMS:
(adj) muddled, disorganized,
haphazard, unorganized,
unprepared, spontaneous,
unprofessional, disorderly
orgy: (n) debauchery, binge, debauch,
Saturnalia, bacchanal, drunken
revelry, riot, Bacchanalia,
pampering, rite, splurge
ostensibly: (adv) seemingly, on the
face of it, outwardly, evidently,
prima facie, allegedly, supposedly,

273
professedly, superficially,
manifestly; (adj) doubtless.
ANTONYMS: (adv) genuinely,
truly, underneath, actually
ought: (n, v) need; (v) had better,
should, have, possessed, owned,
owed, behoove; (n) aught, zero,
duty
outbreak: (n) explosion, eruption,
onset, outburst, burst, mutiny,
attack, flood, rash, revolt, spate
outburst: (n) explosion, spurt,
eruption, fit, burst, flash, effusion,
gush, ebullition, blast, rage
outcast: (n) exile, castaway, leper,
expatriate, outlaw, vagabond, lown,
loon, refugee; (adj, n) derelict; (adj)
homeless. ANTONYM: (n) native
outcome: (n) effect, consequence,
issue, product, fruit, development,
event, end, result, harvest, decision
outer: (adj) exterior, outward,
outside, extrinsic, outdoor, outlying,
peripheral, surface, utter,
extraneous, outmost. ANTONYMS:
(adj) internal, inner, interior,
inward, inside
outlines: (n) elements, conspectus,
prospectus, syllabus, alphabet,
grammar, contents, rudiments,
synopsis, textbook, ABC
outlook: (n) aspect, hope, expectancy,
view, angle, attitude; (n, v)
expectation, lookout, prospect,
anticipation, landscape.
ANTONYMS: (n) past, rear
outward: (adj) external, apparent,
extrinsic, outer, superficial, surface,
outside, ostensible, foreign, outdoor;
(adv) out. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv)
inward; (adj) inner, internal, deep
outwardly: (adv) exteriorly,
superficially, apparently, outside,
seemingly, without, ostensibly,
evidently, extrinsically, outerly,
outsidely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
internally, underneath
overalls: (n) overall, inexpressibles,
breeches, over-all, smalls, small
clothes, boiler suit, smock, coverall,
pantaloons, coveralls
overcast: (adj) dark, cloudy, dim,
dull, gloomy, heavy, muddy,
dismal; (n, v) cloud; (adj, v) obscure;
(v) darken. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sunny, clear
overcoat: (n) greatcoat, coat, cloak,
robe, topcoat, surcoat, coating,
overcoating, capote, chesterfield,
gown
overcome: (v) crush, subdue, beat,
vanquish, overpower, master,

274
defeat, hurdle, get over, overwhelm;
(adj) beaten. ANTONYMS: (v) fail,
lose, comfort, protect, resist,
surrender, capitulate; (adj)
unimpressed
overcoming: (adj) fortunate
overflowing: (adj) full, copious,
exuberant, flooding, bountiful,
generous, brimming, profuse; (n, v)
flood, inundation, deluge.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sparse, scarce
overgrown: (adj) excessive,
exorbitant, inordinate, extravagant,
monstrous, covered, exaggerated,
dropsical, lush; (v) turgid, tumid
overhead: (adv) aloft, on high, over,
up, high up; (n) expense, ceiling,
budget items, command processing
overhead, operating cost; (adj)
upper. ANTONYM: (adj) surface
overlooking: (adj) commanding,
dominating, ascendent, autocratic,
bossy; (n) oversight, omission,
neglect, general supervision; (adv)
neglectingly, beside
overlord: (n) lord, seignior, seigneur,
ruler, almighty, original, nobleman,
noble, master key, maker, captain
overmastering: (adj) deeply felt,
deep, lowly, profound
overnight: (n, v) travel; (adj)
nocturnal, temporary, meteoric; (n)
voyage, trip, tour. ANTONYM:
(adv) gradually
overpowering: (adj) overwhelming,
oppressive, resistless, compelling,
intense, heavy, strong, onerous,
devastating, uncontrollable,
depressing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
light, subtle, imperceptible,
insignificant, shallow, weak, faint,
bland
overseas: (adj, adv) oversea, abroad;
(adj) foreign, outdoor, outer; (adv)
over the sea, beyond the sea, afield;
(n) sea
overstatement: (n) hyperbole,
magnification, excess, amplification,
misrepresentation, deceit, too much,
overload, fish story, extravagant
exaggeration, enlargement.
ANTONYM: (n) restraint
overwhelmed: (adj) beaten,
overpowered, vanquished,
dumbfounded, inundated, flooded,
overthrown, engulfed, conquered,
bewildered; (v) overborne.
ANTONYM: (adj) unimpressed
overwhelming: (adj) devastating,
irresistible, insurmountable,
crushing, monumental, astounding,
amazing, tremendous, resistless,

Winesburg, Ohio
formidable; (v) overwhelm.
ANTONYMS: (adj) comfortable,
comforting, weak, mild, shallow,
insignificant, faint, disputable, easy
overworked: (adj) hackneyed, tired,
weary, banal, clichd, elaborate, old,
worn, unoriginal, trite, timeworn
owned: (v) owed, ought; (adj) own,
proprietary; (n) aught
owner: (n) proprietor, possessor,
holder, lord, landowner, landholder,
boss, proprietary, landlord, keeper,
employer. ANTONYMS: (n) tenant,
seller
ownership: (n) control,
proprietorship, dominion, keeping,
occupancy, community, lordship,
title, tenure; (adj) claim, right.
ANTONYM: (n) title
owning: (n) admission, avowal,
confession, courteous recognition,
acknowledgment
pace: (n, v) walk, gait, rate, march,
stride, footstep; (n) speed, tempo,
rapidity, tread, celerity
pack: (n, v) crowd, bundle, bunch,
load; (n) herd, company, bevy,
batch; (v) heap, compress, jam.
ANTONYMS: (v) unpack, unload,
disperse, empty, loosen
packed: (adj) full, compact, filled,
jammed, overcrowded, crammed,
dense, thick, congested, teeming,
cramped. ANTONYMS: (adj)
deserted, loose, open
painful: (adj) hard, difficult, sharp,
harrowing, grievous, afflictive, bad,
irritating; (adj, v) distressing, harsh,
bitter. ANTONYMS: (adj) content,
heartwarming, soothing,
comfortable, bearable, agreeable,
effortless, dull, slight, wonderful,
happy
paint: (n, v) color, tint; (v) daub, coat,
decorate, varnish, depict, enamel,
lacquer, apply; (n) painting
painted: (adj) colored, dyed,
coloured, motley, stained, tinted,
variegated, particoloured,
delineated, graphic; (v) depaint.
ANTONYM: (adj) unpainted
painter: (n) artist, colorist,
landscapist, impressionist,
miniaturist, dauber, halser, Felis
concolor, guy, cable, hawser
painters: (n) painter
painting: (n) portrait, likeness,
colouring, depiction, icon,
illumination, image, design, coat,
drawing, house painting
paints: (n) colors
pair: (n, v) match; (adj, n) brace; (n)

duet, duo, dyad; (v) join, mate, link,
copulate, equate, marry
pale: (adj) faint, wan, dull, weak,
light, bloodless, pallid; (adj, v) dim;
(n) boundary, confine; (v) blanch.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong, rosy,
brown, well, glowing, vivid,
healthy, clear, colorful; (v) redden,
darken
panes: (n) Fauni
pang: (n) pain, torture, ache, agony,
twinge, affliction, sting, stab,
distress, ailment, cramp
panic: (adj, n) dismay, horror, terror,
dread; (n, v) alarm, scare, shock; (n)
fright, anxiety, fear, flap.
ANTONYMS: (n) calm, calmness,
order, peace, bravery, security; (n, v)
comfort; (v) relax, soothe
paralysis: (n) anaesthesia, numbness,
apoplexy, akinesia, alalia,
paralyzation, disability; (adj)
consumption, decline, syncope,
sideration
paralyzed: (adj) palsied, crippled,
disabled, helpless, torpid,
powerless, prostrate, enervated,
dead, impotent, inert
parcel: (n) bale, pack, bundle,
package, packet, section, division,
batch; (n, v) portion; (v) distribute,
apportion
paris: (n) genus Paris, French capital,
City of Light, capital of France
parks: (n) Parkes, Rosa Parks, fowl
for decorative purposes in aviaries
parlor: (n) front room, lounge, sitting
room, saloon, salon, parlour,
parlors, livingroom, common room,
parlours, drawing room
partially: (adv) incompletely, in part,
unfairly, part, halfway, sectionally,
imperfectly, unjustly, prejudicedly,
discriminatorily; (adj, adv) half.
ANTONYMS: (adv) wholly, totally,
wholeheartedly, mainly, fairly; (adj)
fully
parting: (n) adieu, division, leave,
departure, disunion, goodbye,
leaving, segregation, dying, rupture;
(adj) valedictory. ANTONYMS: (n)
joining, meeting, connection,
Reunion
partly: (adj) half, semi, quasi; (adv)
part, constituently, in part, sidely,
moderately, halfway, incompletely,
relatively. ANTONYMS: (adv)
completely, wholly, entirely; (adj)
fully
passenger: (n) traveler, wayfarer,
occupant, itinerant, rider, stowaway,
voyager, hitchhiker, commuter,

Sherwood Anderson
passer, pilgrim. ANTONYM: (n)
driver
passer-by: (n) eyewitness
passing: (adj) transient, ephemeral,
momentary, cursory, brief; (n)
overtaking, departure, expiration,
decease, passage, death.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lasting,
thorough, intended, lengthy, long;
(n) birth, failing
passion: (n) affection, fire, fervor,
love, feeling, anger, enthusiasm,
heat, craving, desire; (n, v) ardor.
ANTONYMS: (n) apathy, hate,
serenity, meekness, hatred, doubt,
dislike, calmness, moderation
passionate: (adj, v) ardent,
impetuous; (adj) hot, excited,
burning, angry, fervent, fierce,
animated, earnest; (adj, adv) fiery.
ANTONYMS: (adj) indifferent, mild,
passionless, unenthusiastic, cold,
calm, halfhearted, cool, lukewarm,
weak, uninterested
passionately: (adv) fervently,
vehemently, violently, fiercely,
eagerly, zealously, fervidly, fierily,
enthusiastically, heatedly, stormily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) mildly,
apathetically, calmly, halfheartedly,
impassively, jokingly, gently
pasted: (adj) affixed
pastor: (n) minister, ecclesiastic,
cleric, divine, priest, parson, curate,
herdsman, churchman, chaplain,
celebrant
pastoral: (n) eclogue, idyll, idyl; (adj)
clerical, rural, rustic, idyllic,
countrified, Arcadian, country,
ministerial
patch: (v) piece; (n) plot, fleck, darn,
blot, freckle, bed, maculation, field;
(n, v) botch, repair
patent: (adj) overt, evident, apparent,
manifest, plain, clear, conspicuous,
open, palpable, explicit; (n) letters
patent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
inconspicuous, obscure, subtle,
unobtrusive, veiled, ambiguous,
furtive, questionable
pathos: (v) emotion, inspiration,
impression, affection; (n) poignancy,
pity, ruth, commiseration, grief,
poignance, sympathy
paths: (n) path
pathway: (n) lane, road, path,
footpath, course, trail, alley,
highway, way, tract, track
patient: (adj) forbearing, passive,
calm, enduring, resigned,
uncomplaining, tolerant, stoical,
lenient, meek, persistent.

ANTONYMS: (adj) intolerant,
annoyed, eager, harsh
patriotism: (n) nationalism,
nationality, love of country,
chauvinism, jingoism, loyalty,
public spirit, xenophobia,
Americanism, national character,
civism. ANTONYM: (n) disloyalty
patronage: (n) condescension, aegis,
clientele, favor, trade, backing,
assistance, countenance, auspices,
aid, championship
patter: (v) clatter, rumble, roll, rattle,
drum, scuttle, skip, tiptoe; (n) line of
gab, vernacular, jargon
paunch: (n) belly, abdomen, stomach,
corporation, pot, breadbasket, maw,
fat, gut, ventricle, potbelly
payer: (n) payor, liquidator, buyer,
remunerator, client, consumer,
customer, money dealer, money
handler, paymaster, person paying.
ANTONYM: (n) seller
paying: (adj, v) profitable; (adj) paid,
lucrative, salaried, stipendiary,
good, beneficial; (v) advantageous,
remunerative; (n) payment,
defrayment
peaceful: (adj) peaceable, quiet,
gentle, even, silent, meek, peace,
staid, placid, tranquil,
imperturbable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
aggressive, tense, noisy, turbulent,
disturbed, hostile, disruptive,
bothered, warlike, unpeaceful,
compulsory
peas: (n) beans, bean, bills
peculiar: (adj) particular, odd,
exceptional, different, extraordinary,
curious, eccentric, characteristic,
anomalous, abnormal, distinctive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) normal, typical,
common, universal, explicable,
conventional
peculiarly: (adj, adv) particularly,
curiously, unusually, uncommonly,
singularly; (adv) especially, oddly,
strangely, specifically, weirdly,
specially. ANTONYMS: (adv)
typically, ordinarily, slightly
pedantic: (adj) affected, donnish,
learned, bookish, formal, scholastic,
scholarly, didactic, full of
affectation, fussy; (adj, v) pompous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) basic, dilettante
peddler: (n) chapman, huckster,
vendor, packman, pedlar, pusher,
pitchman, dealer, drug peddler,
seller, drug trafficker. ANTONYM:
(n) user
pedestal: (n) bottom, foot,
groundwork, plinth, footstall, basis,

275
bed, pillar, dais, stand, platform
pedestrian: (adj) humdrum, ordinary,
earthbound, banal, trite, tedious,
hackneyed, prosaic, dull; (n) walker,
footer. ANTONYMS: (adj) exciting,
inspired, excellent, exceptional,
inspiring, original; (n) driver
peep: (n, v) glance, peek, look, gaze,
glint, squeal; (n) glimpse, cheep; (v)
chirp, peer, pry. ANTONYMS: (v)
stare, gaze; (n) examination
pencil: (n) beam, Pleiades, gleam,
light, group, cluster; (v) brush,
draw, design, paint, limn draw
penetrate: (v) bore, imbue, fathom,
infiltrate, pierce, permeate, cut,
filter, interpenetrate, get through,
enter
pennsylvania: (n) Penn, university of
Pennsylvania, pa, Keystone state;
(adj) Middle Atlantic, Maryland
penny: (n) change, coin, centime,
copper, groat, subunit, money, mite,
doit, small change, denomination
pension: (n) allowance, payment,
stipend, boarding house,
emolument, endowment,
guesthouse, lodging, retirement
pension, retirement; (v) retire
peopled: (adj) multinominal,
multiple, manifold, multiplied,
multitudinous, populous, inhabited,
thick, studded, teeming, crowded.
ANTONYM: (adj) uninhabited
perched: (adj) perked, alert, on the
edge, balanced, poised, on the brink,
suspended, perked up
perfect: (adj, n, v) consummate,
complete; (adj, n) absolute, full,
entire; (adj) exact, utter, thorough,
faultless, integral, exquisite.
ANTONYMS: (adj) flawed, faulty,
wrong, inferior, misshapen,
incorrect, defective, used, everyday,
unhappy, partial
perfectly: (adj, adv) entirely; (adv)
fully, thoroughly, consummately,
utterly, flawlessly, absolutely,
purely, totally, faultlessly, wholly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) badly,
imperfectly, incorrectly, wrong,
inaccurately, partially, partly,
poorly, unpleasantly, wrongly
perform: (v) execute, fulfill,
accomplish, do, achieve, complete,
carry out, behave, make, play,
appear. ANTONYMS: (v) omit,
rehearse, malfunction, stop
periods: (n) period
permit: (adj, n, v) give, allow,
consent; (adj, v) grant; (n, v) license,
leave; (v) admit, let, bear; (n) licence,

276
permission. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
ban; (v) prevent, prohibit, stop,
refuse, veto, outlaw, disagree, debar,
bar; (n) prohibition
permitted: (adj) allowed, permissible,
allowable, admissible, lawful, free,
approved, legitimate, legal,
legalized, venial. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unlawful, constrained
perpetually: (adv) eternally,
everlastingly, always, incessantly,
continually, endlessly, permanently,
unceasingly, ceaselessly, ever; (adj,
adv) forever. ANTONYMS: (adv)
erratically, sporadically
perplexed: (adj) confused, puzzled,
baffled, confounded, doubtful,
distracted, disconcerted; (adj, v)
intricate, complicated, lost,
involved. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unperplexed, assured, clear,
knowing
persistently: (adv) stubbornly,
constantly, continually, firmly,
tenaciously, unremittingly,
continuously, incessantly,
insistently, doggedly,
pertinaciously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
sporadically, acutely, aimlessly,
inconsistently, spasmodically,
halfheartedly
personality: (n) person, nature,
identity, celebrity, character,
temperament, disposition,
characteristic, essence,
individualism, public figure.
ANTONYM: (n) nobody
personified: (adj) embodied
perverted: (adj) perverse, immoral,
distorted, kinky, corrupt, twisted,
abnormal, debauched, deviant,
reprobate, unnatural. ANTONYMS:
(adj) normal, moral, unchanged
phaeton: (n) coach, tourer,
automobile, chariot, holidaymaker,
car, machine, auto, touring car,
motorcar
phase: (n) stage, facet, chapter, grade,
circumstance, condition, degree,
form, period, level, leg
philistine: (n) lowbrow, bourgeois,
cockney, pleb, boor, snooks; (adj, n)
barbarian; (adj) die-hard,
nonintellectual, pragmatic,
reactionary
philosopher: (n) thinker, bacon,
libertarian, gymnosophist,
empiricist, necessitarian, moralist,
theorist, wisdom, pundit, mechanist
philosophic: (v) platonic, staid,
stayed, stoical; (adj) thoughtful,
rational, patient, learned, ideologic,

Winesburg, Ohio
ideological. ANTONYM: (adj)
nonphilosophical
philosophically: (adv) calmly,
rationally, reflectively, thoughtfully,
wisely
photograph: (n, v) film; (n) picture,
image, photo, likeness, print,
portrait, copy, pic; (v) snap, shoot
phrase: (v) formulate, couch, put,
articulate; (n) expression, idiom,
diction, speech, passage, locution;
(n, v) word
pick: (n) alternative, best, option,
selection, choice; (adj, n) cream,
elite; (adj, v) select; (v) opt, harvest,
gather. ANTONYMS: (v) reject,
refuse
picked: (adj) select, chosen, best,
recherche, rare, priceless, preferred,
pointed, elected, named; (v) choose
picket: (n) watch, pale, palisade,
fence, post, stake, sentinel, sentry,
guard, piquet; (adj, v) moor
picking: (n) option, selection,
alternative, gathering, collection,
choice, harvesting, leavings,
collecting, indefinite quantity; (v)
choose
pictured: (adj) envisioned, portrayed,
graphic, delineate, delineated,
impictured, unreal, visualised,
visualized, impressed
pictures: (n) cinema, movie, movie
theater, footage, motion picture,
movie house
pieces: (n) debris, trash
piffle: (n) balderdash, rigmarole,
hogwash, nonsense; (v) chatter, talk,
gabble, twaddle, tattle, prattle, prate
pigs: (n) stock, hogs, Suidae,
livestock, litter, family Suidae,
domestic animals, cattle, boars,
sheep, farm animals
pike: (adj, n) crest; (n) halberd, point,
turnpike, autobahn, motorway,
mountain, muskellunge; (adj) bluff,
cliff, cone peak
pile: (n, v) heap, stack, mass, pack,
jam; (n) congeries, mound, bunch,
accumulation; (v) amass; (adj, n)
nap. ANTONYM: (v) unload
piled: (adj) heaped, dense, aggregate,
collective, concentrated, cumulous
pillow: (v) rest, breathe, lie, not
move; (adj) wadding; (n) throw
pillow, Wanger, bed pillow, feather
bed, long pillow, padding
pills: (n) medicine, tablets
pine: (v) languish, long, ache, droop,
flag, crave, fade; (n) fir; (n, v) yearn,
sink; (adj) peak
pink: (n) rose, crimson, gillyflower,

paragon; (v) knock, gore, impale,
stab, spike, spear; (adj) flower
pinwheel: (n) wheel, sparkler,
roulette wheel, rocket, pulley wheel,
firework, firecracker, explosive,
Catherine wheel
pioneer: (v) initiate, institute,
establish, found; (n) guide, explorer,
colonist, originator, leader, scout,
precursor. ANTONYMS: (n) native,
successor
pipe: (n) conduit, duct, flue, passage,
pipage; (n, v) channel, cry; (v)
squeak, sing, peep, screech
pipes: (n) musette, tubing, tubes,
pipe, tube
piston: (n) plunger, piston-knob,
valve, ram, mechanical device,
injection ram, diver
pitch: (n, v) fling, cast, degree, dip,
tilt, lurch, toss, throw, slant; (v)
chuck, hurl
pitched: (adj) oblique, thrown,
slanting, at an angle, leaning; (v)
fixed, pight, determined.
ANTONYM: (adj) level
pitcher: (n) jar, ewer, mug, pot,
hurler, creamer, container, pail,
bucket, flagon, tankard
pitching: (n) cast, lurch, nosing
motion, playing, slant, delivery,
lunge, stone facing, pitch shot; (adj)
inclined; (adv) headlong
pitiful: (adj, n) abject; (adj) pathetic,
lamentable, piteous, contemptible,
miserable, distressing, mean,
wretched, poor, sad. ANTONYMS:
(adj) generous, heartwarming,
admirable, cheerful, fine, happy,
impressive
pity: (n, v) compassion, ruth; (n)
mercy, commiseration, condolence,
sympathy, clemency, remorse; (v)
sympathize, compassionate, feel
sorry for. ANTONYMS: (n) blame,
cruelty, indifference, harshness, joy
placed: (adj) situated, laid, set,
positioned, arranged, fixed, sited,
collocate, determined, dictated,
hardened
placid: (adj) calm, composed,
easygoing, equable, gentle, quiet,
pacific, tranquil, cool, peaceable;
(adj, v) peaceful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
rough, energetic, stormy, frenetic,
excitable, agitated, unstable,
bothered, harsh, boisterous
plain: (adj) ordinary,
comprehensible, intelligible,
apparent, manifest, obvious, clear,
simple; (adj, n) flat, homely, humble.
ANTONYMS: (adj) elaborate,

Sherwood Anderson
unclear, multicolored, mottled,
ornate, concealed, attractive,
confused, fussy, obscure, patterned
plainly: (adv) evidently, manifestly,
clearly, distinctly, openly, obviously,
patently, overtly, definitely; (adj,
adv) frankly, honestly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) imperceptibly,
vaguely, obscurely, figuratively,
unclearly, politely, incoherently,
implicitly, finely, ambiguously,
covertly
plaintively: (adv) piteously,
sorrowfully, mournfully, pitifully,
ruefully, grievously, lugubriously,
pathetically, woefully, lamentingly,
wistfully
planned: (adj) deliberate, intentional,
calculated, designed, aforethought,
scheduled, premeditated, plotted,
prepared, future, studied.
ANTONYMS: (adj) spontaneous,
unplanned, ingenuous, accidental
planted: (adj) ingrained, established,
set, concealed
planting: (n) plantation, positioning,
position, cultivation, transplanting,
set, planting system, husbandry,
placement, locating, farming
plaster: (n) mortar, paste, gum, glue,
bandage, cataplasm; (v) daub, paint;
(n, v) cement, stucco, poultice.
ANTONYM: (v) uncover
platform: (n) dais, stand, stage,
rostrum, quay, pulpit, plan, landing,
ambo; (adj, n) floor; (n, v) program
playful: (adj) frisky, humorous,
kittenish, mischievous, skittish,
impish, naughty, merry,
lighthearted, frivolous, frolicsome.
ANTONYMS: (adj) serious,
lethargic, solemn, staid, subdued,
heavy
playwright: (n) writer, author, play
writer, scriptwriter, screenwriter,
Hugoesque, playwriter, rice, wilder,
scribe, playmaker
plead: (v) entreat, implore, beg,
adjure, petition, ask, appeal, defend,
invoke, sue; (n, v) allege.
ANTONYMS: (v) answer, demand
pleading: (adj) importunate,
imploring, beseeching, appealing,
suppliant; (n) defense, replication,
demurrer, defence, advocacy,
argument
pleasant: (adj) jolly, amiable,
agreeable, acceptable, nice,
charming, kindly, facetious, joyful,
pretty; (adj, v) pleasing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disgusting,
horrible, repugnant, nasty,

gruesome, unwelcome, harsh,
shocking, disagreeable, foul, terrible
pleased: (adj) contented, glad,
delighted, content, joyful, thankful,
gratified, appreciative, overjoyed,
cheerful; (adj, v) elated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhappy,
annoyed, angry, worried, ashamed,
disappointed, frustrated, sad,
unsatisfied, ungrateful,
uncomplimentary
pleasing: (adj, n) acceptable; (adj)
amiable, lovable, amusing,
attractive, gratifying, lovely,
pleasant, charming, delightful,
inviting. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unpleasant, unwelcome, infuriating,
disappointing, straight, hurtful,
maddening, displeasing, discordant,
harsh, frustrating
pleasure: (n) fun, enjoyment,
delectation, joy, comfort, happiness,
mirth, inclination; (n, v)
contentment, content; (adj, n, v)
gratification. ANTONYMS: (n)
irritation, nuisance, boredom, ache,
displeasure, dissatisfaction, misery,
pain, sadness, worry, anguish
pleasures: (n) pleasure
plenty: (adj, n) affluence, opulence;
(n) many, much, plenteousness,
copiousness, plenitude, exuberance,
galore; (adj, adv) enough; (adj)
adequate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
insufficient, inadequate; (n) scarcity,
insufficiency; (adv) insufficiently
plot: (n, v) plan, intrigue, cabal, plat,
scheme, design, chart; (n) lot, patch,
graph; (v) conspire
plowing: (v) tilling, sowing; (n)
tillage, aration, country, cultivation,
earth, land
pluck: (adj, n) nerve; (v) cull, jerk,
gather, pick, fleece, grab; (n) grit,
courage, boldness; (n, v) pull.
ANTONYMS: (n) cowardice,
gutlessness; (v) undercharge
plunder: (n, v) pillage, spoil; (v)
despoil, harry, devastate, maraud,
destroy, strip, ransack; (n) booty,
depredation
plush: (adj) lush, splendid, opulent,
sumptuous, luxuriant, luxurious,
rich, gorgeous, swish, deluxe,
magnificent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
meager, austere, shabby, Spartan,
cheap
pocket: (v) take, appropriate, steal,
lift, catch; (n, v) sack, pouch; (n)
cavity, hole, hollow; (adj) digest.
ANTONYM: (v) return
pocketbook: (n) bag, handbag,

277
notebook, wallet, notecase, reticule,
billfold, jotter, finances, pocket
book, paperback
poet: (n) singer, songster, elegist,
author, Gilbert, maker, lyricist,
muse, versifier; (adj) poet laureate,
Shakespearean
poetic: (adj) poetical, artistic,
rhetorical, lyrical, imaginative,
beauteous, elegiac, graphic, fanciful,
metrical, figurative. ANTONYM:
(adj) prosaic
poetry: (n) verse, poesy, song, rhyme,
style, poetics, epos, poems, stanza,
doggerel, tuneful Nine
pointless: (adj) flat, aimless, blunt,
futile, worthless, purposeless,
senseless, needless, fruitless, useless,
stupid. ANTONYMS: (adj)
meaningful, useful, sensible,
purposeful, pointed, necessary
poison: (adj, v) contaminate, taint; (n,
v) envenom, drug, empoison; (adj)
toxic, poisonous; (v) defile,
intoxicate; (n) bane, venom.
ANTONYMS: (n) cure; (v) clean
policeman: (adj) patrolman; (n)
officer, police officer, cop, fuzz,
constable, police constable, trooper,
detective, inspector; (adj, n)
watchman
polite: (adj) cultured, gentle, courtly,
civil, refined, proper, genteel, kind,
attentive, friendly, complaisant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) rude,
discourteous, boorish, improper,
abusive, common, authoritative,
disobedient, uncivilized, uncivil,
curt
politely: (adv) kindly, civilly,
respectfully, properly, graciously,
urbanely, elegantly, gallantly,
genteelly, refinedly, considerately.
ANTONYMS: (adv) rudely,
brusquely, discourteously,
disrespectfully, uncooperatively,
disagreeably
pompous: (adj) grand, arrogant,
ostentatious, affected, pretentious,
overblown, showy, inflated,
majestic, lordly; (adj, prep) bloated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) modest,
straightforward, unceremonious,
quiet, unassuming, natural,
deferential, relaxed, meek
pond: (n) lake, mere, pool, plash,
loch, fishpond, sea, tank, reservoir,
millpond, broad
pony: (n) crib, nag, trot, mustang,
clavis, cayuse, jigger, rendering,
racehorse, translation, version
pool: (n) plash, pond, lake, mere,

278
cartel, swimming pool, syndicate,
trust, kitty, basin; (v) merge
poorer: (adj) lesser, substandard,
subordinate, of inferior quality, not
as good as, lower, junior, minor.
ANTONYMS: (adj) superior, higher
porch: (n) lobby, hall, vestibule,
veranda, door, entrance, deck,
gallery, portico, balcony, inlet
portion: (n, v) division, lot, allot,
dividend, divide; (n) piece, parcel,
fragment, component, section; (adj,
n) constituent. ANTONYM: (n)
whole
possess: (adj, v) own; (v) hold, wield,
occupy, bear, keep, enjoy, contain,
retain, to have, maintain.
ANTONYMS: (v) lack, remove
possessed: (adj) mad, obsessed,
frantic, hysterical, furious, fanatical,
infatuated, insane; (v) ought, owed,
behoove. ANTONYM: (adj)
uninterested
possession: (n) occupation,
ownership, keeping, goods,
substance, tenure, property, grasp,
estate, domain; (n, v) acquisition.
ANTONYMS: (n) vacancy, sale
possessions: (n) means, belongings,
assets, goods, property, effects,
wealth, gear, things, possession,
riches
posture: (n) attitude, condition,
stance, deportment, aspect,
circumstance, manner, figure, mien;
(n, v) pose, place
potato: (n) murphy, white potato,
tater, spud, potato-ball, Solanum
tuberosum, vine, tuber, bittersweet,
eggplant, white potato vine
potatoes: (n) root crop
pounded: (adj) beaten, ground,
crushed, pulverized, minced, broken
up, milled
pounding: (n) beat, throb, pound,
hammering, pulsation, beating,
throbbing, buffeting, hammer,
thrashing, whipping
pour: (v) gush, shed, decant, scatter,
stream, flow, pelt, discharge, teem,
infuse; (n, v) overflow.
ANTONYMS: (v) drizzle, trickle
poured: (adj) concrete
pouring: (adj) gushing, teeming,
flowing profusely, burbling, burbly;
(n) casting, affusion, downpour,
effusion, tapping, baptism.
ANTONYM: (adj) light
poverty: (n, v) lack, destitution,
penury, need, indigence, want; (adj,
n) distress; (n) pauperism,
impoverishment, squalor,

Winesburg, Ohio
deprivation. ANTONYMS: (n)
wealth, riches, affluence, smartness,
luxury, prosperity, fertility, surplus
practically: (adv) usefully, nearly,
pragmatically, almost, effectively,
functionally, conveniently, about,
much, in reality, as a matter of fact.
ANTONYMS: (adv) theoretically,
unrealistically, foolishly,
romantically, irrationally, barely,
awkwardly, unreasonably,
recklessly
praise: (v) approve, extol, flatter,
celebrate, glorify; (n, v) commend,
compliment, honor, glory, acclaim;
(n) applause. ANTONYMS: (n)
criticism, disparagement; (v)
reprimand, disparage, reproach,
scold, belittle, rebuke, chastise,
denigrate, sully
praised: (adj) bepuffed, popular,
renowned
praising: (adj) praiseful,
commending, praise, flattering,
admiring, kind, complimentary,
bestowing praise, eulogistic,
commendatory, encomiastical
pray: (v) beg, implore, entreat, crave,
invite, plead, beseech, appeal,
importune, adjure, invoke.
ANTONYM: (v) reject
prayer: (n) invocation, plea, entreaty,
appeal, orison, request, suit, litany,
devotion, supplication, asking
prayerful: (adj) pious, holy, religious,
godly, earnest, devotional, solemn,
reverent, begging, entreating,
suppliant
praying: (n) prayer
preach: (v) lecture, exhort, moralize,
advocate, sermonize, urge, hold
forth, admonish, evangelize,
prophesy, moralise
preaching: (n) sermon, lecture,
homily, preachment, baccalaureate,
speech, pulpit, exhortation,
kerygma; (v) preach; (adj) hence
preceding: (adj, adv) anterior, earlier;
(adj) foregoing, former, previous,
prior, past, precedent, prevenient;
(adv) forward; (prep) before.
ANTONYMS: (adj) following,
succeeding, next, present
precious: (adj, n) beloved; (adj)
valuable, costly, cherished,
invaluable, expensive, golden,
choice, inestimable, exquisite; (n)
darling. ANTONYMS: (adj) cheap,
hated, shabby
precipitate: (adj, n) hasty; (adj, n, v)
deposit; (adj) impetuous, headlong,
sudden, immediate, instant,

precipitant; (n, v) accelerate,
expedite; (v) hurry. ANTONYMS:
(adj) overdue, cautious, protracted;
(v) retard
precise: (adj, v) accurate, careful,
close; (adj) correct, definite, minute,
particular, delicate, neat, certain,
clear. ANTONYMS: (adj) imprecise,
inaccurate, vague, rough, careless,
rushed, approximate, clumsy,
unscientific, wrong, slapdash
precisely: (adv) accurately, correctly,
strictly, truly, specifically,
meticulously, minutely, literally,
scrupulously, rigorously; (adj, adv)
just. ANTONYMS: (adv) clumsily,
indistinctly, approximately,
inaccurately, imprecisely, wrongly,
randomly, carelessly, poorly, wrong,
haphazardly
pregnant: (adj, v) significant; (adj)
meaningful, fraught, gravid,
expectant, enceinte, heavy, big,
meaning; (v) impregnate, conceive.
ANTONYM: (adj) nonpregnant
preoccupation: (n) obsession,
abstraction, fixation, preoccupancy,
engrossment, distraction,
abstractedness, reverie,
prepossession, hobbyhorse, brown
study. ANTONYMS: (n)
concentration, unconcern
preparation: (n) concoction,
provision, training, readiness,
practice, homework, formulation,
planning, prep, instruction, drill
preparatory: (adj, v) preparative;
(adj) introductory, preceding,
propaedeutic, prefatory, initial,
precedent, opening, antecedent; (n)
preparation, prior. ANTONYM:
(adj) final
preparing: (n) preparation,
manufacturing; (v) brewing,
prepare; (adj) preliminary,
forthcoming, coming
presbyterian: (n) Episcopalian,
presbyter
presented: (adj) conferred, offered,
given, presenting, existing,
accessible, obtainable, to be had, on
hand
presently: (adv) instantly, directly,
currently, before long, shortly, soon,
now, at present, readily, just,
actually. ANTONYMS: (adv) later,
now, formerly
pressed: (adj) compact, urgent,
printed, pressing, press, stamped,
pushed, impelled, incited, bound,
driven
pressing: (adj, v) exigent,

Sherwood Anderson
importunate, important; (adj)
imperative, immediate, imperious,
instant, critical, insistent; (n)
dishing, press. ANTONYM: (adj)
mild
presumably: (adv) presumptively,
apparently, supposedly, seemingly,
probably, in all likelihood, in all
probability, superficially, allegedly,
no doubt; (adj) doubtless
pretended: (adj, v) sham, mock,
counterfeit, pseudo, spurious; (adj)
assumed, fake, feigned, fictitious,
bogus, affected
pretending: (n, v) pretense; (n)
affectation, appearance, acting,
pretence, mannerism, dissembling,
pretension, deception, deceit; (adv)
pretendingly
pretty: (adj) fair, graceful, lovely,
handsome, attractive, charming,
good-looking, picturesque, dainty;
(n) nice; (adv) very. ANTONYMS:
(adj) plain, unattractive, modern,
inelegant; (adv) extremely
prevented: (adj) disallowed, barred,
banned. ANTONYM: (adj)
legitimate
pride: (n) arrogance, conceit, egotism,
vanity, lordliness, assumption,
insolence, disdain, hauteur; (n, v)
boast; (v) plume. ANTONYMS: (n)
modesty, sorrow, dregs, disgrace,
shame, baseness
priest: (adj, n) clergyman, divine; (n)
minister, ecclesiastic, churchman,
pastor, celebrant, parson, cleric,
presbyter, chaplain
primarily: (adv) chiefly, mainly,
originally, essentially, basically,
firstly, above all, largely, especially,
primitively, initially. ANTONYMS:
(adv) superficially, finally, lastly,
partially
prince: (n) lord, potentate, sovereign,
duke, king, chief, maharaja,
maharajah, ruler, magnate,
archduke
print: (n, v) mark, impress,
photograph; (n) impression,
engraving, printing, picture,
lettering, copy; (v) issue, engrave
printed: (adj) written, imprinted,
stamped, pressed, embossed, on
paper
prisoner: (n) captive, hostage,
jailbird, accused, con, gaolbird,
criminal, detainee, inmate,
defendant, unfortunate
privilege: (n) liberty, prerogative,
immunity, freedom, grant, franchise,
exemption, concession, claim; (n, v)

license, permit. ANTONYM: (n)
insult
prize: (v) appreciate, esteem, value,
cherish, admire; (n) plunder, award,
booty, premium; (n, v) treasure,
honor. ANTONYMS: (v) disrespect,
scorn, hate; (n) dud
procession: (n) march, convoy,
cortege, cavalcade, file, string,
pageant, series, sequence, progress,
column
proclaim: (v) declare, assert,
advertise, broadcast, promulgate,
enunciate, herald, decree, divulge,
notify, annunciate
proclaimed: (adj) announced,
indictive, declared publicly
producing: (n) production, output,
making, birth, childbirth; (adj)
fertile, generating, procreant; (v)
produced, to produce; (adv)
yieldingly
productive: (adj, v) fruitful; (adj)
fertile, plentiful, generative, helpful,
fat, copious, lucrative, inventive,
constructive, original. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unproductive, barren,
unprofitable, consumptive,
destructive, fruitless, idle, infertile,
unimaginative, indolent, negative
productiveness: (n) productivity,
fertility, fecundity, richness,
efficiency, efficacy, fertile invention,
utility, diligence, lushness, hard
work. ANTONYMS: (n) infertility,
sloth
profession: (n) employment,
declaration, occupation, affirmation,
calling, career, vocation, job,
position, assertion, assurance.
ANTONYM: (n) denial
proficiency: (n) ability, expertise,
capability, dexterity, competence,
efficiency, knowledge, expertness,
skill, facility, craft. ANTONYMS: (n)
inability, inexperience
profligacy: (n) debauchery,
dissipation, licentiousness,
prodigality, dissolution, depravity,
debauch, corruption, improvidence,
dissoluteness, vice. ANTONYMS:
(n) economy, decency, parsimony
profound: (adj) abstruse, intense,
heavy, important, sound,
bottomless, grave, obscure, utter,
abysmal; (adj, v) solid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) shallow, trivial,
lightweight, stupid, simple, mild,
facile, slight, insignificant, prosaic
profoundly: (adv) thoroughly,
extremely, intensely, exhaustively,
greatly, sincerely, gravely, deep,

279
heavily, weightily, very.
ANTONYMS: (adv) lightly, mildly
projecting: (adj) projected,
protruding, jutting, protrusive,
pendent; (adj, v) overhanging,
jutting over, salient; (v) beetling,
protuberant, convex
prolonged: (adj) lengthy, chronic,
extended, elongated, lengthened,
continuous, continued, expanded,
sustained; (adj, v) protracted,
lingering. ANTONYMS: (adj) quick,
short, temporary
promise: (n, v) covenant, guarantee,
contract, vow, bargain; (v) augur,
assure; (n) engagement, assurance,
plight, word
promised: (adj) pledged, affianced,
betrothed, busy, devoted, employed,
greatly interested, intended,
involved; (v) benempt, named
prompted: (adj) impelled, driven,
encouraged, provoked, pressed; (n)
contumely, abuse, discussions,
dictated, insult, invective
proof: (n) confirmation, probation,
authentication, sign, substantiation,
evidence, verification, validation,
argument, experiment, indication.
ANTONYM: (n) contradiction
prophecy: (n) oracle, augury,
prognostication, forecast,
vaticination, prevision, prediction,
prognosis, omen, revelation,
foreboding
propped: (adj) fulcrate
proprietor: (n) possessor, manager,
landlord, holder, host, keeper,
master, employer, patron,
proprietress, proprietary
prose: (n) style, writing, euphuism,
commonplace, prose writer, rap;
(adj) prosaic, maunder, palaver,
prate, prosy. ANTONYMS: (n)
poetry, verse
prostitution: (n) abuse, whoredom,
profanation, perversion, corruption,
pollution, desecration, misuse
protect: (v) keep, cover, preserve,
safeguard, conserve, vindicate,
screen, save; (n, v) guard, hide,
ward. ANTONYMS: (v) expose,
neglect, risk, intimidate, destroy,
harm, endanger, reveal
protected: (adj) guarded, immune,
secured, sheltered, saved, covered,
shielded, obtected, cosseted; (v)
protect, private. ANTONYMS: (adj)
vulnerable, harsh, insecure,
exposed, susceptible
protest: (n) demonstration, objection,
complaint, challenge, question; (v)

280
assert, object, complain,
remonstrate, demur; (n, v) moan.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) support, praise;
(n) approval, acceptance; (v)
approve, agree
protestant: (n) wasp, separatist,
sectary, schismatic, Romish,
presbyterian, pentecostals, heretic,
dissenter, Anabaptist, recusant
protruded: (adj) extant, outstanding
protruding: (adj) obtrusive,
projecting, jutting, protrusive,
salient, projected, bulging,
protuberant, noticeable, sticking out,
proposed
proud: (adj) lofty, disdainful,
haughty, exalted, egotistical, gallant,
pompous, lordly, majestic,
overbearing; (adj, v) dignified.
ANTONYMS: (adj) humble, modest,
ashamed, embarrassed, sorrowful,
disappointed, miserable
prove: (v) attest, manifest, evidence,
establish, show, examine, verify,
essay, check, corroborate; (adj, v)
confirm. ANTONYMS: (v) refute,
undermine
proved: (adj) tried, established,
tested, qualified, genuine,
demonstrable, apparent, confirmed,
reliable, faithful
provincialism: (n) dialect,
regionalism, illiberality, barbarism,
sectionalism, petit bourgeois
mentality, patois, partisanship,
partiality, idiom, broken English
psychic: (n) medium, visionary; (adj)
mental, psychical, paranormal,
ghostly, immaterial, inner,
telekinetic, intellectual, sensitive
psychically: (adv) clairvoyantly,
supernaturally, mentally,
psychologically, immaterially
publication: (n) issue, book,
proclamation, newspaper,
periodical, journal, promulgation,
volume, disclosure, declaration,
magazine
puckered: (adj) corrugated, wrinkly,
unsmooth, rough, inflated,
furrowed, cockled, bullate, creased
pull: (n, v) draw, drag, pluck, tug,
wrench, jerk; (v) draught, haul,
attract, pick; (n) attraction.
ANTONYMS: (v) repel, shove,
leave; (n) repulsion, repulsiveness
pulling: (n) pull, drawing, traction,
haulage, actuation, clout,
deracination, draughts, extirpation;
(adj) attracting, tractive
pulpit: (n) platform, dais, ambo,
lectern, hustings, stump, rostrum,

Winesburg, Ohio
forum, desk, stand, state
pulsating: (adj) vibrant, beating,
vivacious, resonant, rhythmical,
rhythmic, animated, exciting, lively,
pulsatile, pulsing. ANTONYM: (adj)
listless
pump: (n, v) interrogate, question; (v)
draw, milk, examine, squirt, push,
wield; (n) ticker, pumps, aspirator
punish: (v) amerce, discipline,
castigate, chasten, chastise, penalize,
strike, avenge, pay, beat, execute.
ANTONYMS: (v) excuse, exonerate,
pardon, reward, commend
punishment: (n) correction, penance,
chastisement, fine, judgement,
rebuke, retribution, reward,
castigation, execution; (adj, n)
penalty. ANTONYMS: (n)
persuasion, exoneration, reward
pupil: (n) learner, student, scholar,
disciple, apprentice, trainee,
schoolchild, novice, adherent, tyro,
collegian. ANTONYM: (n) expert
purchased: (adj) boughten, not
homemade; (prep) bribed
pure: (adj) absolute, natural, faultless,
innocent, immaculate, perfect, good,
clean; (adj, n) chaste, genuine; (adj,
v) mere. ANTONYMS: (adj)
contaminated, dishonored, diluted,
tainted, wicked, practical, polluted,
flawed, marred, unsaturated,
unchaste
purified: (adj) refined, clean, pure,
cleared, cleaned, cleansed, corrected,
chastened, sublimated, sanitary,
pured
purple: (adj) violet, lilac, imperial,
regal, royal; (adj, n) empurpled; (v)
empurple; (n) magenta, purpleness,
ermine, pall
purposeful: (adj) meaningful,
deliberate, firm, tenacious, willful,
calculated, conscious, studied,
businesslike, resolute, premeditated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) purposeless,
pointless, aimless, accidental,
worthless, indecisive
pursuing: (n) pursuit, search, hunt;
(adj) coming, engaged
pursuit: (n) quest, hunt, search,
persecution, chase, career, interest,
job, business, performance,
employment
pushing: (adj) enterprising, pushy,
pushful, ambitious, officious,
adventurous; (n) push, propulsion,
thrusting, actuation; (v)
meddlesome
puzzled: (adj) bewildered, confused,
baffled, nonplussed, doubtful,

bemused, at a loss, curious,
mystified, nonplused, dazed.
ANTONYM: (adj) clear
pyramids: (n) billiards, pingpong,
pool, bagatelle, jackstones, pushball,
hopscotch
quaintly: (adv) unusually, oddly,
curiously, weirdly, singularly,
peculiarly, queerly, strangely,
outlandishly, charmingly, pleasingly
qualities: (n) character, disposition,
nature, spirit, tone, quality, role, self,
part, traits, individuality
quantities: (n) quantity
quarrel: (adj, n, v) dispute; (n, v)
fight, feud, brawl, row, altercation,
argue, conflict, squabble; (n)
dissension, difference.
ANTONYMS: (n) agreement,
reconciliation, acceptance, concord,
consensus; (v) agree
quarreling: (adj) brawling, noisy,
discordant; (n) disagreement; (v)
argue
quarrelsome: (adj) argumentative,
belligerent, combative,
cantankerous, aggressive,
disputatious, ugly, currish,
termagant; (adj, n) contentious; (adj,
v) fretful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
agreeable, peaceful, amiable
quarryman: (n) quarrier, breaker,
cutter, quarry worker, stonecutter,
ledgeman, hewer
quarts: (n) quart
queer: (adj) fantastic, odd, eccentric,
funny, curious, gay, peculiar,
strange, quaint, fishy, outlandish.
ANTONYMS: (adj) conventional,
normal, well
queerness: (n) peculiarity, crotchet,
quirkiness, quirk, eccentricity,
oddness, unfamiliarity, strangeness,
singularity, mannerism, hook
querulous: (adj) petulant, irritable,
fretful, discontented, tetchy,
complaining, fractious, touchy,
cross, grumpy, grouchy
quibble: (adj, n, v) pun; (adv, v)
equivocate; (n, v) cavil; (v) evade,
fence, bicker; (n) evasion, quiddity,
equivocation, equivoque; (adj, n)
subtlety. ANTONYM: (v) accept
quick: (adj) bright, hasty, agile,
nimble, intelligent, clever, speedy,
active, immediate, instant; (adj, v)
prompt. ANTONYMS: (adj)
leisurely, dull, dim, thick,
unintelligent, thorough, inept,
unobservant, lengthy, long,
permanent
quiet: (adj, adv, v) still; (adj, n, v) lull,

Sherwood Anderson
hush, pacify, compose, appease,
assuage; (adj, v) moderate, cool; (adj,
adv) gentle, motionless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) noisy, talkative,
vociferous, active, oratorical, fierce,
vocal, unquiet, busy, disordered; (n)
noise
quieted: (adj) composed
quietly: (adv) stilly, calmly,
peacefully, silently, softly, smoothly,
tranquilly, serenely, restfully, lully,
moderately. ANTONYMS: (adv)
loudly, harshly, raucously,
vociferously, anxiously,
energetically, manically, unquietly,
clearly, heavily, brashly
quit: (adj, n, v) leave; (v) go, drop,
break, cease, give up, depart, end,
discontinue; (adj, v) discharge; (n, v)
part. ANTONYMS: (v) stay, occupy,
enter, maintain, start, come, arrive
quiver: (adj, n, v) shudder, shiver,
tremble, shake; (v) flicker, flutter,
vibrate; (n, v) palpitate, quaver; (n)
vibration, tremor
quivering: (adj, n) trembling, tremor,
quaking, trepidation; (n) palpitation,
quiver, vibration; (adj) flutter,
quavering, shivering, tremulous.
ANTONYM: (adj) steady
quixotic: (adj) impractical, dreamy,
visionary, fire eating, cavalier,
fantastic, adventurous; (adj, v)
utopian, unrealistic; (v) fanatic,
extravagant
rabbit: (n) cony, hare, lapin, bunny,
cottontail, leporide, shuttle, coward;
(adj) milch cow, seed plot, warren
rabbits: (n) order Lagomorpha, pikas,
Lagomorpha
races: (n) racing, athletics
racing: (n) overspeed, horse racing,
boat racing, athletics, camel racing,
greyhound racing; (v) contend; (adj)
fast
rack: (n, v) torment, wrack, Scud; (n)
manger, grid, cage, bracket, stand;
(v) excruciate, afflict, agonize
rage: (adj, n, v) fume, bluster; (adj, n)
wrath, indignation, frenzy, mania;
(n) passion, anger, craze,
exasperation; (n, v) storm.
ANTONYMS: (n) gentleness,
composure, calm, equanimity,
pleasure, serenity
ragged: (adj, n) shabby; (adj) seedy,
worn, hoarse, jagged, scruffy, torn,
untidy, unkempt; (adj, v)
threadbare; (n) harsh. ANTONYMS:
(adj) smart, elegant, smooth, new,
even
raging: (adj) hot, angry, fierce, irate,

wild, infuriated, enraged, vehement,
heated; (adj, n) mad, rabid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm, mild,
contained
rail: (n) balustrade, handrail, railing,
fence, banister, track, guardrail,
path; (v) inveigh, vituperate,
fulminate
railing: (n) balustrade, rail, barrier,
guardrail, banister, fence, pale,
paling, breastwork, handrail; (adj, n)
invective
railroad: (n) railway, railway system,
tram road, tramway, rails, doctrine;
(v) dragoon, push, coerce, bully,
dispatch
railroads: (n) railway
raindrops: (n) rain, raindrop
raining: (adj) rainy, showery, drizzly;
(n) woe. ANTONYM: (adj) dry
rains: (n) wet
rainy: (adj) moist, pluvial, damp,
pluvious, stormy, juicy, dirty,
soppy, raining, drizzly; (adj, v)
showery. ANTONYM: (adj) pleasant
raise: (n, v) lift, boost, increase; (v)
erect, hoist, grow, enhance, build,
elevate, promote, foster.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) downgrade; (v)
lessen, demote, decrease, level,
reduce, dismantle, knock; (n)
lowering, reduction, descent
raising: (n) bringing up, nurture,
elevation, lift, raise, culture, heave,
ascent, ascension, upbringing,
rearing
rambling: (adj) disjointed,
incoherent, desultory, discursive,
erratic, excursive, meandering,
diffuse, loose, errant; (adj, n)
wandering. ANTONYMS: (adj)
coherent, abrupt, conclusive, pithy,
taciturn, compact
ranch: (n) estate, property, spread,
cattle ranch, cattle farm, Arado,
merestead, plantation, paste; (v)
farm, raunch
rang: (n) rung
ranked: (adj) stratified, hierarchal,
graveled, hierarchical, bedded,
hierarchic
rankness: (n) foulness,
malodourousness, overgrowth,
scent, smell, exuberance, odour,
odor, body odor, plenty, profusion
ransom: (v) redeem, repair, extricate;
(n, v) rescue, blackmail, repurchase;
(n) deliverance, ransom money,
assessment, benevolence, excise
rapid: (adj, v) fast, swift, prompt,
fleet; (adj) speedy, agile, hasty,
cursory, expeditious, sudden; (adv)

281
quickly. ANTONYMS: (adj) slow,
gradual, considered, leisurely,
thorough, lengthy, protracted,
sluggish
rapidity: (n) expedition, quickness,
promptness, dispatch, celerity,
haste, velocity, pace, fleetness,
promptitude, speed. ANTONYM:
(n) tardiness
rapidly: (adv) promptly, speedily,
swiftly, quick, fleetly, hastily,
cursorily, readily, expeditiously,
fast; (adj, adv) immediately.
ANTONYMS: (adv) permanently,
gradually, thoroughly, eventually,
later, now
rapt: (adj) engrossed, intent, ecstatic,
preoccupied, spellbound, captive,
enthralled, attentive, fixed,
enwrapped; (v) engrossed in.
ANTONYMS: (adj) detached,
inattentive, uninterested, bored
rare: (adj) uncommon, thin, unusual,
seldom, scarce, precious,
exceptional, infrequent, few, choice,
fine. ANTONYMS: (adj) common,
frequent, usual, plentiful,
commonplace, recurrent
rarely: (adv) unusually, infrequently,
scarcely, seldom, singularly,
exceptionally, specially, sparsely,
hardly, sporadically; (adj) rare.
ANTONYMS: (adv) frequently,
usually, often, commonly
rattle: (n, v) jingle, jangle, clatter; (n)
click, clang, clack; (v) bang, confuse,
shake, patter, disconcert
rattled: (adj) hot and bothered,
perturbed, upset, unsettled,
puzzled, disconcerted,
discomposed, bewildered, beside
oneself, abashed, addled.
ANTONYM: (adj) calm
ravine: (n, v) gap, cleft; (n) chasm,
canyon, dell, defile, gully, glen, pass,
abyss, valley
raving: (adj, v) wild; (adj) frantic,
delirious, furious, mad, insane; (adj,
n) madness, distraction, rage; (n)
rabid, delirium
reaching: (n) reach, arrival, coming,
accomplishment, outreach, advent,
achievement, grasp, arriver, getting;
(adj) suspicious
reader: (n) professor, lector,
proofreader, subscriber, reviewer,
bookworm, printer, preacher,
compositor, schoolbook, scholar
readily: (adv) easily, lightly, freely,
quickly, immediately, instantly,
willingly, soon, eagerly; (adj, adv)
handily, smoothly. ANTONYMS:

282
(adv) grudgingly, eventually,
reluctantly, unenthusiastically
readiness: (n) facility, ease,
expedition, preparation,
promptness, knack, dexterity,
eagerness, quickness, fitness; (adj, n)
alacrity. ANTONYMS: (n)
reluctance, delay
readjustment: (n) adjustment,
accommodation, equilibration,
alignment, alteration, adaptation,
standardization, standardisation,
modification, fitting, reset
realism: (n) reality, fact, actuality,
naive realism, Platonism,
verisimilitude, philosophical theory,
realness, slice of life, philosophical
doctrine, pragmatism. ANTONYMS:
(n) inaccuracy, romanticism,
unreality
realistic: (adj) lifelike, practical,
graphic, truthful, pragmatic, realist,
feasible, actual, hardheaded, sober,
real. ANTONYMS: (adj) idealistic,
theoretical, unbelievable, naive,
impractical, impossible, fictional,
impracticable, unreasonable,
inaccurate, illogical
realize: (v) achieve, perform,
discover, attain, appreciate, make,
execute, complete, accomplish,
know, sense. ANTONYMS: (v) fail,
neglect
realized: (adj) accomplished, realised,
completed, effected, fulfilled,
caught, done, finished, highly
skilled, established
realizing: (n) thought
rear: (v) breed, raise, bring up,
nurture, educate, foster, nurse; (adj,
v) erect; (n) tail; (adj, n) posterior;
(adj) after. ANTONYMS: (adj, n)
front; (adj) fore; (n) head; (v) level
reawaken: (v) revive, rejuvenate,
reproduce, arouse, restart, stimulate,
breathe life into, awaken, bring
back, reanimate, revitalize.
ANTONYM: (v) calm
rebellious: (adj) insubordinate,
mutinous, disaffected, defiant,
disobedient, contrary,
contumacious, insurgent, stubborn,
unruly, malcontent. ANTONYMS:
(adj) docile, conventional, obedient,
conformist, content, conforming,
cooperative, loyal, meek,
submissive, obliging
recapture: (v) recover, retrieve,
retake, rescue, regain, get, redeem,
reclaim; (n) retrieval, seizure; (n, v)
salvage. ANTONYM: (n) loss
recipient: (n) addressee, receiver,

Winesburg, Ohio
payee, consignee, grantee, taker,
donee, heir, annuitant, assignee;
(adj) receptive. ANTONYMS: (n)
sender, donor, predecessor,
dispatcher, benefactor
reckless: (adj) careless, rash,
foolhardy, hasty, incautious,
extravagant, daring, desperate,
brash; (adj, v) imprudent, wanton.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cautious,
prudent, sensible, wise, responsible,
parsimonious, considered, safe,
guarded, dutiful, discreet
recluse: (n) hermit, anchoret, solitary,
ascetic, eremite, loner, troglodyte;
(adj) reclusive, secluded, cloistered,
withdrawn. ANTONYM: (n) native
recognition: (n, v) appreciation; (n)
identification, perception,
cognizance, acceptance, approval,
remembrance, admission,
acknowledgement, realization; (adj,
n) reception. ANTONYMS: (n)
rejection, concealment, infamy,
blame, ignorance
recognized: (adj) accepted, noted,
recognised, established, illustrious,
distinguished, standard, known,
notorious; (adj, v) received; (v)
ascertained. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unofficial, concealed, dubious,
informal
recollection: (n, v) mind; (n)
reminiscence, recall, anamnesis,
remembrance, recognition,
memento, memorial,
commemoration, memoir, retrospect
recover: (v) reclaim, get back,
recuperate, retrieve, regain, pick up,
get well, restore, heal, convalesce,
mend. ANTONYMS: (v) lose, die,
decline, aggravate, abandon,
worsen, scatter
recovered: (adj) cured, retrieved,
well, well again, healthier, aged,
improved, whole, better, corned.
ANTONYM: (adj) worse
recovering: (v) recover, regain,
restore; (adj) better; (n)
rehabilitation, recovery, rescue,
relaxation; (adv) getting better, on
the road to recovery, improving
recovery: (n) resurrection,
convalescence, rescue, reclamation,
retrieval, improvement, cure,
deliverance, recuperation, revival,
healing. ANTONYMS: (n) loss,
return, slump, deterioration,
disappearance, downfall
recurrent: (adj) repeated, recurring,
perennial, continual, frequent,
intermittent, periodical, serial,

persistent, cyclical, habitual.
ANTONYMS: (adj) occasional,
intermittent, irregular, isolated, rare,
single, unique, spasmodic
reefy: (adj) shoal, shelfy, shallow,
shoaly
reel: (n, v) coil, roll; (v) waver, rock,
stagger, totter, spin, teeter, falter; (n)
bobbin, spool
reeling: (adj) giddy, intoxicated,
tipsy, queer, lightheaded, groggy,
fuddled, bewildered; (n) titubation,
rotary straightening
refined: (adj) delicate, cultured,
graceful, polite, gentle, urbane,
courteous, courtly, cultivated; (adj,
n) polished, pure. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unrefined, raw, uncouth,
rough, careless, crude, brute,
boorish, plain, lowly, inelegant
reflected: (adj) reflecting,
reverberant, reflectent
reflection: (n) contemplation,
thought, deliberation, meditation,
musing, cogitation, idea, notion,
introspection; (n, v) observation,
reflexion. ANTONYMS: (n)
impulsiveness, confirmation
reflective: (adj, v) thoughtful,
meditative; (adj) contemplative,
musing, wistful, brooding, reflexive,
ruminative, museful, reflecting,
broody. ANTONYMS: (adj)
superficial, satisfied, shallow
reflector: (n) reflecting telescope,
repeller, reverberator, speculum,
paraboloid reflector, astronomical
telescope, catoptric telescope, coude
system, coude telescope, device,
reflecting surface
refrain: (v) desist, cease, fast, avoid,
leave off, withhold, stop, spare; (adj,
v) forbear; (n) chorus, hold.
ANTONYMS: (v) participate, act,
consume, persist
refreshed: (adj) invigorated,
rejuvenated, reinvigorated, new,
novel, revived, impudent,
energizing, overbold, energising,
clean. ANTONYM: (adj) tired
refusal: (n) denial, declination,
negative, rebuff, rejection, no,
prohibition, ban, repulse, negation,
exclusion. ANTONYMS: (n)
permission, acceptance, compliance,
approval, disposition, inclination,
affirmative, affirmation
refuse: (v) deny, reject, decline,
disallow, rebuff, turn down; (adj, n)
waste, trash; (n) offal, litter; (n, v)
dross. ANTONYMS: (v) allow,
receive, permit, offer, dedicate,

Sherwood Anderson
approve, agree, admit, choose, pass,
affirm
refused: (adj) forbidden, refuse,
prohibited, hence
regain: (v) retrieve, recoup,
recuperate, reclaim, recapture,
redeem, get, discover, feel, recall, get
back
regard: (n, v) respect, esteem,
attention, heed, concern, note; (adj,
n, v) notice; (v) estimate, believe;
(adj, v) attend; (n) deference.
ANTONYMS: (n) neglect, disesteem,
inattentiveness, disdain,
detachment, infamy; (v) ignore,
scorn, disregard
regarding: (prep) about, as regards,
for, on, towards, apropos; (adj, prep)
with regard to, with reference to;
(adj) as to, in regard to, in relation to
registers: (n) archive, chronicles
regret: (n, v) grieve, sorrow; (v)
bewail, lament, mourn, bemoan,
deplore; (n) remorse, penitence,
compunction, contrition.
ANTONYMS: (v) welcome, praise;
(n) idealism, shamelessness, joy,
satisfaction
regrets: (n) regret, declination, RSVP
regrets only, acknowledgement,
acknowledgment, celestial latitude,
excuse, Dec
regularly: (adv) usually, often,
normally, generally, steadily,
customarily, routinely, evenly,
frequently, always, habitually.
ANTONYMS: (adv) inconsistently,
constantly, rarely, erratically,
seldom, irregularly, rapidly,
intermittently, unevenly, unreliably,
exceptionally
rehearsal: (n) narration, dry run,
practice, preparation, repetition,
dress rehearsal, repeat, description,
drill, exercise, narrative
reins: (n) bridle, Reins of a vault,
reins of government, wheel,
gearshift, joystick, pedals, potency,
power, powerfulness
rejected: (n) rejection; (v) crossed in
love, forsaken; (adj) jilted, reprobate,
refused, refuse, disallowed,
abandoned, devastated, devastate
relative: (adj) related, comparative,
proportionate, proportional,
dependent; (n) cousin, kin, brother,
connection, kinswoman; (v)
kinsman. ANTONYM: (adj) absolute
relatives: (n) relations, kindred, kin,
kinsfolk, kinfolk, relationship,
affinity, relation, folks, intimates,
house

release: (adj, v) disengage, exempt,
free, liberate, deliver; (n, v) pardon;
(v) absolve, acquit, exonerate,
dismiss; (n) liberation.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) capture; (v)
imprison, confine, arrest, catch,
hold; (n) imprisonment, abduction,
involvement, preservation, custody
released: (adj) loose, liberated,
discharged, exempt, open, unbound,
release, emancipated, gratuitous,
free cells; (n) freer. ANTONYM:
(adj) imprisoned
releasing: (adj) cathartic, purgative,
psychotherapeutic, evacuant,
emotionally purging, emotional; (n)
acquittal
relieve: (n, v) ease, assuage, mitigate,
alleviate, allay, calm, redress; (v)
free, help, console, excuse.
ANTONYMS: (v) burden,
aggravate, exacerbate, harbor,
enforce, include, upset, depress
relieved: (adj) alleviated, thankful,
mitigated, prominent, pleased,
joyful, fresh, delighted, comfortable,
cheerful, happy. ANTONYM: (adj)
worried
religion: (n) piety, faith, creed, cult,
sect, denomination, church,
devotion, paganism, persuasion,
holiness
reluctance: (n) aversion, hesitation,
indisposition, distaste, disgust,
dislike, opposition, unwillingness,
repugnance, diffidence, scruple.
ANTONYMS: (n) readiness,
disposition, keenness, willingness,
enthusiasm
remaining: (adj) leftover, left over,
odd, surplus, extra, other, enduring,
lasting, residual, spare; (adv) over.
ANTONYMS: (adj) spent, finished,
left, gross, fleeting, basic, transient
remark: (n, v) comment, notice, note,
mention, regard, mind; (adj, n, v)
observe; (v) perceive, mark, discern;
(n) observation
remarkable: (adj) notable, odd,
noteworthy, exceptional,
distinguished, conspicuous,
phenomenal, famous, illustrious,
curious; (adj, n) memorable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) insignificant,
unremarkable, commonplace, usual,
average, unimpressive, normal,
inconspicuous, dreadful, dire, awful
remembering: (n) recollection, recall,
memory, identification, recognition,
remember, association, connection,
connexion, reminiscence,
remembrance

283
reminiscent: (adj) evocative,
remindful, indicative, suggestive,
redolent of, retrospective, aromatic,
aware, important, meaningful,
mindful
remorse: (n) penitence, contrition,
repentance, regret, guilt, penance,
sorrow, grief, qualm, ruefulness,
compassion. ANTONYM: (n)
shamelessness
renaissance: (n) rebirth, revival,
renewal, renascence, regeneration,
second youth, instauration,
resurrection, resurgence, restoration,
renovation. ANTONYMS: (n)
disappearance, decline
renewal: (n) revival, renaissance,
renovation, rehabilitation,
restoration, reclamation, update,
rebirth, reform, regeneration,
innovation. ANTONYMS: (n)
deterioration, disappearance
renewed: (adj) changed, born again,
new, fresh, redintegrate,
rehabilitated, transformed,
regenerate, reformed, Renate
rented: (adj) on loan, borrowed
repair: (n, v) redress, mend, correct,
cure, overhaul, fix; (v) patch, restore,
doctor, renovate, compensate.
ANTONYMS: (v) injure, arrive,
wreck, worsen; (n) breaking,
wrecking
repeat: (v) copy, recapitulate,
reduplicate, reiterate, rehearse,
return, say, double, renew, iterate,
duplicate
repeated: (adj) continual, recurrent,
frequent, persistent, repeat, double,
habitual, chronic, again, common,
continuous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
temporary, rare, unique, alternate,
unusual, spasmodic
repeating: (n) repeat, iteration,
renewal, repetition, redundancy,
copying, reduplication; (adj)
repetitious, iterating, iterative,
repetitive
repentance: (n) contrition, penance,
remorse, regret, compunction,
sorrow, guilt, contriteness, grief,
attrition, atonement. ANTONYMS:
(n) shamelessness, brazenness
replace: (v) supplant, exchange,
supersede, change, reinstate, restore,
put back, displace, shift, commute,
deputize. ANTONYMS: (v) keep,
restore, remove
replacing: (n) displacement,
exchange, switch, substitution,
substitute, refilling, alternate,
novation, pitching change, renewal,

284
supersedure
reply: (n) echo, response, reaction,
repay; (n, v) return, rejoinder; (v)
respond, react, rejoin, retort,
counter. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
question; (v) interrogate, ignore
replying: (adj) respondent,
responsive
reporter: (n) journalist,
correspondent, commentator,
pressman, columnist, reviewer,
newsperson, newswoman; (v)
informant, intelligencer, authority
represent: (adj, v) express; (v) depict,
play, exemplify, act, be, illustrate,
describe, embody, enact, make.
ANTONYMS: (v) prosecute, oppose
represented: (adj) delineate, depicted,
representing, drawn, painted,
pictured, diagrammatic
represents: (v) represent
repressed: (adj) inhibited,
suppressed, pent-up, forgotten,
subconscious, inner, composed,
reserved, unconscious
reprimand: (n, v) censure, reproach,
lecture, blame, reproof; (v) chide,
castigate, chastise; (n) chastisement,
admonition, castigation.
ANTONYMS: (v) commend,
approve; (n) commendation,
compliment, approval, reward
reproach: (n, v) blame, rebuke,
charge, abuse, disgrace, reprimand,
invective; (v) accuse, chide,
condemn; (n) condemnation.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) praise; (v)
commend, approve; (n) compliment,
commendation, approval
reprobate: (adj, n) profligate,
miscreant; (adj) depraved, immoral,
corrupt, dissolute; (v) censure,
condemn, reproach; (adj, v)
perverted; (n) scoundrel
reproduced: (adj) regenerate, born
anew
reprove: (n, v) censure, blame, chide,
rebuke, reprehend; (v) admonish,
reproach, lecture, condemn, warn,
castigate. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
approve, commend
republican: (n) commoner, democrat,
river, roturier, proponent,
Republican River, proletary,
proletaire, exponent, Mr; (adj)
democratic
reputation: (n) name, prestige,
distinction, face, celebrity, credit,
character; (n, v) honor, esteem,
report; (adj, n) renown.
ANTONYMS: (n) infamy, dishonor,
obscurity

Winesburg, Ohio
resent: (v) resentful, envy, grudge,
begrudge, embittered, angry, abhor,
take offense, take umbrage, take
exception, loathe. ANTONYMS: (v)
welcome, wish, accept
resentfully: (adv) bitterly, enviously,
jealously, indignantly, angrily,
crossly, sulkily, maliciously,
sullenly, petulantly, reluctantly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) gladly,
contentedly, graciously, sweetly
resentment: (n) grudge, displeasure,
indignation, anger, ill will, rancor,
umbrage, rage, envy, grievance,
passion. ANTONYMS: (n)
friendliness, happiness,
contentment, calm
reserve: (adj, v) save; (n) reservation,
backup, modesty, bank; (adj, n)
substitute; (v) keep back, maintain,
book, withhold, appropriate.
ANTONYMS: (n) warmth,
friendliness, informality,
approachability, arrogance,
boldness, brashness; (v) show, use;
(adj) active
reserved: (adj, n) cold, distant, frigid;
(adj) coy, reticent, diffident, bashful,
aloof, retiring, quiet, shy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) open,
forthcoming, uninhibited, relaxed,
warm, communicative, talkative,
free, definite, cordial, forward
residence: (n) home, house, dwelling,
lodging, accommodation, domicile,
occupancy, place, mansion,
habitation, manse. ANTONYM: (n)
vacancy
resident: (n) occupant, dweller,
tenant, occupier, lodger, denizen,
citizen, house physician; (adj, n)
native; (adj, n, v) resiant; (adj)
inmate. ANTONYMS: (n) drifter,
tramp, stranger, visitor, foreigner;
(adj) migratory, nonresident
residents: (n) population, citizens,
populace, people, community
resist: (n, v) oppose, confront; (v)
rebel, defy, revolt, endure, reject,
protest, refuse, impede, fight back.
ANTONYMS: (v) surrender, yield,
assent, agree, suppress, favor,
accept, attract, obey, welcome
resistance: (n) endurance, impedance,
hindrance, friction, obstacle,
immunity, insubordination,
defiance, renitency; (v) rebellion; (n,
v) interference. ANTONYMS: (n)
obedience, agreement,
susceptibility, acceptance,
receptivity, frailty, friendliness,
vulnerability, defeatism, attack,

softness
resolutely: (adv) determinedly,
decidedly, steadfastly, decisively,
unfalteringly, boldly, steadily,
stubbornly, definitely, resolvedly,
unwaveringly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
irresolutely, indecisively,
uncertainly, feebly, hesitantly,
aimlessly
resolution: (n) determination,
purpose, firmness, conclusion,
answer, solution, resolve,
decomposition, resoluteness,
perseverance, settlement.
ANTONYMS: (n) problem,
feebleness, indecision,
irresoluteness, irresolution,
weakness, indifference
resort: (n, v) repair, haunt; (n)
expedient, refuge, holiday resort,
playground, covert, retreat; (v)
recur, rendezvous, frequent.
ANTONYM: (v) rise
resounding: (adj) booming, ringing,
reverberating, loud, rolling, vibrant,
emphatic, resonating, reverberant;
(v) resound; (adv) resoundingly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) qualified,
marginal
respect: (adj, n, v) regard, worship;
(n, v) esteem, heed, notice,
reverence; (v) observe, keep,
appreciate; (n) homage, deference.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) scorn, dishonor,
disregard; (n) cheek, insolence,
impudence, disdain; (v) despise,
humiliate, break, taint
respectability: (n) reputation,
propriety, reputability, decorum,
honesty, honourableness, gentility,
dignity, repute, politeness; (adj)
respectableness. ANTONYMS: (n)
decadence, indecency, immorality
respectable: (adj) considerable,
decorous, fair, estimable, decent,
honorable, good, proper, creditable,
passable, honest. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bad, small, sordid, scruffy,
inadequate, unrespectable, paltry,
discourteous, inappropriate, sinful,
unacceptable
respected: (adj) illustrious,
respectable, honored, appreciated,
dear, revered, valued, redoubtable,
celebrated, glorious, famous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ordinary,
unreliable, weak
restaurant: (n) canteen, bistro,
coffeehouse, buffet, cafe, lunchroom,
diner, chophouse, coffee shop,
refectory, grill
restless: (adj) fidgety, uneasy,

Sherwood Anderson
impatient, restive, agitated, fretful,
turbulent, feverish; (adj, n) nervous,
apprehensive; (adj, v) unquiet.
ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed,
peaceful, lethargic, unbroken, still,
contented
restlessness: (n) anxiety, disquiet,
impatience, fidget, uneasiness,
disquietude, unrest, fidgetiness,
agitation, insomnia; (adj, n)
nervousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
calm, contentment, restfulness,
peace
restored: (adj) new, healthy,
comfortable, convalescent
resume: (v) restart, regain,
summarize, continue, revert, adopt,
recapitulate; (n, v) outline; (n)
digest, synopsis, summary.
ANTONYMS: (v) abandon,
suspend, die, discontinue, expand
retail: (v) deal out, issue,
merchandise, utter, peddle, vend;
(n) dispense, retailing, business;
(adj, v) wholesale; (n, v) trade.
ANTONYM: (v) buy
reticent: (adj, v) reserved, close; (adj)
restrained, quiet, distant, modest,
uncommunicative, shy, taciturn,
retiring, bashful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
expansive, chatty, helpful, outgoing,
uninhibited, forthcoming, extrovert,
careless, affable, arrogant, open
retire: (v) resign, retreat, withdraw,
leave, abdicate, ebb, depart, turn in,
fall back, hit the hay, go to bed.
ANTONYMS: (v) remain, enter
retired: (adj) obscure, secluded,
sequestered, solitary, emeritus,
secret, lonely, withdrawn,
superannuated, close; (adj, v) covert
retreated: (adj) withdrawn, people
retreating: (n) flight; (adj) moving
back
returning: (adj) regressive, return,
reversive, recurrent, coming back,
ebbing, flowing back, new, newly
appointed, newly elected, next.
ANTONYMS: (adj) outgoing,
unique, occasional
returns: (n, v) proceeds, income,
profits; (n) earnings, return, census,
take, revenue, wage, takings, result
reveal: (v) divulge, expose, disclose,
impart, betray, detect, convey,
exhibit, display, discover, express.
ANTONYMS: (v) conceal, hide,
cover, suppress, withhold
revelation: (n) discovery, exposure,
display, revealing, manifestation,
betrayal, apocalypse, expose,
inspiration, publication; (v) reveal.

ANTONYM: (n) concealment
reverence: (n, v) respect, regard, fear,
worship, honor, esteem, adore; (n)
deference, adoration, admiration,
awe. ANTONYMS: (n) despise,
disrespect, irreverence, disdain,
disparagement, contempt; (v)
dishonor
reverend: (n) preacher, clergyman,
parson, rector, vicar, pastor, priest,
minister, churchman; (adj)
respectable, honourable
revolt: (n, v) mutiny, rebellion,
insurrection; (v) sicken, nauseate,
rebel, repel, repulse, offend; (adj, v)
shock; (n) uprising. ANTONYMS:
(n) attraction; (v) please, delight
revolution: (n) change, rotation, turn,
gyration, insurrection, mutiny,
rebellion, revolt, alteration, cycle; (n,
v) circuit
revolver: (n) gun, pistol, colt,
handgun, firearm, shooter, rod,
Saturday night special, revolving
door, repeater
rewards: (n) booty, loot
rhetorical: (adj) pompous,
declamatory, grandiloquent,
bombastic, forensic, flowery,
magniloquent, turgid, embellished,
ornate; (n) rhetoric. ANTONYMS:
(adj) quiet, unrhetorical
rheumatism: (n) arthritis, atrophic
arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid
arthritis; (v) lumbago, podagra,
otalgia, neuralgia, earache,
cephalalgia, odontalgia, sciatica
rhythm: (n) cadence, pulse, beat,
cycle, tempo, rhyme, musical
rhythm, calendar method, calendar
method of birth control, metre; (adj,
n) meter
rhythmic: (adj) metrical, measured,
rhythmical, cyclic, regular,
cadenced, beating, spellbinding,
graceful, intermittent, tripping
ribs: (n) dinner, chest, bosom
richness: (adj, n) opulence,
abundance, affluence, riches; (n)
fruitfulness, profusion, fecundity,
fullness, luxury, exuberance,
cornucopia. ANTONYMS: (n)
infertility, poverty, narrowness,
shabbiness, weakness, bareness
rickety: (adj) unstable, wobbly,
decrepit, dilapidated, insecure,
ramshackle, rachitic, flimsy,
precarious, cranky, wonky.
ANTONYMS: (adj) stable, sturdy,
firm, secure
ride: (n, v) outing; (adj, v) bestride;
(n) run, lift, jaunt; (v) mount, bait,

285
float, rag, tease, harass
ridiculous: (adj) foolish,
preposterous, funny, laughable,
ludicrous, inane, nonsensical,
comical, farcical, amusing, comic.
ANTONYMS: (adj) reasonable,
inspiring, ordinary, sensitive,
acceptable, generous, normal,
possible, impressive, sane,
worthwhile
riding: (n) ride, horseback riding,
travel, hundred, tithing, soke,
travelling, manege, athletics; (v)
horsemanship; (adj) awheel
rigid: (adj) inflexible, hard, fixed,
stiff, strict, austere, firm, set, tense,
tight, tough. ANTONYMS: (adj)
flexible, soft, elastic, loose, nonrigid,
limp, liberal, lenient, adaptable,
irresolute, floppy
ringing: (n) buzz, peal, resonance,
ring, sound; (adj) reverberant,
jingling, loud, resounding, tinkling,
hollow
rings: (n) ornaments, necklaces,
jewels, costume jewelry, charms,
bracelets
risen: (v) uprise
rising: (n) revolt, rebellion, mutiny,
ascent, ascension, climb, rise,
outbreak, insurrection; (adj)
climbing, uphill. ANTONYMS: (adj)
plummeting, plunging, decreasing,
falling, setting, downward, content;
(n) fall
roads: (n) anchorage, anchorage
ground, communications,
infrastructure, port, road and rail
network, transportation
roadside: (n) verge, shoulder, border,
edge, margin
roadway: (n) carriageway, track,
pathway, path, highway, pavement,
roadbed, way, stairway, runway,
trail
roar: (n, v) bellow, cry, shout, howl,
bark, clatter, holler; (adj, n, v)
thunder; (v) bawl; (adj, v) bluster;
(adj, n) peal. ANTONYMS: (v) cry,
week
roaring: (n) bellowing, roar, bellow,
thunder; (adj) booming, prosperous,
thriving, flourishing, deafening,
noisy, boisterous
roasting: (n) barbecuing, cookery,
cooking; (adj) broiling, baking,
burning, boiling, airless, blazing,
close; (adj, n) scorching.
ANTONYMS: (adj) airy, fresh
robinson: (n) jack Roosevelt
Robinson, James Harvey Robinson,
Lennox Robinson, Ray Robinson, sir

286
Robert Robinson, walker smith,
Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson,
Robert Robinson, Edwin Arlington
Robinson, Jackie Robinson, Edward
Goldenberg Robinson
rocking: (adj) vivacious, merry,
spirited, spry, festive; (n) metalling,
convulsion
roiled: (adj) riled, disordered, nettled,
peeved, irritated, churning,
annoyed, crocked, plastered,
pixilated, pissed off
roistering: (adj) swaggering
roll: (n, v) list, wheel, curl, turn; (v)
reel, enfold, revolve, wind; (n)
revolution, register; (adj, n, v) twist.
ANTONYM: (v) unwind
rolled: (adj) rolling, furled, involute,
scroll, coiled, resonant, trilled,
reverberative, reverberating,
resounding, spiral
rolling: (n) peal, curling, wheeling,
rolling movement, finish rolling,
pealing, crimping; (adj) resounding,
rolled, tumbling, resonating
roof: (n, v) top, cover, shelter; (n)
crown, housing, ceiling, dome,
house, household, back, covering
rooms: (n) flat, apartment, chamber,
quarters, lodging, chambers,
accommodation, cortege, suite,
temporary housing,
accommodations
root: (n) foundation, base, origin,
basis, radix, cause, derivation,
reason, fountainhead; (adj, n)
radical; (v) establish. ANTONYMS:
(n) descendant, effect
roots: (n) heredity, family, origin,
line, extraction, ancestry
rope: (n, v) lasso, leash, tie, tape; (n)
lariat, noose, hawser, line, string,
cord, thread
rosary: (n) beads, relics, chaplet,
thurible, bead, string of beads,
garland, censer, cross, Agnus Dei,
crucifix
rotten: (adj, v) decayed, musty; (adj)
foul, poor, fetid, lousy, putrid, off,
ill, shabby, wretched. ANTONYMS:
(adj) fresh, superior, unrotten, good,
incorruptible, honest, lovely, fair,
great, respectful
rough: (adj, n) hard, grating, jagged;
(adj, n, v) harsh; (adj) raw, gross,
cruel, crude, gruff; (adj, v) hoarse;
(n, v) draft. ANTONYMS: (adj)
gentle, silky, soft, sophisticated,
refined, polished, precise, exact,
pleasant, glossy, even
roughly: (adv) coarsely, harshly,
violently, rudely, unevenly, hardly,

Winesburg, Ohio
severely, crudely; (adj, adv) nearly;
(adv, prep) about; (adj, adv, prep)
just about. ANTONYMS: (adv)
softly, gently, smoothly, exactly,
finely, lovingly, precisely, well,
evenly
rounded: (adj) round, curved,
circular, orbicular, full, globular,
rotund, spherical, blunt, fat, obtuse.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight, sharp,
bony, concave, angular, thin
rounds: (n) patrol, beat, route, patient
rounds
rowdy: (adj, n) boisterous; (adj)
disorderly, noisy, loud, unruly,
uproarious, wild, raucous; (n) bully,
tough, hooligan. ANTONYMS: (adj)
restrained, peaceful, quiet, tranquil,
gentle, placid
rubbed: (adj) polished, refined, terse,
attrite, marked, accomplished,
fretten
rubber: (n) overshoe, galosh,
prophylactic, gum elastic,
caoutchouc, eraser, condom, latex,
ebonite, golosh; (v) rubberize
rubbing: (n) friction, abrasion,
grinding, detrition, rub, grip,
resistance, chafe, sweat, travail,
massage. ANTONYM: (n)
smoothness
rubbish: (adj, n) refuse, trash, litter,
garbage, trumpery; (n) nonsense,
junk, offal, debris, waste, drivel.
ANTONYMS: (n) fact; (adj)
valuable, helpful
rude: (adj, n) rough, impudent,
coarse, abrupt, bold; (adj) blunt,
discourteous, impolite, brutal,
crude, mean. ANTONYMS: (adj)
polite, refined, courteous,
chivalrous, civil, proper, decent,
exact, clean, gentle, inoffensive
rumble: (n, v) murmur, roll, roar,
grumble, mutter, bang, brawl,
sound; (v) growl; (n) peal, noise
rumor: (n) hearsay, talk, news; (n, v)
gossip, fame, buzz, bruit, noise,
rumour; (v) repute, reputation.
ANTONYM: (n) truth
runner: (n) offset, sprinter, jogger,
messenger, contrabandist, offshoot,
smuggler, contestant, envoy, racer,
stolon
runners: (n) runner
runs: (n) Aztec two-step, sickness,
Montezuma's revenge
rush: (n, v) charge, flood, dash, flow,
gush, race, run, speed, attack; (adj,
n, v) burst; (n) onrush.
ANTONYMS: (v) delay, dawdle,
linger, wander, amble, hesitate,

crawl, trickle; (n) shortage,
slowness, unimportance
rushed: (adj) hurried, rush,
precipitate, rapid, unexpected,
hassled, immediate, instant,
instantaneous, quick, speedy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unhurried, slow,
considered, gradual
rust: (v) corrode, eat, oxidise, tarnish,
oxidize, gnaw; (n) decay, corrosion,
fungus, oxidation; (adj) rusty
rusty: (adj) ancient, out of practice,
intractable, old, corroded, deaf to
reason, exceptious, cantankerous;
(v) moldy, raw, mildewed
sacrifice: (n, v) oblation, forfeit; (v)
offer, immolate, offer up, give, give
up, relinquish; (n) immolation, loss,
forfeiture
sadly: (adv) pitifully, dolefully,
unfortunately, mournfully,
sorrowfully, woefully, dejectedly,
pathetically, wretchedly, forlornly;
(adj, adv) seriously. ANTONYMS:
(adv) cheerfully, contentedly,
gladly, joyfully, fortunately, luckily,
enthusiastically
sadness: (n, v) melancholy,
despondency; (adj, n) grief, distress;
(n) misery, sorrow, desolation,
regret, gloom, mourning, affliction.
ANTONYMS: (n) joy, amusement,
cheerfulness, laughter, contentment,
comfort, cheer, hopefulness
safe: (adj) reliable, cautious, good,
dependable, sound, harmless,
innocuous, correct, innocent,
inoffensive; (n) closet. ANTONYMS:
(adj) dangerous, risky, unprotected,
vulnerable, hurt, insecure, harmful,
reckless, unreliable, toxic, injured
safely: (adv) surely, safe, certainly,
cautiously, soundly, strongly, sure,
steadily, harmlessly, unharmedly,
unhurtly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
harmfully, hazardously, loosely
sagely: (adv) cleverly, sapiently,
judiciously, intelligently,
sagaciously, discerningly, shrewdly,
soundly, astutely, profoundly,
perceptively. ANTONYM: (adv)
foolishly
sagging: (adj) drooping, flabby, slack,
baggy, hanging, limp, flagging,
lifeless, floppy; (n) sag, dropping.
ANTONYMS: (adj) taut, firm,
upright, tight
sailor: (n) seaman, seafarer, tar,
bluejacket, gob, boatman, navigator,
navy man, lascar, Panama, leghorn
salary: (n) pay, earnings, allowance,
remuneration, fee, income, payment,

Sherwood Anderson
emolument, gain, compensation,
profit
salesman: (n) dealer, monger,
bagman, agent, representative,
shopman, vender, seller, trader,
traveler, chandler
saloon: (n) pub, public house, salon,
parlour, pothouse, hall, barroom,
gin mill, alehouse, tavern, taproom
salt: (adj) salty, saline, briny,
brackish, pungent; (v) cure, pickle;
(n) salinity, common salt, alkali;
(adj, n) spice
sang: (n) panax quinquefolius, sing,
herb, herbaceous plant
sardonic: (adj) dry, wry, cynical,
ironic, ironical, cutting, biting, bitter,
derisive, mocking; (adj, v) satirical.
ANTONYM: (adj) approving
satisfied: (adj) happy, content, full,
pleased, confident, complacent,
persuaded, fulfilled; (adj, v) certain,
sure; (v) convinced. ANTONYMS:
(adj) frustrated, anxious,
disgruntled, hungry, insistent,
pensive, unsure, dissatisfied,
ashamed
satisfy: (v) please, persuade, meet,
satiate, indulge, sate, appease; (adj,
v) content, fill, suffice, do.
ANTONYMS: (v) intensify,
displease, disappoint, disgruntle,
frustrate
saul: (n) apostle of the gentiles,
apostle Paul, capital of Minnesota,
Paul, Alice Paul, Saul of Tarsus,
Saint Paul
savage: (adj, v) fierce, wild, furious;
(adj) ferocious, brutal, cruel,
bloodthirsty, rough, pitiless; (adj, n)
brute; (n) vandal. ANTONYMS:
(adj) civilized, gentle, nice
saved: (adj) protected, economized,
rescued, blessed
saving: (adj, n) frugal, economical;
(adj) thrifty, save; (n) economy,
conservation, salvation, rescue,
preservation, cut, retrenchment.
ANTONYMS: (n) extravagance,
expenditure; (adj) spendthrift
savings: (n) reserve, saving, fund,
store, funds, reserved fund,
resources, capital, cash, corps de
reserve, reserves
sawmill: (n) saw, mill, manufactory,
factory, sawing machine,
manufacturing plant, power saw
scales: (adj) balance, weighbridge; (n)
steelyard, mill Scales
scar: (n, v) mark, blemish, seam,
stain, brand; (n) cicatrix, cicatrice,
defect, scratch, injury; (v) disfigure.

ANTONYM: (v) enhance
scarce: (adj) rare, insufficient,
deficient, infrequent, uncommon,
scant, scanty, few, sparse; (adv) just,
barely. ANTONYMS: (adj) plentiful,
common, adequate, strong, usual,
extensive
scarcely: (adv) narrowly, rarely,
hardly, just, scarce, uncommonly,
insufficiently, scantily, scantly, only
just, seldom. ANTONYMS: (adv)
easily, liberally
scarred: (adj) marred, scarn, marked,
hurt, defaced
scars: (n) seams
scattered: (adj) dissipated, thin,
disordered, disconnected, confused,
sparse, sporadic, distributed, rare,
diffuse; (v) disperse
scheming: (adj) designing, artful,
crafty, wily, tricky, sly, shrewd,
devious, astute, intriguing; (adj, n)
cunning. ANTONYMS: (adj) honest,
ingenuous, straightforward, open,
straight, guileless; (n)
ingenuousness
scholar: (n) learner, academic,
student, pundit, apprentice,
intellectual, brain, exhibitioner,
academician, professor, disciple.
ANTONYM: (n) teacher
scholarly: (adj) learned,
knowledgeable, erudite, lettered,
bookish, cultured, intellectual,
scholastic, studious, educated,
literary. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unscholarly, uneducated, unlearned,
lowbrow
schoolhouse: (n) conservatoire,
conservatory, school building,
chargehouse, day school, edifice,
school day, building
schoolmaster: (n) master, preceptor,
pedagogue, headmaster, dominie,
teacher, principal, educator, head,
Lutjanus apodus, housemaster
schoolroom: (n) nursery, class,
lecture room, room
scissors: (n) clipper, shears, pair of
scissors, scissors hold, compound
lever, edge tool, scissor grip, scissors
grip; (adj, n) cutters
scold: (v) reprimand, chide, berate,
rebuke, abuse, lecture, reproach,
rail, grouch; (n, v) nag; (adj, n)
shrew. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
compliment, approve
scope: (n, v) range, drift; (n) purview,
domain, room, expanse, area,
compass, horizon, oscilloscope; (v)
view
scrape: (n, v) scratch, graze, score,

287
mark; (v) rub, pare, rake, grate,
chafe, abrade; (n) abrasion
scraping: (n) scrape, scratching,
scratch, rub, sizing, rament, incision,
mark, prick; (v) rubbing; (adj)
grating
scraps: (n) garbage, odds and ends,
scrap, bits, food waste, leftover,
trash, waste, oddments, leftovers,
residue
scratched: (adj) hurt, abraded,
sgraffito, raw, dented, spoiled,
damaged, injured
scratching: (n) scrape, scraping,
abrasion, mark, scar, poor
handwriting, incision, excoriation,
chicken feed; (adj) hoarse, abrasive
scrawled: (adj) scribbled, hard to
decipher, incomprehensible, written,
unreadable, indecipherable,
impossible to read
scrawny: (adj) skinny, emaciated,
thin, gaunt, scraggy, meager, lanky,
bony, angular, weedy, underweight.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fat, strong,
robust
scream: (n, v) shout, call, howl, yell,
screech, shriek, wail; (v) cry out,
roar, bellow, hollo. ANTONYM: (n)
bore
screaming: (adv) screamingly; (n)
shrieking, shriek, screeching,
screech, vociferation; (adj) garish,
loud, uproarious, showy, noisy
screen: (adj, n, v) cover; (n, v) shade,
shield, hide, protect, conceal, riddle,
shelter, mask, disguise; (n) blind.
ANTONYMS: (v) expose, reveal,
withhold
scribbled: (adj) hard to decipher,
illegible, indecipherable, impossible
to read, unreadable,
incomprehensible
scrub: (adj, v) scour, mop; (v) scrape,
clean, rub, polish, cleanse; (n) brush,
bush, scouring; (n, v) wash.
ANTONYMS: (v) restore, dirty,
insert
scrubbed: (adj) deferred, clean,
cleaner
scrubbing: (n) scrub, stripping,
cleaning, bush, cleansing, cleanup,
mopping, sanitizing, bath, chaparral
scrupulously: (adv) carefully,
painstakingly, strictly, meticulously,
religiously, thoroughly, nicely,
exactly, fastidiously, particularly,
accurately. ANTONYM: (adv)
negligently
search: (v) grope, rummage, ransack,
pry; (n) pursuit, exploration,
examination, inquiry, inspection; (n,

288
v) inquire, research
seat: (n) bench, base, behind, bottom,
buttocks, location, position, post,
posterior; (v) locate, put
seated: (adj) sat, sedentary
seats: (n) parquet, circle, parterre,
seating area, seating room,
orchestra, seat, chairs, places,
bleachers, elbow room
secret: (adj, v) mysterious, hidden,
covert, secluded, confidential; (adj)
concealed, furtive, occult, obscure;
(adj, n) privacy, secrecy.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) known,
public; (adj) open, overt, apparent,
unrestricted, external, visible,
outermost, transparent, blatant
secretly: (adv) privately,
confidentially, quietly, stealthily,
surreptitiously, furtively, in secret,
darkly, secretively, clandestinely,
occultly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
publicly, deliberately, brazenly
secrets: (n) secrecy
secure: (adj, v) close, firm, fix, certain,
confident, fasten, attach, bind; (v)
preserve, gain; (adj) reliable.
ANTONYMS: (v) lose, detach,
unfasten, undo; (adj) vulnerable,
unsafe, loose, uncertain, unlocked,
uncomfortable, unstable
secured: (adj) secure, protected, firm,
locked, fast, bonded, bolted, barred,
latched, securer, obtained
sedately: (adv) seriously, soberly,
serenely, staidly, solemnly,
composedly, tranquilly, steadily,
stilly, quietly, decorously.
ANTONYM: (adv) boisterously
seed: (n) issue, posterity, root,
progeny, offspring, origin, nucleus,
brood, embryo; (v) inseminate, plant
seeded: (adj) seedy, planted, seedless.
ANTONYM: (adj) unseeded
seeing: (prep) because; (adj) Seely,
considering; (n) sight, vision,
beholding, fusion, visual sense; (v)
conceive, comprehend, perceive
seek: (n, v) ask, inquire; (v) hunt,
endeavor, attempt, look, aspire,
pursue, beg, quest, explore.
ANTONYMS: (v) answer, grant
seeking: (n) hunt, pursuit, hunting,
effort, pursuance; (adj) searching,
zetetic; (prep) looking for
seized: (adj) confiscate, appropriated,
condemned, apprehended, grasped,
taken, held, seised, detained,
obtained, arraught
seldom: (adj) scarce, rare, few,
infrequent; (adv) occasionally,
infrequently, uncommonly, hardly,

Winesburg, Ohio
scarcely, not often, once in a blue
moon. ANTONYMS: (adv) often,
seldom
selected: (adj) chosen, preferred,
choice, elected, elect, designate,
premium, to be, designated, elite;
(adj, n) best. ANTONYM: (adj) all
self: (n) ego, person, me, individual,
being; (pron) myself, herself, itself;
(adj) same; (v) own; (adv) personally
self-assurance: (n) self-confidence,
self-esteem, poise, aplomb,
composure, effrontery, presence
self-confident: (adj) assured, cocky,
confident, assertive, jaunty,
sanguine, secure, self-sufficient,
certain
self-conscious: (adj) shy, abashed,
bashful, sheepish, diffident, modest,
conscious, self-consciously,
inhibited, uncomfortable, mannered
self-love: (n) egoism, vanity, pride,
arrogance
selling: (n) marketing, business,
disposal, vending, capitalisation,
capitalization, commerce,
merchandising, transaction, resale,
retailing
sensation: (n, v) feeling, impression,
sense; (v) affection; (n) emotion, feel,
perception, wonder, sensibility,
sensitivity, thrill. ANTONYMS: (n)
deadness, flop, dud, calm, failure
sensed: (adj) felt
senselessly: (adv) stupidly,
nonsensically, foolishly, inanely,
insanely, pointlessly, unwisely, silly,
meaninglessly, blindly, futilely
sensible: (adj) aware, sagacious,
prudent, rational, judicious,
perceptible, sane, wise, intelligent,
appreciable, sage. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ludicrous, crazy, unreasonable,
stupid, silly, ridiculous, reckless,
idiotic, outrageous, imprudent, mad
sensibly: (adv) sanely, intelligently,
rationally, pragmatically,
realistically, cleverly, politically,
perceptibly, soundly, noticeably,
wisely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
foolishly, ludicrously, ridiculously,
unreasonably, illogically, madly,
irrationally, hastily, stupidly,
irresponsibly, immaturely
sensing: (n) detection, hearing,
feeling, percept, tasting, perceptual
experience, lipreading, espial,
discovery, detecting; (adj) wise
sensitive: (adj) excitable, sore, tender,
sensible, painful, impressionable,
emotional, irritable, receptive,
gentle, susceptible. ANTONYMS:

(adj) numb, hardhearted, tactless,
impervious, dense, improper,
insensible, prosaic, straightforward,
unconcerned, indiscriminate
sensualist: (n) epicure, hedonist,
voluptuary, gastronome,
cocksucker, bisexual, sensationalist,
lecher, glutton, gourmet, rake
sentiment: (n) emotion, mind, notion,
feeling, persuasion, opinion,
judgment, sense, judgement,
attitude, impression
sentimentalism: (v) demureness,
minauderie, mock modesty,
prudery; (n) sentiment,
emotionalism, sentimentality, sob
story, virtuosity
separated: (adj, prep) separate,
isolated, disjoined, distinct; (adj,
adv) apart; (adj) detached, divided,
disjointed, free, disjunct, discrete.
ANTONYMS: (adj) attached,
connected
sermon: (n) discourse, oration,
speech, address, homily,
preachment, harangue, preaching,
exhortation, predication; (n, v)
lecture
servant: (n) manservant, domestic,
lackey, maid, employee, flunkey,
retainer, boy, footman, flunky,
menial. ANTONYMS: (n) master,
mistress
servants: (n) staff, suite
serve: (adj, n, v) avail; (v) assist, aid,
act, benefit, tend, attend, operate,
function, do; (n, v) officiate
sessions: (n) Roger sessions, Roger
Huntington sessions
seth: (n) exercise set, circle,
hardening, lot, readiness, set, bent,
band
setting: (n) scene, scenery,
adjustment, position, background,
mount, backdrop, environment,
scope, mounting, set
settle: (adj, n, v) fix, establish,
confirm; (n, v) place, set; (v) resolve,
clarify, pay, regulate, adjudicate,
agree. ANTONYMS: (v) float,
wander, prolong, owe, bungle,
open, provoke, rise, weaken,
worsen, complicate
settled: (adj) definite, set, firm,
permanent, certain, calm,
established, decided, formed,
defined, finished. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unsettled, exciting, temporary
settlement: (n) accommodation,
colony, hamlet, payment,
arrangement, conclusion, resolution,
determination, contract, village,

Sherwood Anderson
colonization
seventy: (n) large integer
sewing: (n) embroidery, sew,
needlecraft, stitch, stitching,
fancywork, mend, gather, patch,
gathering, binding
shabbiness: (n) seediness,
raggedness, decrepitude, fragility,
weakness, inelegance, ruin, decay,
collapse, disrepair. ANTONYMS:
(n) opulence, strength, decency,
elegance
shabby: (adj) poor, abject, mean,
mangy, low, sorry, decrepit, worn,
sordid, ragged; (adj, v) frayed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pristine, elegant,
opulent, honorable, decent, new,
neat, comfortable, tasteful, strong,
respectful
shade: (n, v) screen, tinge, shadow,
tint, color, cloud; (n) ghost, hue,
blind, conceal, tone. ANTONYMS:
(n) brightness, glare; (v) brighten,
clarify, expose
shaded: (adj) dark, shads, sheltered,
shadowed, umbrageous, twilight,
sunless, subdued, soft, colored,
darksome. ANTONYM: (adj)
unshaded
shades: (n) shade, sunglasses, dark
glasses, shadow, glasses, blind,
awning, roller blind, eyeglasses
shadow: (n) ghost, darkness,
apparition, follower, gloom,
reflection; (n, v) eclipse, trace, tail,
hint; (v) follow. ANTONYMS: (v)
brighten, lead; (n) brightness, pallor
shadows: (n) dark, darkness, night,
dimness, dusk, fogginess, mistiness,
gloom, cloudiness. ANTONYM: (n)
brightness
shadowy: (adj) indistinct, misty,
dark, faint, obscure, hazy, gloomy,
vague, shady, insubstantial, dusky.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clear, palpable,
light, distinct, open
shake: (n, v) jolt, beat, jar, quiver,
wave; (v) agitate, excite, disturb;
(adv, v) brandish; (adj, v) quake,
totter. ANTONYMS: (v) soothe,
steady
shaken: (adj) jolted, agitated,
dilapidated, frayed; (v) passe, lame,
broken, threadbare, wilted, shaky,
vibrate
shaking: (adj, n) quivering, tremor,
jarring; (n) quiver, palpitation,
quake; (adj) quaking, shaky, flutter,
unsteady, shivering
shaky: (adj) precarious, ramshackle,
insecure, unsafe, unstable, unsteady,
wobbly, tottery, trembling; (adj, v)

crazy, broken. ANTONYMS: (adj)
steady, stable, strong, watertight,
sound, hard, composed, alert, safe,
secure, promising
shallow: (adj) superficial, low,
cursory, petty, little, sketchy, flimsy,
frivolous, simple, surface,
perfunctory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bottomless, profound, intense,
pensive, serious, inner, weighty
shame: (n, v) disgrace, dishonor,
discredit, humiliate, degrade,
chagrin; (n) humiliation, modesty,
scandal, insult; (v) abash.
ANTONYMS: (n) pride,
glorification, making, worthiness;
(v) acknowledge, glorify, respect,
dignify
shape: (n, v) cast, mold, fashion,
mould, model, make, design; (n)
pattern, figure; (v) determine,
influence
shaped: (adj) formed, fashioned,
shapen, made, created, beaten,
educated, featured, having features,
built, constructed
shapeless: (adj) amorphous,
misshapen, unformed, unstructured,
nebulous, inchoate, unshapely,
indistinct, uncrystallized,
embryonic, vague. ANTONYMS:
(adj) distinct, defined, tailored
shapeliness: (n) beauty,
curvaceousness, image, external
appearance, pattern, oviform,
orderly arrangement, mold, make,
grace, frame
shapely: (adj) symmetrical, comely,
graceful, neat, fit, curvaceous, slim,
pleasing, busty, seemly, beautiful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight,
misshapen, unshapely
shards: (n) ruins, rubble, debris,
remains
sharp: (adj, n, v) keen, acute, bitter;
(adj) intelligent, intense, incisive;
(adj, v) biting, acid, acrid, severe,
harsh. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
mild, gentle, sweet, rounded, bland,
round, smooth, blurred, naive, kind
sharply: (adj, adv) piercingly,
harshly, penetratingly; (adv) keenly,
severely, abruptly, trenchantly,
shrewdly, bitingly, cuttingly,
bitterly. ANTONYMS: (adv) gently,
kindly, sweetly, politely, gradually,
pleasantly
shavings: (n) residue, pencil
shavings, chips, trash
shed: (v) discard, drop, moult,
scatter, exuviate, molt, cast off,
dismiss; (n) shack, hut, cabin.

289
ANTONYMS: (v) keep, cover; (adj)
persistent
sheep: (n) goat, ram, tup, ewe, cattle,
follower, Bovidae, stock, simple,
simpleton, family Bovidae
sheepish: (adj) coy, diffident,
shamefaced, bashful, shy, guilty,
embarrassed, nervous, skittish,
faint-hearted, pusillanimous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unabashed,
proud
sheet: (n) board, leaf, paper, film, bed
sheet, canvas, coat, coating, cover,
plane, newspaper
sheets: (n) rain, bed linen
shell: (n) rind, sheath, case, casing,
bullet, bark, shot, crust; (n, v) bomb,
pod; (v) bombard. ANTONYM: (n)
middle
shelter: (n, v) guard, refuge, harbor,
protect, shield; (adj, n, v) screen; (n)
protection, asylum, sanctuary,
security, hut. ANTONYMS: (n)
danger, exposure; (v) endanger
sheltered: (adj) secure, comfortable,
screened, safe, secluded, cozy, snug,
covered, shaded; (adj, v) private; (v)
covert. ANTONYMS: (adj)
vulnerable, sunny, exposed, public,
harsh, bleak
sheltering: (adj) defensive, affording
protection, motherly; (n) housing
shelves: (n) shelf, rack, shelving
shine: (n, v) light, sheen, flash, glitter,
sparkle, polish, rub; (v) burnish,
gleam, blaze; (n) radiance
shining: (adj, v) brilliant; (adj)
lustrous, radiant, glossy, luminous,
glorious, glowing; (adj, n) lucid,
resplendent, clear; (v) shine.
ANTONYMS: (adj) dull, pale,
blemished
shiny: (adj, v) lustrous; (adj) glossy,
smooth, sleek, slick, brilliant,
glistening, clear, shining, sheeny,
polished. ANTONYMS: (adj) rough,
unglazed, matt, coarse
shipment: (n) freight, load,
consignment, delivery, lading,
shipping, burden, dispatch, loading,
despatch, forwarding
shirt: (n) Jersey, chemise, blouse, hair
shirt, dress shirt, evening shirt, polo
shirt
shiver: (n, v) shake, tremble, shudder,
fragment, thrill, splinter, tingle; (v)
quake, shatter, palpitate; (adj, v)
break
shivers: (n) cold, jitters
shivery: (adj) fragile, cold, crumbly,
frangible, friable, frail, scarey, scary,
gimcrack, chilling, brash

290
shocked: (adj) dismayed, aghast,
amazed, surprised, stunned,
distressed, afraid, speechless,
appalled, bewildered,
dumbfounded. ANTONYMS: (adj)
delighted, indifferent, unaffected
shoe: (n) horseshoe, sandal, shoes,
moccasin, footgear, footwear, skid,
flippers, anklet, flipper, track shoe
shoes: (n) footwear, shoe, place,
position, situation, post, plaza,
property, lieu, home, blank space
shook: (adj) shake, vibrate, addled,
barrel, cask, confused, distressed,
hurt, passionate, puzzled
shoot: (v) discharge, flash, drive,
dart, dash, send, photograph; (n)
scion, branch; (n, v) sprout, hunt.
ANTONYM: (v) trickle
shooting: (v) shoot, hunting,
coursing; (n) gunfire, killing,
gunshot, shot, murder; (adj) sharp,
acute, piercing
shore: (n) coast, edge, beach,
seashore, stay, seaside, brace,
margin; (n, v) prop, land, buttress.
ANTONYM: (n) sea
shores: (n) coast, seaboard, seashore,
shoreline. ANTONYM: (n) interior
shorter: (adj) smaller, inferior
shortly: (adv) presently, curtly,
before long, soon, concisely,
brusquely, abruptly, tersely,
succinctly; (adj, adv) immediately,
summarily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
politely, pleasantly, verbosely, later
shorty: (n) dwarf
shoulder: (v) carry, push, hold, jostle,
sustain, support, assume, accept; (n,
v) elbow; (n) back, flange
shout: (n, v) cry, clamor, scream, yell,
roar, call, bellow, screech; (v) bawl,
hollo; (n) cheer
shouted: (adj) screamed, loud
shouting: (adj, n) yelling; (adj) crying,
howling, vociferous; (n) clamor,
calling, noise, cheering, vociferation,
tumult; (v) bawl
showcase: (n, v) show, display; (n)
show window, case, shopwindow,
fair, grammatical case, guinea pig,
instance; (v) exhibit, flaunt
showing: (n) display, screening,
exhibit, revelation, viewing,
appearance, exhibition, exposition,
presentation, exposure; (adj)
exhibiting
shrewd: (adj) sharp, astute, keen,
piercing, clever, cunning, bright;
(adj, v) sagacious, knowing, crafty,
prudent. ANTONYMS: (adj) foolish,
gullible, naive, soft, candid, dim,

Winesburg, Ohio
innocent, guileless, obtuse,
indiscriminate
shrill: (adj) piercing, penetrating,
strident, keen, shrewd; (v) shriek,
screech, scream, yell; (adj, v) high,
sharp. ANTONYMS: (adj) low,
quiet, resonant
shrilly: (adv) sharply, acutely,
penetratingly, stridently, noisily,
harshly, raucously, keenly, loudly,
discordantly, shrewdly.
ANTONYM: (adv) softly
shriveled: (adj) wizened, shrivelled,
shrunken, parched, sere, dried, thin,
withered, attenuated, sear, tabid.
ANTONYM: (adj) smooth
shudder: (adj, n, v) shake, quake,
tremble; (n, v) quiver, twitch, thrill;
(n) quivering, shivering, chill,
frisson; (v) flutter
shut: (v) seal, bar, fasten, obstruct,
lock, exclude; (adj) closed, cut; (n)
shutting, end, finish. ANTONYMS:
(v) admit, undo
shutting: (n) closing, conclusion, end,
closure, ending, finish, mop up,
culmination, closedown; (adj)
confining, claudent. ANTONYM: (n)
opening
shyly: (adv) timidly, shily, coyly,
diffidently, timorously, with
reserve, embarrassedly, clumsily,
uncertainly, tentatively,
unremarkably. ANTONYMS: (adv)
boldly, brashly, brazenly, urbanely,
conspicuously, confidently,
decisively
sick: (adj) ill, queasy, poorly, ailing,
weary, diseased, sickly, morbid;
(adj, v) indisposed, unwell; (adj, n)
invalid. ANTONYMS: (adj) healthy,
fond, wholesome
sickened: (adj) aghast, horrified,
appalled, shocked
sickening: (adj) revolting, nauseous,
offensive, repulsive, foul,
nauseating, noisome, obnoxious,
loathsome, repugnant, abominable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) attractive,
pleasant, delightful, wholesome,
light, appealing, wonderful
sidewalk: (n) footpath, path, walk,
footway, flags, trottoir, pathway,
causeway, walkway, curbside,
doorstep
siding: (n) weatherboard,
weatherboarding, railroad siding,
clapboard, shunt, turnout, switch,
railway, building material,
falsehood, spur
sigh: (n, v) groan, suspire, murmur;
(v) breathe, languish, pine; (n)

breath, wail, whimper, whine,
suspiration
signature: (v) sign; (n) mark, key
signature, endorsement,
subscription, earmark, ratification,
stamp, sign manual, seal, scale
significance: (n) sense, moment,
purport, connotation, meaning,
consequence, effect, intent, concern,
importance, point. ANTONYMS: (n)
insignificance, triviality,
unimportance, meaninglessness
silence: (adj, n, v) calm, still; (int, n,
v) hush; (n, v) lull; (n) mum; (adj, v)
appease; (v) mute, allay, pacify,
muzzle; (int, v) shut up.
ANTONYMS: (n) sound, openness,
uproar, movement; (v) amplify,
Louden, encourage, rouse
silent: (adj, adv) motionless; (adj)
dumb, tacit, mute, noiseless,
reserved, placid, reticent, mum,
taciturn, hush. ANTONYMS: (adj)
spoken, talkative, loud, explicit,
open, live, forthcoming, verbal,
audible, talking, moving
silently: (adv) mutely, stilly, quietly,
noiselessly, soundlessly, taciturnly,
wordlessly, secretly, speechlessly,
placidly, tacitly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
loudly, audibly, openly, brazenly
silly: (adj) ridiculous, absurd,
childish, fatuous, irrational,
frivolous, idiotic, preposterous,
unreasonable; (adj, n) fool; (n)
imbecile. ANTONYMS: (adj)
mature, wise, rational, clever,
advisable, profound, reasonable,
responsible, significant
silver: (n) money, gold, bullion,
precious Metals; (adj) silvery,
argent, white, silvern, gray, neutral
tint; (v) plate
simplicity: (n) plainness, simpleness,
easiness, ease, clarity, austerity,
gullibility, severity, artlessness,
ignorance; (adj, n) inexperience.
ANTONYMS: (n) difficulty,
complexity, ambiguity,
magnificence, sophistication,
dishonesty, clutter, warmth
sinclair: (n) Upton Sinclair, Clive
Sinclair, sir Clive marles Sinclair
singing: (v) sing; (n) chanting,
caroling, crooning, hymnody,
humming, intonation, scat,
psalmody, harmonization; (adj)
cantabile. ANTONYM: (adj) silent
sinking: (n) sinkage, settling, fall,
descent, foundering, depression,
immersion, submersion,
submergence; (v) decrease, decline.

Sherwood Anderson
ANTONYM: (adj) rising
sisters: (n) sistren
sits: (n) sat
situated: (adj) set, situate, placed,
sited, fixed, laid, contextualized,
hardened, dictated; (v) locate; (prep)
circumstanced
sixteen: (n) large integer
sixty: (adj) threescore; (n) three score,
large integer, lux
skates: (n) subclass Elasmobranchii,
Selachii, dogfishes, Batoidei,
selachian, sawfishes, rays, order
Batoidei, guitarfishes,
Elasmobranchii, elasmobranch
skating: (adj) sliding; (n) roller
skating, athletics, skateboarding
sketching: (n) art, cartographic
sketching
skies: (n) heavens, firmament,
expanse
skill: (n) artifice, capacity, capability,
knack, ability, faculty, finesse,
cleverness, expertise; (adj, n) craft,
cunning. ANTONYMS: (n)
clumsiness, incompetence,
uselessness, stupidity, ineptness,
tactlessness, inexperience,
ignorance, inaccuracy, delay,
drawback
skinner: (n) trickster, swindler,
currier, furrier, cheat, cheater, crook,
fake, humbug, sharper, faker
slammed: (adj) tight
slashed: (adj) gashed, torn, split,
mown, cut down, decreased, down,
emasculated, fringed, gelded, cheap
slashing: (adj) severe, vehement,
violent, superb, tremendous, racy,
spirited, stunning, bold, lively; (n)
ground clearance
slayer: (n) assassin, killer,
executioner, thug, exterminator,
poisoner, garroter, regicide,
eradicator, cause of death; (n, v)
butcher. ANTONYM: (n) creator
slaying: (n) homicide, assassination,
slaughter, carnage, killing,
bloodshed, elimination, parricide,
fratricide, destruction, liquidation
sleepily: (adv) drowsily, slowly,
somnolently, lethargically, lazily,
sluggishly, dreamily, tiredly,
indolently, torpidly, languorously.
ANTONYM: (adv) vigorously
sleeping: (adj) asleep, inactive, latent,
sleepy, vegetive, vegetative; (n)
dormancy, noctambulism,
quiescence, quiescency, short sleep.
ANTONYMS: (adj) active; (n)
waking
sleepy: (adj) drowsy, dozy, slow,

lazy, hypnotic, inactive, comatose,
dull, heavy, dreamy; (adv) asleep.
ANTONYMS: (adj) awake,
energetic, vigorous, clear, lively,
refreshed
sleeve: (n) arm, liner, cover, cuff,
wristband, collar, socket, skin,
sheath; (v) plexus, skein
slender: (adj, v) lean, meager; (adj)
little, thin, fine, lithe, slight, delicate,
lissom, flimsy, faint. ANTONYMS:
(adj) stocky, fat, wide, considerable,
short, substantial, good, adequate,
stout, thick
slight: (adj, adv) light; (adj) thin,
flimsy, slender, fragile, petty, little;
(adv, n, v) neglect; (n, v) insult,
scorn; (v) ignore. ANTONYMS: (adj)
considerable, major, obvious,
thickset, severe, wide, fat, intense,
heavy, likely; (v) acknowledge
slim: (adj, v) thin; (adj) slight,
narrow, lean, remote, fine, skinny,
tiny, meager; (v) reduce, lose
weight. ANTONYMS: (adj) heavy,
hefty, plump, stocky, wide,
considerable, substantial, strong,
stout; (v) gain
sling: (v) pitch, fling, hurl, dangle,
chuck, toss, throw, heave; (adj)
hang; (adj, v) suspend; (n, v) cast
slip: (adj, n, v) lapse, miss; (adj, n)
fault, blunder; (n, v) slide, drop,
mistake, escape, skid, trip; (n)
cutting. ANTONYM: (n) invoice
slipping: (n) skidding, slippage; (adj)
slithering, gliding, down, labent
slips: (n) pad
sloe: (n) blackthorn, Prunus Spinosa,
Allegheny plum, Alleghany plum;
(adj) jet, coal pitch, ebony, ink,
charcoal, smut, soot
slope: (n, v) pitch, slant, dip, tilt; (v)
cant, lean; (n) declivity, acclivity,
hill, gradient; (adj, n) inclination.
ANTONYMS: (v) level; (n) descent,
hollow, ascent
slow: (adj, v) slack; (adj) dull,
sluggish, heavy, stupid, lazy,
indolent, inactive; (adj, adv) easy,
behind; (adj, n) gradual.
ANTONYMS: (adj) intelligent,
rapid, bright, speedy, alert, brisk,
quick, prompt, hasty, rushed; (v)
accelerate
smallpox: (n) pox, pock, small pox
small-town: (adj) provincial, rural,
local, insular, parochial, trivial
smart: (adj, n) sharp, quick, bright; (n,
v) pain; (adj) shrewd, crafty, sly,
dapper, prompt, astute, intelligent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) stupid, scruffy,

291
unkempt, dim, shabby, slow, naive,
unfashionable, unstylish,
unintelligent, thick
smartness: (n) cleverness, style,
stylishness, brightness, intelligence,
clever, elegance, quickness, swank,
banter, jauntiness. ANTONYMS: (n)
messiness, stupidity, untidiness
smash: (n, v) crash, hit, bang, clash,
knock; (v) shatter, crush, mash,
break, defeat, ruin. ANTONYMS:
(v) mend, preserve; (n) flop
smashed: (adj) drunk, inebriated,
intoxicated, broken, sloshed,
plastered, crushed, tipsy, blotto,
besotted, tight
smashing: (n) crash; (adj) corking,
swell, terrific, great, nifty, groovy,
neat, cracking, dandy, bully
smeared: (adj) smudged, unclean,
soiled, grubby, smirched, muddy,
messy, smudgy, grimy, greasy
smell: (n, v) odor, scent, savor,
perfume, stink, stench; (v) nose; (n)
fragrance, bouquet, savour, odour
smelling: (n) smell, flavor, scent,
olfactory modality, sensing, sense of
smell; (adj) redolent, scented,
odorous, stinking, rotten
smiling: (adv) smilingly; (adj) bright,
cheerful, jolly, joyful, of good cheer,
twinkly, fair, sunny; (n) grinning,
grin. ANTONYMS: (adj) sad,
gloomy
smoke: (n) fumes, cigarette, cigar,
smog, fog; (n, v) reek, fumigate,
puff; (v) exhale, cure; (adj) tobacco
smoker: (n) pornographic film,
smoking car, cigarette smoker, cigar
smoker, smoking compartment,
carriage, tobacco user, smoking
carriage, consumer, party, skin flick.
ANTONYM: (n) nonsmoker
smoking: (n) fume, marijuana,
respiration, roll of tobacco, sens; (v)
candent, ebullient, glowing; (adj)
smoky, rabid; (adv) on a roll
smoky: (adj) murky, hazy, fumid,
vaporous, opaque, muddy, famish,
burnt; (v) sooty, smutty, dusty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, fresh,
clear
smooth: (adj, v) quiet, level, facilitate;
(adj) calm, oily, facile, fluent,
flowing, flat, fluid, graceful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) rough, uneven,
wrinkled, peeling, jerky, ridged,
flaking, abrasive, coarse, prickly; (v)
wrinkle
smudge: (adj, n, v) blot, daub; (n, v)
smear, stain, blemish, slur, smirch;
(adj, v) blur; (n) spot, blotch; (v) foul

292
snap: (v) bite, nip, snarl; (adj, v)
break; (n, v) photograph, fracture,
clack, go; (n) pushover, picnic, catch.
ANTONYMS: (adj) roundabout,
considered
snapped: (adj) torn
snarl: (n, v) tangle, growl, knot,
muddle, yap, howl, bark; (adj, v)
snap; (v) entangle; (n) kink, maze.
ANTONYMS: (v) facilitate, undo
snatched: (adj) hasty, speedy, brief,
hurried, quick, rapid, short, sudden,
swift. ANTONYM: (adj) slow
snatching: (n) capture
snicker: (n, v) giggle, chuckle, titter;
(v) laugh, cackle, chortle, crow,
deride, mock, scorn; (n) laughter.
ANTONYM: (v) cry
snow: (n) cocaine, precipitation,
snowfall, bark, barque; (v)
overwhelm, beguile, hoodwink,
bamboozle, lead by the nose, play
false
sobbing: (adj) crying, weeping,
weepy, tearful; (n) lamentation,
shortness of breath, shit, prick,
motherfucker, tear, lament
soda: (n) soda pop, soda water,
sodium carbonate, sal soda, Leblanc
process, sodium oxide, carbonated
water, sodium bicarbonate, seltzer,
cold drink, restorative
soft: (adj, adv) easy, quiet; (adj) limp,
light, balmy, delicate, slack, loose,
smooth; (adj, v) feeble; (adj, adv, v)
low. ANTONYMS: (adj) hard, firm,
harsh, loud, hoarse, stiff, rough,
solid, strong, shrill, alcoholic
softened: (adj) diffused, muffled,
muted, quiet, slow, touched,
sluggish, soften, pultaceous,
subdued, low-key
softly: (adv) quietly, mildly, lightly,
tenderly, delicately, gently, soft,
quiet, silently, kindly, slowly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) hoarsely,
roughly, loudly, clearly, harshly,
forte, severely, strongly, heavily,
convincingly, brightly
soiled: (adj) grubby, dirty, nasty,
grimy, unclean, filthy, muddy,
black, mucky, polluted, foul.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pure,
immaculate
sojourn: (adj, v) reside, inhabit; (n)
residence, abode; (adj, n, v) stay; (v)
remain, lodge, abide, live; (n, v)
delay, domicile
sold: (adj) depleted, interested; (v) to
market
soldier: (n) warrior, fighter,
serviceman, champion, ranker,

Winesburg, Ohio
military personnel, swordsman,
trooper, cavalryman, guardsman,
janissary
solemnly: (adv) earnestly, gravely,
majestically, stately, sternly, staidly,
thoughtfully, soberly, formally,
ceremoniously, importantly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) cheerfully,
flippantly
solicitude: (n) care, consideration,
anxiety, thought, apprehension,
regard, attention, fear, disquietude,
heed, fret. ANTONYMS: (n)
negligence, serenity,
thoughtlessness
solidity: (n) consistency, firmness,
density, compactness, reliability,
rigidity, substance, consistence,
hardness; (adj, n) stiffness,
soundness. ANTONYMS: (n)
softness, hollowness, porosity,
looseness, instability, slenderness,
lightness, clearness, limpness
somber: (adj) gloomy, melancholy,
solemn, dull, grave, drab, sober,
dark, sullen, dim, dismal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, funny,
cheery, frivolous, fussy
somehow: (adv) anyhow, anyway,
for some reason, somewhat,
someway, someways, a little, in
some manner, in some way, very,
somehow or other
somewhat: (adv) slightly, a little,
fairly, a bit, reasonably, pretty,
moderately, sort of; (adv, v) little;
(adv, pron) partly; (adj, adv)
something. ANTONYMS: (adv)
considerably, very, unreasonably,
totally, hugely, completely, closely,
massively, absolutely, wholly
song: (adj, v) lay; (n, v) ditty, chant;
(n) air, strain, cry, warble, canto,
poem; (v) sing; (adj) ballad
sooner: (adj, adv) rather, earlier,
before, preferably, instead; (adv)
first, before now, faster, previously,
beforehand; (adj) prior
soot: (n) smut, lampblack, carbon
black, grime, carbon, crock, dirt;
(adj) ink, ebony, coal pitch, jet
sophisticated: (adj) refined, complex,
urbane, experienced, cultured,
involved, intricate, suave, polished,
advanced, cosmopolitan.
ANTONYMS: (adj) naive,
unsophisticated, coarse,
inexperienced, insular, simple,
ingenuous, uncouth, crude,
backward, graceless
sophistication: (n) sophism,
cultivation, elegance, complexity,

polish, delicacy, casuistry,
adulteration, disenchantment,
disillusion, disillusionment.
ANTONYMS: (n) uncouthness,
tackiness, naivety, naivete,
coarseness, crudeness, simplicity,
tastelessness
sorts: (n) varieties, sorting, running
pi, batter
sought: (adj) required, quest, seeking,
popular
soul: (n) creature, human, person,
personification, ghost, individual,
mind, essence, life, self; (adj, n)
heart. ANTONYMS: (n) surface,
body
sounded: (adj) measured, oral
spaces: (n) seats, seating
spade: (v) grub, delve, scoop,
excavate; (n) nigger, coon, nigra,
jigaboo, boy, black person, spit
spark: (n, v) flicker, flash, gleam,
glint, glitter; (n) light, glimmer, arc,
flame, fire; (v) activate
sparse: (adj) infrequent, scanty, few,
meager, lean, slender, rare, thin,
inadequate, scarce, unusual.
ANTONYMS: (adj) plentiful,
abundant, crowded, thick,
widespread, generous
spasmodically: (adv) convulsively,
fitfully, intermittently, irregularly,
desultorily, brokenly, frequently,
spastically, startingly. ANTONYM:
(adv) recurrently
spat: (n, v) squabble, altercation, tiff,
bicker, dispute, wrangle, row; (n)
gaiter, argument, bickering, fuss.
ANTONYM: (n) agreement
speaking: (n) talk, discourse, speech,
public speaking, reading, oral
presentation, recital, recitation,
disputation; (v) speak; (adj)
expressive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
nonspeaking, silent
speculation: (n) guess, venture,
reflection, meditation, guesswork,
gamble, supposition, theory,
surmise, adventure, conjecture.
ANTONYM: (n) fact
speechless: (adj) silent, mute, dumb,
dumbfounded, voiceless, quiet,
tongueless, tacit, noiseless, mum,
wordless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
loquacious, eloquent, talkative
spell: (n) magic, fascination, bout,
conjuration, period, incantation,
sorcery, enchantment, turn, span,
bewitchment. ANTONYM: (n)
alertness
spending: (n) expense, outlay,
disbursement, outgo, expenses,

Sherwood Anderson
disbursal, outgoings, expenditures,
use, expending, pay. ANTONYMS:
(n) income, conservation
spicy: (adj) piquant, racy, fragrant,
pungent, salty, blue, savory, hot,
juicy, peppery, redolent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bland, mild,
dull, insipid, tasteless, uninteresting,
faint, sweet
spirits: (n) alcohol, booze, humor,
frame of mind, liqueur, strong
drink, hard drink; (adj) cheer,
geniality, good humor; (v) wine
spiritual: (adj) religious, holy,
immaterial, incorporeal, pious,
ethereal, mental, psychic, divine,
metaphysical, unworldly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) physical,
worldly, secular, earthly, tangible,
uncommitted
spite: (n) malice, grudge, hatred,
malevolence, rancour, venom,
rancor, maliciousness, ill will,
animosity; (n, v) pique.
ANTONYMS: (v) please; (n)
benevolence, goodwill, love,
affection, harmony
splashed: (adj) dabbled, bespattered,
besplashed, spattered, marked,
unclean, dirty, splattered,
distributed, showy, dotted
splendid: (adj, n, v) illustrious,
glorious; (adj) gorgeous, beautiful,
royal, gallant, proud; (adj, n)
magnificent, noble, grand; (adj, v)
brilliant. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unimpressive, modest, humble,
ordinary, undistinguished, meager,
awful, dire, lowly, inglorious,
shabby
spoiled: (adj) bad, rotten, stale, spoil,
coddled, pampered, corrupt,
damaged, spoilt, putrid, rancid.
ANTONYM: (adj) unspoiled
spoken: (adj) verbal, expressed,
speaking, speak, unwritten, vocal,
voiced, talk, said, informal,
conversational. ANTONYMS: (adj)
written, unspoken, tacit, formal,
silent
sporting: (adj) fair, sportsmanlike,
clean, gambling, betting, dissipated,
athletic, adventurous, sporty; (v)
tauromachy; (n) diversion.
ANTONYM: (adj) unsporting
spot: (n, v) place, speck, blemish,
speckle, fleck, dirty, dapple; (adj, n,
v) stain, soil; (n) dot, space
spotlessly: (adv) faultlessly,
blamelessly, unblemishedly,
stainlessly, purely, flawlessly,
perfectly, innocently, unsulliedly,

clearly, undefiledly
spots: (n) damp, drifter, floater,
floating policy, muscae volitantes,
Musca volitans
sprawling: (adj) sprawled, roomy,
sizeable, untidy, straggling,
expansive, sprawly, wide, extensive;
(adv) asprawl; (n) attitude.
ANTONYM: (adj) narrow
spread: (n, v) scatter, stretch,
increase; (adj, n, v) reach; (v)
disperse, expand, propagate,
disseminate, diffuse, circulate; (adj,
v) extend. ANTONYMS: (v)
suppress, gather, collect, fold,
prevent, regress, shrink, specialize,
concentrate; (n) decline; (n, v)
decrease
spring: (n, v) leap, bound, hop,
fountain, skip, caper, bounce, dive,
dance; (n) source; (v) originate
springing: (v) jumping, climbing,
bounding, furious, conspicuous,
prominent, ascending, projecting
outwardly; (n) growth, suspension,
emanation
sprinkled: (adj) scattered, speckled,
wet, dotted
spruce: (adj) dapper, neat, natty,
jaunty, trim, rakish, stylish, dashing,
snappy; (adj, v) tidy; (adj, n) bright.
ANTONYMS: (adj) untidy, messy,
unkempt
spry: (adj) quick, lively, active, agile,
nimble, energetic, sprightly, frisky,
prompt, ready, alert. ANTONYMS:
(adj) inactive, sluggish, slow
sputtering: (n) splutter, splatter,
spattering, spatter, splattering, dab,
splashing, splash; (adj) spluttering,
noisy; (v) sizzle
squalid: (adj) sordid, nasty, foul,
seedy, filthy, grimy, abject, dingy,
grubby, seamy, sleazy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, reputable,
smart, respectable, fresh,
comfortable, wholesome, habitable
squandered: (adj) wasted, dissipated,
emaciated, devastated, dissolute,
diminished, desolated, desolate,
cadaverous; (v) bewildered,
employed ineffectually
square: (n) area, rectangle; (adj)
rectangular, fair, honest; (adj, v)
even, correspond, agree; (v) settle;
(adv, n) foursquare; (adj, adv) just.
ANTONYMS: (adj) round,
underhand, trendy, fresh, activist,
relaxed
squarely: (adv) straightforwardly,
square, forthright, rightly, fairly,
quadrately, truely, right, squaredly,

293
correspondly, straightly
squeaky: (adj) creaky, strident,
grating, screaky, squeaking,
creaking, squealing, high, clean,
higher
squirming: (adj) wiggling, sinuate,
moving, sinuous, twisting, writhing,
wiggly, wriggly
squirrel: (n) hackee, spermophile,
baranduki, burunduki, gopher,
baronduki, barunduki, collector; (v)
bank, conserve; (adj) courser
squirrels: (n) squirrel, mice, beavers,
agoutis, marmots, gophers, guinea
pigs, hamsters, rats, Rodentia, order
Rodentia
stab: (n, v) thrust, impale, jab, pierce,
prod, dig, stick, pink; (n) try, prick;
(v) spike
stable: (adj, adv) firm; (adj) reliable,
stationary, fixed, fast, lasting,
constant, durable, secure, solid,
sound. ANTONYMS: (adj) shaky,
wobbly, dangerous, volatile,
precarious, rickety, tenuous,
temperamental, fickle, temporary;
(adv) loosely
stack: (n, v) pile, heap, mound, load,
lot, store; (n) accumulation, rick,
mass, bunch; (v) pack.
ANTONYMS: (v) unstack, empty,
unload
staggered: (adj) dumbfounded,
astonished, flabbergasted,
astounded, stunned, bewildered,
surprised, thunderstruck, angular,
dizzy, taken aback
stairs: (n) stair, ladder, staircase,
stairway, flight of steps, flight, steps,
flight of stairs, escalator,
companionway, backstairs
stairway: (n) ladder, stairs, flight,
stair, steps, flight of steps,
companionway, roadway,
backstairs, escalator, pathway
stakes: (n) stake, ante, wager, kitty,
jackpot, pool, pot, gamble, prize,
interest, fence
stale: (adj, n) musty, moldy; (adj) old,
commonplace, hackneyed, insipid,
trite, corny, flat, stagnant; (adj, v)
dry. ANTONYMS: (adj) fresh,
original, innovative, airy, new,
exceptional, imaginative
stallion: (n) entire horse, jennet,
horse, hart, genet, gander, dog, cock,
buck, boar, bayard
stamp: (n, v) print, imprint, mark,
seal, brand, impress, cast, punch,
shape; (v) trample; (n) impression
stamped: (adj) beaten, marked,
pressed, printed; (v) fixed, engraved

294
standing: (n) fame, position,
importance, prestige, place,
reputation, footing; (adj) erect,
motionless, continuance; (n, v)
stand. ANTONYMS: (adj) seated,
moving, horizontal, falling,
temporary
stands: (n) bleachers, stood,
grandstand, standing, stop, covered
stand, standpoint, stall, sales booth,
reviewing stand, rack
star: (n, v) asterisk; (n) ace, luminary,
personality, headliner, leading, lead,
idol, asterism; (adj, n) principal,
champion. ANTONYMS: (n)
nonentity, failure, villain; (adj)
insignificant, lousy
starched: (adj) formal, starch,
punctilious, ceremonious, majestic,
solemn, inflexible, prim, stately,
severe, ritual
stare: (n, v) gaze, look; (v) gape, glare,
peer, squint, goggle, see, outface; (n)
regard, contemplation. ANTONYM:
(v) glance
staring: (adj) conspicuous, garish,
agaze, vivid, noisy, showy, fixed,
opened, glassy; (adv) staringly
stars: (n) heavenly bodies, fate
startled: (adj) dumbfounded,
dismayed, distressed, aghast,
frightened, astonished, amazed,
terrified, afraid, shocked, astounded
startling: (adj) wonderful, shocking,
surprising, striking, alarming,
appalling, marvellous, dramatic,
frightful, sensational, lurid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unremarkable,
soothing, comforting
starvation: (n) inanition, famine,
famishment, hungriness, privation,
starving, malnutrition, dearth,
poverty, scarcity, esurience
stated: (adj) set, declared, explicit,
regular, certain, established, settled,
avowed, alleged, definite; (adv)
given
stating: (n) reference
stationery: (n) notepaper, stationary,
note, writing materials, writing
paper, office equipment, letterhead
stature: (n) height, altitude, standing,
tallness, prestige, figure, growth,
status, quality, rank, greatness
stayed: (v) staid, serious, philosophic,
sedate, platonic, stoical; (n) stays;
(adj) late
steadily: (adv) constantly, stably,
regularly, fixedly, strongly,
continually, steadfastly, uniformly,
tightly, calmly, determinedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) unsteadily,

Winesburg, Ohio
nervously, loosely, weakly, rapidly,
suddenly, excitedly, haphazardly,
inconsistently, unevenly
steady: (adj, v) steadfast, even,
secure, resolute, regular, calm,
sedate; (adj, adv) stable; (adj)
constant, continual, fixed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) shaky, wobbly,
intermittent, unreliable, irregular,
fluctuating, inconsistent,
unbalanced, unstable, unfaithful;
(adv) unsteadily
steal: (v) purloin, abstract, sneak,
filch, pinch, creep, misappropriate,
rob, pilfer; (n) bargain; (n, v) snatch
stealing: (n) pilferage, larceny, theft,
steal, burglary, misappropriation,
embezzlement, stolen, thievery,
pilfering, thieving
stealthily: (adv) furtively, sneakily,
surreptitiously, covertly,
clandestinely, underhandly,
underhandedly, in secret, privately,
sneakingly; (adj, adv) noiselessly.
ANTONYM: (adv) brazenly
steamed: (adj) squiffy, miffed,
irritated, irate, indignant, incensed,
harried, harassed, stung, sozzled,
soused
steel: (n) blade, brand, foil, sword,
case harden; (n, v) nerve, brace,
fortify; (adj) iron, adamant; (v)
temper
stem: (n) root, bow, branch, stalk,
bole, stick, shank, handle; (v)
originate, block, arrest.
ANTONYMS: (v) encourage,
accelerate
stenographer: (n) shorthand typist,
amanuensis, stenographist, clerk,
recorder, writer, secretarial assistant,
brachygrapher, secretary; (v)
typewriter, typist
stenography: (n) tachygraphy,
brachygraphy, handwriting,
shorthand writing; (v) cryptography
stepped: (v) advanced, gone, stopen
stepping: (n) steps
sterility: (n) barrenness, impotence,
infecundity, poverty, sterileness,
antisepsis, impotency, asepsis,
dysgenesis, unproductiveness,
aridity
stern: (adj) rigid, rigorous, austere,
hard, strict, grim, solemn, rough;
(adj, v) harsh; (n) back; (adj, n) rear.
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
approving, lenient, funny, genial,
gentle, kindly, lax, liberal, cheerful,
flexible
stick: (adj, v) adhere, cohere; (n, v)
stab, paste, staff; (v) cling, attach, fix,

bind, affix; (n) bar. ANTONYMS: (v)
detach, open, undo
sticks: (n) backwoods, firewood,
frontier, outskirts, suburb, town,
wilderness, brushwood, high sticks;
(adj) distant
sticky: (adj) awkward, adhesive,
clammy, glutinous, gummy, humid,
embarrassing, slimy, difficult,
viscid, pasty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
dry, fresh, easy, clean,
straightforward, runny, cool
stiff: (adj) hard, formal, inflexible,
difficult, rigorous, numb, firm,
sturdy; (adj, n) stark, severe; (n)
corpse. ANTONYMS: (adj) soft,
supple, flexible, floppy, pliable, free,
easy, loose, informal, mild, pliant
stiffly: (adv) firmly, stiff, awkwardly,
unbendingly, difficultly, woodenly,
strongly, formally, stringently,
clumsily, strictly. ANTONYM: (adv)
loosely
stillness: (n) hush, calmness,
immobility, serenity, silence,
quietness, peacefulness; (adj, n)
calm, quiet, peace, still.
ANTONYMS: (n) bustle, movement,
uproar, motion, turbulence, turmoil,
vigor, disturbance, chaos, agitation
stinging: (adj) cutting, bitter, piquant,
prickling; (adj, v) caustic, acrid,
piercing, poignant, biting, pungent,
keen. ANTONYMS: (adj) stingless,
gentle
stir: (adj, n, v) move, bustle; (v) rouse,
arouse, affect, agitate, inspire; (adj,
n) movement; (n) commotion,
excitement, disturbance.
ANTONYMS: (v) dampen, retire,
stultify, bore, steady, stifle,
suppress; (n) quiet, peace; (n, v)
calm
stirred: (adj) excited, agitated,
moved, affected, aroused,
emotional, aflame, Stirn, horny,
susceptible, stirred up
stirring: (adj) lively, exciting, alive,
rousing, spirited, touching, thrilling,
active; (n) agitation; (v) eventful,
brisk. ANTONYMS: (adj)
depressing, boring, inactive, dull,
conciliatory, asleep, uninspiring,
unimpressive; (n) suppression
stocking: (n) hosiery, boothose, trunk
hose, supplying, stocking level,
tights, silk stocking, nylons, nylon
stocking, rayon stocking; (adj)
stockinged
stockinged: (adj) unshod
stole: (n) wrap, stolen, scarf, stolon,
stealing, robe, alb, tunicle, surplice,

Sherwood Anderson
alba, cassock
stolen: (adj) stealed, stole, stealing,
steal, steals, furtive, stealthy, secret,
taken, misbegotten, sly
stolidly: (adv) stupidly,
phlegmatically, phlegmaticly,
doltishly, dully, bovinely, obtusely,
heavily, bluntly, firmly,
unintelligently
stomach: (adj, v) brook, digest; (v)
endure, stand, abide, bear, suffer,
tolerate, take; (n) abdomen, appetite
stones: (n) shingle, grit
stool: (n) seat, bench, footstool, feces,
dejection, faeces, ordure, fecal
matter, droppings, bowel
movement, form
stooped: (adj) hunched, stoop,
stooping, crooked, bended, not
straight, inclined, not erect, arched,
asymmetrical, droopy
stooping: (adj) hunched, crooked,
asymmetrical, not erect, not straight,
corrupt; (n) patronage
stopping: (n) stoppage, cessation,
shutdown, padding, fillet,
suspension, stay, discontinuance,
abeyance, interruption; (adv)
haltingly
stops: (n) Chicago, Michigan,
Newmarket, boodle, halts, stop,
stoppages, stopped, stopping, card
game, moolah
store: (n, v) stock, hoard, bank, cache,
supply; (n) shop, market, business;
(v) accumulate, garner, keep.
ANTONYMS: (v) spend, delete; (n)
dearth
stores: (n) provisions, materials,
provender, support, equipment,
military issue, government issue,
goods, food, commissariat
stories: (n) tale
storm: (n, v) rush, tempest, hail,
attack, assault, charge; (v) fume; (n)
shower, blizzard, hurricane, gust.
ANTONYM: (n) trickle
stormy: (adj, n) inclement, boisterous,
rough, severe; (adj) fierce, windy,
wild, dirty, foul, tempestuous,
blustering. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
still, pleasant, fair, mild, relaxed
stout: (adj, n) sturdy, stocky, hearty;
(adj) hardy, strong, robust, obese,
husky, bold, corpulent, fleshy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) thin, slim,
flimsy, cowardly, slight, skinny,
fragile, weak
stoutly: (adv) sturdily, robustly,
strongly, solidly, lustily, vigorously,
toughly, resolutely, stockily, portly,
obstinately. ANTONYM: (adv)

feebly
stove: (n) cooker, hearth, heater,
furnace, fireplace, kiln, oven,
cooking stove, cookstove, kitchen
stove, kitchen range
straightforward: (adj) direct, open,
square, simple, candid, plain,
honest, sincere, forthright,
immediate, frank. ANTONYMS:
(adj) difficult, tricky, deceitful,
complex, mysterious, pompous,
devious, ambiguous, dishonest,
disingenuous, evasive
strained: (adj) tense, labored, intense,
constrained, laboured, unnatural,
nervous, affected, taut, artificial,
tight. ANTONYMS: (adj) natural,
calm
stranded: (adj, v) beached, wrecked;
(adj) abandoned, marooned,
isolated, shipwrecked, stuck; (v)
devoted, grounded; (n) graveled,
nonplussed
strangely: (adv) curiously, queerly,
unusually, funnily, peculiarly,
weirdly, marvelously, uncommonly,
extraordinarily, singularly,
bizarrely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
typically, ordinarily, harmoniously
stranger: (n) foreigner, outsider,
newcomer, outlander, immigrant,
intruder, unknown, tramontane,
trespasser; (adj) foreign, strange.
ANTONYMS: (n) pal, native,
associate, resident, familiar
straw: (n) rush, stalk, drinking straw,
chaff, fig, bran; (adj) feather,
cobweb, mote, gossamer; (v) strew
strawberries: (n) genus Fragaria,
Fragaria
stray: (v) wander, ramble, range,
digress, straggle, meander, depart,
deviate, rove, drift, err. ANTONYM:
(v) settle
streaks: (n) stripes, cords
stream: (adj, n, prep, v) current,
course; (n, prep, v) flood; (n, v)
brook, run, crowd, jet, gush; (n)
river; (v) pour, swarm.
ANTONYMS: (n) shortage; (v)
drizzle
streetcar: (n) tramcar, trolley car,
trolley, cable car, tramway, cable
tramway, aerial tramway, horsecar,
ropeway
streets: (n) street
strengthened: (adj) consolidated,
sinewed, made firm, comfortable,
built, strong, equipped
stretch: (adj, n, v) strain; (adj, v)
extend, elongate, lengthen; (n)
extent, expanse; (v) prolong, draw;

295
(n, v) run, spread, range.
ANTONYMS: (v) shorten, shrink,
withdraw, narrow, relax; (adj)
inflexible
stretched: (adj) extended, stiff, tight,
tense, stretched out, strained,
expanded, outstretched, elongated,
outspread, prolonged.
ANTONYMS: (adj) loose, short
stretches: (adj) stretched
stricken: (adj) smitten, struck, beaten,
laid low, affected, hurt, low,
impaired, dotty; (v) heavy laden,
victimized
stride: (n, v) pace, tread, walk, stalk,
rate, toddle, stump; (n) footstep,
gait, progress; (v) march
strike: (n, v) hit, beat, bang, knock,
assault, slap, clap, rap, smash; (v)
impress, move. ANTONYMS: (n)
defense; (v) extinguish, defend
striking: (adj) outstanding, dramatic,
spectacular, salient, imposing,
conspicuous, vivid, remarkable,
notable, astonishing; (n) strike.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ugly, ordinary,
unimpressive, unremarkable,
inconspicuous, unattractive,
uninteresting, plain, insignificant,
humble, obscure
string: (n) chain, twine, strand, series,
filament; (adj, n) file, row, range,
rank; (n, v) run, thread. ANTONYM:
(v) unstring
strings: (n) string, string section,
sway, control, dealings, domination,
jurisdiction, terms, condition,
command, provision
strip: (v) deprive, despoil, peel, rifle,
plunder, divest, denude, ransack,
pillage; (n) band, slip. ANTONYMS:
(v) decorate, cover, add
striving: (n) nisus, pains, endeavor,
strife, try, strain, attempt, strive,
ambition, struggle, exertion.
ANTONYM: (adj) unmotivated
stroking: (v) caress, strike, blow; (n)
cam stroke, feeling, effleurage,
diagonal, CVA, commendation,
glide, slash
stronger: (adj) reprobate, insensible,
reproof, iniquity, hardening,
shameless, graceless, immoralities,
ministry; (v) Milman, misery
strongly: (adv) firmly, vigorously,
robustly, violently, solidly,
vehemently, sturdily, hardily,
mightily, energetically, severely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) mildly, dimly,
faintly, feebly, gently, loosely,
slightly, submissively, thinly,
languorously, impassively

296
strove: (v) strive
struck: (adj, v) smitten; (v) stroke;
(adj) affected, afflicted, doting,
dotty, enamored, gaga, hurt, in love,
infatuated
struggle: (n, v) contest, battle,
conflict, combat, strain, endeavor,
attempt, dispute, quarrel; (n) effort,
exertion. ANTONYMS: (v) flourish;
(n) ease, surrender, friendship
struggling: (v) strive; (adj) harassed,
hostile, under pressure, stressed,
aggressive, agonizing, rebellious,
belligerent, careworn; (n)
colluctation
stubborn: (adj) contrary, hard,
intractable, perverse, rigid,
determined, persistent, refractory,
tenacious, obdurate, inveterate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) compliant,
irresolute, flexible, amenable, docile,
easygoing, malleable, agreeable,
accommodating, cooperative, feeble
stubbornly: (adv) obdurately,
mulishly, persistently, doggedly,
tenaciously, unyieldingly, firmly,
waywardly, contrarily,
pertinaciously, insistently.
ANTONYMS: (adv) feebly,
helpfully, openly, hesitantly
stuck: (adj) stranded, jammed,
delayed, fast; (adj, adv) aground; (n)
stuck ware, thrust, sticking; (v)
sticked, fasten, attach. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unstuck, loose
studied: (adj) deliberate, calculated,
conscious, premeditated, affected,
elaborate, learned, intended,
designed, willful; (v) advised.
ANTONYMS: (adj) spontaneous,
unstudied, casual
studying: (n) poring over, perusal,
study, learning, reading, speculation
stuffed: (adj) crammed, packed,
congested, replete, loaded, filled,
fraught, chock-full, crowded,
jammed, gorged. ANTONYMS: (adj)
hungry, lacking
stumbling: (adj) lurching,
astounding, hesitant, halting,
awkward, astonishing, maladroit,
clumsy, weaving; (adv) stumblingly;
(n) hesitation. ANTONYM: (adj)
firm
stump: (n) stub, end, pulpit; (v)
confuse, stamp, baffle, perplex,
nonplus, puzzle, bewilder, mystify.
ANTONYM: (v) explain
stunned: (adj) dumbfounded,
astonished, astounded, amazed,
flabbergasted, dazed, stupefied,
staggered, bewildered, confused;

Winesburg, Ohio
(adj, v) astonied. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indifferent, unimpressed
stupidity: (n) foolishness, nonsense,
obtuseness, dullness, fatuity,
absurdity, stolidity, slowness,
denseness, idiocy, imbecility.
ANTONYMS: (n) sense, logic,
cleverness, shrewdness, wisdom,
ability
stupidly: (adv) dully, thickly,
obtusely, senselessly, fatuously,
slowly, insanely, unwisely,
doltishly, crassly, densely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) shrewdly,
brightly, sensibly, wisely,
sensitively, prudently, carefully
stylish: (adj) fashionable, elegant,
dapper, chic, dressy, trendy,
modern, natty, neat, popular, smart.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unfashionable,
unstylish, styleless, bland, plain,
unsophisticated, awkward, modern,
out, primitive, shabby
stylized: (adj) stylised, unreal,
elegant, conventionalised,
ceremonial, artificial, exaggerated
subdued: (adj) quiet, muffled, dull,
restrained, muted, tame, faint,
repressed, low, meek; (adj, v)
resigned. ANTONYMS: (adj)
enthusiastic, lively, uninhibited,
unsubdued, rebellious, noisy, bright,
elaborate, frivolous, upbeat
submerged: (adj) sunken, immersed,
submersed, underwater, subaquatic,
submarine, covered, inundated,
flooded, semiaquatic; (pron)
drowned
substance: (adj, n) subject; (n) body,
significance, import, material,
matter, meaning, amount, means,
gist, core. ANTONYMS: (n)
meaninglessness, lightness, surface
substitute: (n) deputy, backup,
delegate; (n, v) alternate, shift,
surrogate; (adj, n) alternative,
makeshift; (v) change, replace, fill in
subterranean: (adj) underground,
backdoor, profound, subaqueous,
submarine, subterrene,
subterrestrial, deep, hole-andcorner, subterraneous, subterrany
succeed: (v) follow, arrive, prosper,
prevail, manage, supplant, ensue,
supersede, do, achieve, flourish.
ANTONYMS: (v) fail, precede, lose,
botch, restore, neglect, Miss,
deteriorate
successfully: (adv) victoriously,
prosperously, happily, thrivingly,
luckily, effectively, triumphantly,
efficiently, well, swimmingly,

rewardingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
ineffectively, unsuccessfully,
fruitlessly, inefficiently
succession: (n) series, run, round,
chain, string, lineage, row,
continuation, concatenation, course,
reversion
sucker: (n) dupe, sap, jay, lollipop,
patsy, soft touch, mark, chump,
pushover, mug; (v) sponger
sudden: (adj) precipitous, quick,
abrupt, hasty, rash, unexpected,
steep, unforeseen, drastic,
immediate, swift. ANTONYMS:
(adj) considered, slow, gentle,
leisurely, protracted, sensible,
smooth
suffer: (v) encounter, stand, accept,
undergo, brook, experience, have,
endure, abide, sustain; (adj, v) allow.
ANTONYMS: (v) enjoy, rejoice,
flourish
suffered: (adj) permitted, permissive
suffering: (n) distress, agony,
affliction, anguish, torture, grief,
torment, misery, hardship; (adj, n)
hurt; (adj) miserable. ANTONYMS:
(adj, n) content; (n) peace, ecstasy,
joy, pleasure
sugar: (n) darling, saccharide,
carbohydrate, love, beloved,
jaggary; (adj, n) dear; (v) saccharify,
sweeten, dulcify, edulcorate
suggestion: (n) advice, intimation,
proposal, counsel, allusion, sign,
trace, proposition, recommendation;
(n, v) touch, dash. ANTONYMS: (n)
warning, practice
suit: (adj, v) fit, please; (adj, n, v)
correspond; (n) lawsuit, plea, action,
case; (v) adapt, accommodate,
become; (n, v) answer. ANTONYM:
(v) clash
suitor: (n) plaintiff, suer, admirer,
beau, candidate, complainant,
gallant, boyfriend, applicant,
petitioner; (n, v) wooer
sulkily: (adv) morosely, glumly,
peevishly, crossly, grumpily,
petulantly, moodily, gloomily, surly,
resentfully, angrily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) cheerily, gladly
sullen: (adj, n) morose, sulky, sour;
(adj) gloomy, gruff, glum, moody,
dark, cross, surly; (adj, v) grim.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, cheery;
(n) cheeriness
sullenly: (adv) sulkily, sourly,
grumpily, morosely, moodily,
dourly, somberly, peevishly, surly,
crossly, petulantly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) graciously, contentedly,

Sherwood Anderson
gladly, cheerily
summon: (v) assemble, convene,
demand, ask, invoke, evoke, invite,
muster, page, rally, convoke.
ANTONYM: (v) disband
sunrise: (n) dawn, sunup, daybreak,
daylight, aurora, first light,
dayspring, twilight, dawning, break
of day, crack of dawn. ANTONYMS:
(n) sunset, sundown, nightfall
superintendent: (n) supervisor,
manager, overseer, inspector,
administrator, keeper, chief,
guardian, caretaker; (adj, n)
governor, curator
superior: (adj) dominant, exceptional,
predominant, better, great, proud,
arrogant, excellent, select, high; (adj,
n) elder. ANTONYMS: (adj, n)
inferior, subscript; (adj) humble,
worse, poor, adscript, junior, lesser,
low; (n) subordinate, associate
supervision: (n) oversight, control,
direction, charge, management,
superintendence, guidance, custody,
care, command; (n, v) observation
supper: (n) meal, tea, lunch, repast,
reception, mealtime, siesta, social
affair; (v) dejeuner, bever, whet
supple: (adj, v) flexible, pliable,
limber, pliant; (adj) lithe, soft,
plastic, graceful, lithesome, lissom,
lissome. ANTONYMS: (adj) rigid,
inflexible, stocky, clumsy, hard,
rough, slow, tight, unyielding
supposed: (adj) hypothetical,
reputed, alleged, assumed,
imaginary, putative, apparent,
ostensible, suppositional,
supposititious, suppositious.
ANTONYM: (adj) actual
suppressed: (adj) stifled, smothered,
strangled, repressed, downtrodden,
buried, hidden, pent-up, latent,
untold; (n) subordinate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) publicized, overt
surgical: (adj) postoperative, key,
functional, chirurgical, effective.
ANTONYM: (adj) medical
surpass: (v) beat, outdo, exceed,
surmount, better, excel, outstrip,
overcome, overrun, best, go beyond.
ANTONYMS: (v) fail, lose, follow,
trail
surplus: (n) remainder, balance,
overabundance, surfeit, remnant,
glut, overflow, plethora; (adj, adv, n)
extra; (adj) superfluous; (adj, adv)
over. ANTONYMS: (adj, n) lack; (n)
shortage, scarcity, shortfall, lacking,
essential, deficit; (adj) need, basic,
want, necessity

surprise: (n) fright, amazement,
wonder, astonishment; (n, v) alarm,
shock, jolt; (v) amaze, startle,
astonish, stun. ANTONYMS: (n)
expectation; (v) encourage, comfort
surprised: (adj) amazed,
dumbfounded, shocked, astounded,
stunned, taken aback, bewildered,
startled, surprise, aghast, to be
astonished. ANTONYM: (adj)
unsurprised
surrender: (v) concede, abandon, give
up, capitulate, submit, deliver; (adj,
n) resignation; (n, v) resign, render,
release; (n) capitulation.
ANTONYMS: (v) conquer,
appropriate, persevere, subdue,
enforce; (n, v) fight, win; (n) capture,
confrontation, conquest, victory
surrendered: (adj) given
surrounded: (adj) enclosed, ingirt,
not independent, ringed, inside,
rooted, conditioned, circumstanced,
bounded; (v) beset, furnished
surrounding: (prep) round, about;
(adj) encompassing, encircling,
environmental, circumambient,
adjoining; (adv) around; (n)
surroundings, circumstances,
enclosing
suspected: (adj) supposed, doubted,
suspicious, suspicion, inspiring
distrust, distrusted
suspended: (adj) hanging, dormant,
pendulous, abeyant, dangling, in
abeyance, inactive, pendant, in
suspension, pensile, suspensory
suspender: (n) brace, Gallus, vesture,
wear, braces, hanger, couplet,
doubleton, distich, couple, duad
suspense: (n) doubt, expectancy,
anticipation, indecision, insecurity,
unrest, expectation, irresolution,
suspension, tension; (adj, n)
hesitation. ANTONYM: (n)
knowledge
sustained: (adj) prolonged, long,
continuous, constant, chronic, free
burning, perennial, supported,
permanent, sostenuto, protracted.
ANTONYM: (adj) brief
swaggering: (adj) hectoring,
swashbuckling, supercilious, sniffy,
boastful, lordly, disdainful, prideful;
(v) swagger; (n) boasting, bravado.
ANTONYM: (adj) insecure
swamp: (v) flood, submerge,
overwhelm, inundate, drench; (n)
marsh, mire, quagmire, morass; (adj,
v) sink, drown. ANTONYMS: (v)
underwhelm, disperse, dry
swarm: (n) host, horde, multitude,

297
drove, throng, cloud, assembly; (n,
v) mob; (v) teem, pour; (adj) shoal.
ANTONYMS: (v) retreat; (n) few
swear: (v) declare, assure, assert,
affirm, curse, pledge; (n, v) promise,
avow, depone, depose, aver.
ANTONYMS: (v) distrust, refute,
deny, compliment
swearing: (n) curse, expletive,
profanity, oath, abuse, blasphemy,
swearword, execration, adjuration,
asseveration; (v) swear
sweeping: (adj) broad, extensive,
radical, wholesale, indiscriminate,
exhaustive, blanket, thorough,
general, wide; (adv) sweepingly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) narrow,
restricted, exclusive, specific,
modest, isolated
sweet: (adj) fresh, mellow, lovable,
dear, pleasant, musical, melodious,
pleasing, sugary; (adj, v) lovely; (adj,
n) beloved. ANTONYMS: (adj)
discordant, bitter, acid, sharp, acidic,
pungent, salty, harsh, detestable,
cacophonous, dry
sweetheart: (n) dear, girl, darling,
mistress, flame, beloved, boyfriend,
love, steady; (adj, n) beau, admirer.
ANTONYMS: (n) foe, enemy
sweetness: (n) sugariness, sweet,
redolence, pleasantness, fragrance,
aroma, charm, perfume, amenity,
niceness, kindness. ANTONYMS:
(n) sourness, sharpness,
unpleasantness, harshness,
tastelessness, unkindness
swept: (adj) clean
swift: (adj, adv, v) fast; (adj) quick,
fleet, speedy, alert, nimble, hasty,
prompt, sudden, hurried; (adj, v)
rapid. ANTONYMS: (adj)
considered, leisurely, sluggish,
gradual, delayed, clumsy
swiftly: (adv) rapidly, speedily,
fleetly, promptly, expeditiously,
alertly, hastily, suddenly, readily;
(adj, adv) quickly, fast.
ANTONYMS: (adv) eventually,
sluggishly, gradually
swing: (n, v) sway, sweep, turn,
change, beat; (v) fluctuate, oscillate,
dangle, rock, vibrate; (adj, v) hang
swinging: (adj) swaying, excessive,
lilting, inordinate, hanging,
exorbitant, pendulous, outrageous,
preposterous, extravagant; (n)
slewing
sword: (n) blade, sabre, brand,
broadsword, falchion, cutlass, saber,
steel, glaive, backsword, cutlas
sycamore: (n) plane tree, maple, great

298
maple, mulberry fig, lacewood,
buttonwood, platan, Scottish maple,
tree, wood, plane
sympathetic: (adj, v) compassionate,
tender, affectionate; (adj, n) kindly,
congenial, humane, gentle,
favorable; (adj) merciful, agreeable,
friendly. ANTONYMS: (adj)
hardhearted, unfeeling, callous,
uncaring, unsociable, unforgiving,
unfriendly, negative, sarcastic,
opposed, unhelpful
sympathetically: (adv)
compassionately, tenderly,
considerately, agreeably, favorably,
sensitively, caringly, benevolently,
thoughtfully, mercifully, humanely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) meanly,
thoughtlessly, unfeelingly, severely,
unkindly, roughly, negatively,
disapprovingly, cruelly, tactlessly
sympathize: (v) pity, understand,
condole, compassionate, feel,
sympathise, identify with,
empathize, have compassion, feel
sorry for, feel for. ANTONYMS: (v)
disapprove, disregard
sympathy: (n) compassion, kindness,
commiseration, mercy, feeling,
understanding, rapport,
benevolence, agreement; (adj, n)
humanity, charity. ANTONYMS: (n)
indifference, cruelty, coldness,
disdain, incompatibility,
thoughtlessness, mercilessness,
callousness, incomprehension,
inhumanity, insensitivity
symptoms: (n) syndrome
syntax: (n) grammar, structure,
phrase structure, accidence, system,
syntaxis, punctuation, praxis
tail: (n, v) shadow, trail; (v) follow,
track, pursue, dog, tag, chase; (n)
behind, posterior, butt.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) head, front; (v)
lead
tale: (n) account, narrative, narration,
recital, fib, fable, report, fiction, lie,
relation, yarn. ANTONYM: (n) fact
talent: (n) genius, ability, aptitude,
capacity, skill, knack, flair,
capability; (n, v) endowment,
faculty; (adj, n) cleverness.
ANTONYMS: (n) incapacity, lack,
stupidity, incompetence, ineptness,
drawback
talks: (n) parley, discussion,
dialogue, diplomacy, arbitration,
mediation, conversation,
discussions, conference, meeting,
dialog
tall: (adj) elevated, high, exalted, big,

Winesburg, Ohio
lanky, towering, eminent,
unbelievable, strapping, long,
gangling. ANTONYMS: (adj) low,
small, sensible, reasonable, little,
believable, easy, stocky
tangled: (adj) involved, complex,
knotted, intricate, complicated,
entangled, knotty, convoluted,
disheveled, tousled, matted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tidy,
straightforward, untangled, neat,
simple
tapped: (adj) poor, powerless,
helpless. ANTONYM: (adj)
untapped
tapping: (n) draining of the furnace,
paracentesis, to tap, tick,
tapotement, sound, patter, drainage,
clapping, casting, restriking
tattoo: (n) drumbeat, tattoos, bugle
call, decoration
taught: (adj) instructed, educated,
schooled, instruct, well-bred,
scholarly, provided; (v) firm, fast,
close, taut
taxes: (n) toll, monies, levy, excise,
dues
teach: (v) enlighten, educate, instruct,
coach, indoctrinate, drill, learn,
lecture, school; (adj, v) guide, show
teamster: (n) carter, driver, muleteer,
postilion, arriero, cartman, carrier,
porter, vetturino, truck driver, lorry
driver
tear: (n, v) rip, break, split, rupture,
crack, run, slit; (v) pull, rend,
lacerate; (adj, v) rush. ANTONYMS:
(v) wait, mend, idle, fix, amble,
dawdle
tearing: (adj) fierce, violent,
vehement, furious, ripping,
ferocious; (n) lachrymation,
lacrimation, riving ahead, tear,
lancination
tears: (n) cry, crying, snivel, brine,
weeping, activity, bawling, bodily
function, bodily process, body
process, lacerations
teeth: (v) mortar and pestle, gristmill,
nutmeg grater, grater, file, arrastra,
rasp, mill, unguis, tentacle; (n) gear
teeth
telegraph: (n) telegram, telegraphy,
flagstaff, setup; (v) wire, broadcast,
electrify, forecast, foreshadow,
forewarn, telecommunicate
telling: (adj, v) significant; (adj)
revealing, emphatic, impressive,
effectual, effective, pregnant, cogent;
(n) relation, recounting, notice.
ANTONYMS: (adj) secretive,
unimportant, insignificant, hidden

temper: (adj, v) moderate, soften,
mitigate, harden; (n) character,
disposition, humor, nature; (v)
modify, season, qualify.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) upset; (v)
soften, agitate, excite, flex, bend,
increase; (n) composure, happiness,
wrath, equanimity
tempered: (adj) attempered,
temperate, moderated, toughened,
subdued, set, enured, proportioned,
properly adapted, emotionally
hardened, treated. ANTONYM:
(adj) untempered
temples: (n) brow
temporary: (adj) ephemeral, acting,
momentary, fleeting, provisional,
impermanent, transient, evanescent,
transitory, brief; (adj, v) temporal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) continuous,
enduring, eternal, everlasting,
sustained, continued, lasting
temptation: (n, v) lure, enticement,
bait; (n) attraction, allurement,
invitation, seduction, inducement,
allure, appeal, pull. ANTONYMS:
(n) dislike, discouragement
tendency: (n, v) drift; (n) proclivity,
propensity, leaning, trend, direction,
inclination, partiality, disposition,
bent, course. ANTONYM: (n) dislike
tender: (n, v) offer, proffer, bid; (adj,
v) affectionate; (adj) painful,
sensitive, soft, loving, sore; (v)
propose, present. ANTONYMS:
(adj) hardhearted, rubbery, hard,
rough, uncaring, healthy, mature,
unfeeling, cold, experienced; (v)
withdraw
tenderly: (adv) softly, kindly,
delicately, affectionately, fondly,
warmly, painfully, sensitively,
caringly, sympathetically, gently.
ANTONYMS: (adv) roughly,
severely, disapprovingly, harshly
tenderness: (n) fondness, soreness,
love, affection, sympathy; (adj, n)
clemency, mildness, compassion,
gentleness, softness, delicacy.
ANTONYMS: (n) pleasure, dryness,
hatred, strength, detachment
tense: (adj) nervous, taut, edgy, stiff,
uptight, jumpy, wired, stretched;
(adj, v) overwrought; (v) strain,
extend. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
comfortable, tranquil, loose, slack,
relaxing, untroubled, limp, lax,
calming; (v) relax
tensed: (adj) finite
terrible: (adj) horrible, dreadful,
horrid, monstrous, abominable,
ghastly, dire, appalling, fearful,

Sherwood Anderson
awful, hideous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
lovely, pleasant, great, laudable,
excellent, superb, mild, slight,
minor, brilliant, insignificant
terribly: (adv) horribly, awfully,
terrifically, very, badly, awful,
appallingly, atrociously, terrificly;
(adj, adv) frightfully, shockingly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) wonderfully,
slightly, superbly, fortunately,
happily, laudably, little,
marvelously, pleasantly, hardly,
honorably
terrific: (adj) tremendous, fantastic,
great, wonderful, dreadful,
formidable, splendid, brilliant,
marvellous; (adj, v) terrible,
shocking. ANTONYMS: (adj) tiny,
abysmal, bad, calm, moderate,
nasty, dreadful, insignificant,
ordinary, unremarkable
terrifying: (adj) horrible, frightening,
alarming, fearsome, scary,
horrifying, terrific, appalling,
formidable, ghastly, hideous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) safe, pleasant,
reassuring
terror: (n, v) alarm, scare; (adj, n)
dread, awe; (n) fear, dismay,
consternation, horror, panic,
apprehension, scourge.
ANTONYMS: (n) peace, security,
delight, calm, confidence
testament: (n) testimonial, testimony,
parchment, paper, settlement,
evidence, tribute, gospel, guarantee;
(n, v) volition; (v) discretionary
pleasure
thanks: (n) acknowledgment,
gratitude, blessing, grace, praise,
gratefulness, recognition, credit,
benediction, thankfulness; (int)
thank you. ANTONYMS: (n)
criticism, blame
theatrical: (adj) melodramatic,
dramatic, histrionic, stagy, theatric,
stilted, artificial, pretentious,
spectacular, pedantic, full of
affectation. ANTONYMS: (adj)
undramatic, restrained, real, quiet
theme: (n) matter, motif, subject, text,
substance, composition, stem,
question, base, motive, paper
thereby: (adv) whereby, hereby
thick: (adj) compact, stupid,
crowded, slow, opaque, dull, heavy,
stocky, deep, close, familiar.
ANTONYMS: (adj) thin, intelligent,
sparse, bright, slight, clever,
transparent, diluted, fine, clear,
runny
thieving: (n) larceny, stealing,

robbery, embezzlement,
misapplication, misappropriation,
peculation, defalcation, burglary,
thievery; (adj) thievish.
ANTONYMS: (adj) philanthropic,
benevolent
thin: (adj) tenuous, flimsy, light, fine,
emaciated; (adj, v) lean, gaunt,
slight, sheer, meager, dilute.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fat,
concentrated, chubby, plump, wide,
heavy, broad, strong, resonant,
solid; (v) thicken
thinker: (n) intellect, mind, longhead,
head, intellectual, creative thinker,
theorist, sage, wise person, pundit,
ruminator. ANTONYM: (n) realist
thoroughfare: (n) road, street,
highway, avenue, passage, way,
route, path, boulevard, track,
roadway
thoroughly: (adv, v) fully; (adv)
entirely, totally, soundly,
exhaustively, carefully, absolutely,
perfectly, deeply, utterly, exactly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) superficially,
incompletely, negligently, partially,
partly, barely, halfheartedly,
deficiently, inadequately,
insufficiently, hastily
thou: (n) chiliad, grand, m, g, one
thousand, gramme, gram, gm,
gigabyte, Gb, curtilage
thoughtful: (adj, v) serious, solemn,
grave; (adj) kind, careful, pensive,
heedful, attentive, discreet, sensible,
courteous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
thoughtless, careless, heedless,
uncaring, unkind, tactless,
superficial, stupid, negligent, idiotic,
unthinking
thoughts: (n) mind, opinion, depth of
thought, feelings, reflection, ideas,
workings of the mind, view, stance,
position, considered opinion
thousands: (n) myriad, much, many
threat: (n) hazard, danger, risk, peril,
commination, intimidation,
jeopardy, coercion, warning, omen,
terror. ANTONYMS: (n) safety,
persuasion
threaten: (v) intimidate, loom, bully,
endanger, offer, imperil, jeopardize,
peril, foreshadow, portend; (n, v)
threat. ANTONYMS: (v) guard,
protect, relieve, save, alleviate,
reassure, recede, strengthen
threatened: (adj) vulnerable, in
jeopardy, exposed, endangered,
doomed, at risk
threatening: (adj) ominous,
forbidding, sinister, minatory, black,

299
imminent, perilous, impending,
dangerous, grave, sullen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) reassuring, nice,
approachable, pleasant, promising,
favorable, friendly, harmless,
hospitable, soothing
thrift: (n) economy, parsimony,
husbandry, frugalness, prosperity,
prudence, thriftiness,
parsimoniousness, sea pink, welfare;
(v) gain. ANTONYMS: (n)
generosity, spending, waste
thriving: (adj) successful, prosperous,
prospering, booming, rich, affluent,
growing, lush, lucky, healthy,
luxuriant. ANTONYMS: (adj)
declining, languishing, arid,
moribund, dying, disappearing,
poor, unwell
throat: (n) orifice, pharynx, gorge,
mouth, muzzle, nozzle, sucker,
shaft, quarl, throat depth, nostril
throes: (n) hurt, labor, suffering
throw: (n, v) cast, pitch, push; (v)
shed, hurl, heave, chuck, flip, pass,
hurtle; (n) shot. ANTONYMS: (v)
explain, help, receive, clarify,
encourage
thrown: (adj) puzzled, confused,
thrown and twisted, upset,
disconcerted, unnerved, terrified,
scared out of your wits, mystified,
frightened; (n) reminder.
ANTONYM: (adj) calm
thrust: (n, v) poke, stab, jab, drive,
shove, force, punch, boost, cast, dig;
(v) ram. ANTONYM: (n) inertia
thrusting: (n) thrust, push, jab, poke,
jabbing, stab, driving force, scoke,
sack, punch, Phytolacca Americana
thump: (n, v) thud, bang, bump,
knock, hit, strike, cuff, punch, crash,
crack; (v) pound. ANTONYM: (v)
tiptoe
thunder: (adj, n, v) boom; (n, v) roar,
bang, roll, bellow; (adj, n) peal; (adj,
v) explode, detonate; (v) howl,
rumble, fulminate
thursday: (n) thorium
tick: (n, v) beat, mark, check; (n)
score, credit, moment, second,
minute, ticking; (v) tally, click
ticket: (n) label, card, certificate,
ballot, check, slate, tag, warrant,
voucher, slip, mark. ANTONYM: (n)
exclusion
tidal: (adj) flowing
tied: (adj) bound, connected, laced,
united, fixed, even, liable, tight,
spiked, responsible, attached.
ANTONYMS: (adj) untied, unlaced
tiffin: (n) lunch, repast, dessert,

300
dinner, meal, supper; (n, v)
dejeuner; (v) bever, whet
tight: (adj, v) narrow, parsimonious,
compact, stingy; (adj, adv, v) fast,
firm; (adj) mean, taut, secure, snug,
tense. ANTONYMS: (adj) generous,
baggy, slack, wide, easy, open,
leaky, giving, free, floppy; (adv)
loosely
tightly: (adv) closely, steadily, tautly,
strictly, securely, densely, stiffly,
solidly, tipsily, stably,
parsimoniously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
loosely, insecurely, sparsely
tigress: (n) tiger, shrew
tile: (n) roof, thatch, bonnet, pantile,
castor, ceiling, roofing tile, wimple,
tiling, paving stone; (v) cover
till: (conj, prep) until, unto; (v) plow,
hoe, farm, dig; (adj) up to; (n) tiller,
drawer; (adv) so far; (prep) to
tilling: (n) cultivation, ploughing,
tillage, tillering, surface cultivation,
sowing
timber: (n) lumber, forest, plank,
beam, girder, rafter, tree, woodland,
timberland, boards, coulisse
timid: (adj) shy, afraid, diffident, coy,
bashful, nervous, frightened,
apprehensive, modest; (adj, adv)
cowardly; (adj, n) cautious.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) brave; (adj)
confident, bold, fearless, resolute,
forward, daring, brazen, extrovert,
brash, talkative
timidity: (n) shyness, fear,
bashfulness, nervousness, reserve,
cowardice, fearfulness, timidness,
modesty, humility, coyness.
ANTONYMS: (n) confidence,
boastfulness, swagger, brashness,
security
timidly: (adv) fearfully, timorously,
cautiously, shyly, diffidently,
anxiously, nervously, shily,
gingerly, modestly, apprehensively.
ANTONYMS: (adv) confidently,
bravely, daringly, brashly,
fearlessly, decisively, brazenly
tiny: (adj) minute, minuscule, small,
diminutive, petty, infinitesimal,
midget, teeny, puny, petite, slight.
ANTONYMS: (adj) huge, enormous,
vast, gigantic, large, big,
considerable, roomy, significant,
giant, immeasurable
tipped: (adj) canted, tilted, leaning,
atilt, oblique, inclined, sharp,
sloping, having Angles
tiptoe: (v) tip, tippytoe, creep, patter,
skirt, skip, tilt, sidle, lean; (adj) alert;
(n) quieter. ANTONYM: (v) clump

Winesburg, Ohio
tirade: (n) diatribe, invective, sermon,
speech, recitation, Philippic, oration,
delivery, broadside, lecture, say.
ANTONYMS: (n) calm, harmony,
praise
tire: (n, v) bore, jade; (adj, n, v)
fatigue; (v) exhaust, harass, fag,
weary, wear, pall, prostrate; (n) tyre.
ANTONYMS: (v) interest,
invigorate, energize
tired: (adj, v) fatigued, weary,
exhausted, stale; (adj) threadbare,
commonplace, trite, banal, haggard,
stock, jaded. ANTONYMS: (adj)
invigorated, alert, refreshed,
energetic, original, strong, awake,
energized, lively, rested, relaxed
tobacco: (adj) nicotine; (n) filler,
nicotian, plant product, mustard
tree, herb, herbaceous plant,
common tobacco, drug of abuse,
street drug, smoking mixture
toil: (n, v) labor, work, drudge,
sweat, drudgery, grind, labour,
travail; (v) plod; (n) effort, exertion.
ANTONYMS: (n) pastime,
entertainment, fun, relaxation; (v)
laze, neglect
toledo: (n) bilbo, broadsword, glaive,
cutlass, falchion, Glave, saber,
scimitar, skean, sword, whinyard
tolerated: (adj) permissive, permitted,
permitting, suffered, admissible
tone: (n) note, accent, timbre, spirit,
tinge, shade, air, sound, tint,
manner; (n, v) color. ANTONYMS:
(n) atonicity, flaccidity; (v) jar
tongue: (n) lingua, speech, idiom,
dialect, clapper, glossa, natural
language, striker, talk; (v) lick; (adj)
flowing
tony: (adj) stylish, classy, snappy,
conspicuous, sharp, showy; (n)
doodle, calf, buzzard, block, colt
tool: (n) implement, machine,
puppet, pawn, device, gadget,
appliance, contrivance, apparatus,
cock; (v) drive
tools: (n) tackle, apparatus, gear,
appliance, machinery, utensil,
rigging, knowledge, skill, factory,
expertise
tooth: (n) palate, denticle, trident,
sprocket, saw, premolar, nap,
incisor, grain, eyetooth; (adj) nib
toothless: (adj) powerless,
immobilized, edentulous, dull.
ANTONYM: (adj) effective
tops: (n) apex, pinnacle, pick; (adj)
champion, elite, fabulous, leading,
outstanding, uppermost, superb,
superlative

torch: (n) brand, light, flambeau,
burner, great mullein, blowlamp,
Verbascum Thapsus, flannel
mullein, common mullein,
blowtorch; (v) burn
tore: (v) tare; (n) moulding, molding
torn: (adj, prep) lacerated, rent,
mangled; (adj) ripped, tattered,
blasted, lacerate, shabby,
goddamned, infernal, made
uninhabitable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pristine, sure, resolute, healed,
decided, mended
touched: (adj) insane, cracked,
tinged, not right, daft, crazy, nutty;
(v) compassionate, sympathetic,
pitiful, mucid. ANTONYMS: (adj)
untouched, sane, unemotional,
unmoved, well
touching: (adj, v) affecting; (adj)
poignant, pitiful, pathetic, adjacent,
adjoining, emotional; (n) touch,
contact; (prep) concerning, about.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unaffecting,
everyday, heartwarming,
unmoving, heartbreaking,
emotionless, unemotional,
impassive
tough: (adj) difficult, strong, arduous,
rugged, severe, stout, laborious,
sturdy; (adj, v) tenacious; (n) bully,
rowdy. ANTONYMS: (adj) weak,
easy, flimsy, soft, lightweight,
simple, feeble, gentle, kind, fragile,
facile
tousled: (adj) dishevelled, untidy,
rumpled, unkempt, frowzled,
uncombed, tangled, crumpled,
knotted, disordered, entangled.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tidy, neat,
ordered, kempt
toward: (prep) to, towards,
approaching, headed for, just before,
of, in the direction of; (adv, prep) on;
(adv) about, around, by.
ANTONYMS: (prep) from, away
tower: (n) column, spire, steeple,
pinnacle, pylon, castle; (adj, n) pillar;
(v) ascend, rise, loom, arise
tracing: (n) trace, copy, design,
model, chase, drafting, action of
tracing, blueprint, cast,
draftsmanship, ghost
track: (n, v) trail, course, path, hunt;
(v) tail, chase, pursue, follow; (n)
line, route, racetrack. ANTONYMS:
(v) lead, precede
tracks: (n) network
tradition: (n) convention, habit,
practice, legend, institution, lore,
heritage, folklore, wont, routine,
story. ANTONYM: (n) innovation

Sherwood Anderson
traditions: (n) background, society,
mores, conduct, behavior,
civilization, customs
tragedy: (n) calamity, disaster,
misfortune, play, cataclysm, drama,
bad luck, bale, apocalypse, farce,
tragic. ANTONYMS: (n) humor,
blessing, joy, boon, advantage,
comedy
tragic: (adj) calamitous, disastrous,
dreadful, grievous, catastrophic,
unlucky, unfortunate, woeful,
tragical, comic, heartbreaking.
ANTONYMS: (adj) humorous,
heartwarming, blessed,
advantageous, lucky, fortunate,
joyous
trained: (adj) experienced, skilled,
capable, competent, expert,
practiced, accustomed, educated,
efficient, skillful, professional.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inexpert,
untaught, untutored, amateur,
unqualified
tramping: (adj) moving
transient: (adj) fleeting, temporary,
passing, transitory, fugacious,
ephemeral, momentary, temporal,
provisional; (adj, n) fugitive,
vagabond. ANTONYMS: (adj)
enduring, lasting, immanent, long;
(n) resident
travel: (adj, n, v) go, pass, run; (adj, v)
proceed; (v) roam, move, ride, sail;
(n) stroke, tour; (n, v) voyage.
ANTONYMS: (v) remain, settle
traveling: (n) travel, journey,
travelling, commuting,
commutation, peregrination,
circumnavigation; (adj) riding,
touring, nomadic, road
travels: (n) actions, expedition
tray: (n) plate, salver, dish,
cheeseboard, tray bar, server, waiter,
Cran, inkstand, icetray, jardiniere
treated: (adj) tempered, hardened,
emotionally hardened, inured,
baked, physically toughened,
enured, burned, tough, burnt,
considered. ANTONYM: (adj)
untempered
tremble: (adj, n, v) shiver; (n, v)
quiver, shudder, thrill, palpitate;
(adj, v) totter, quake; (n) throb; (v)
flutter, quail, falter. ANTONYMS:
(v) steady, calm
trembling: (adj, n) shaking; (adj, n, v)
tremor; (adj) shaky, quaking,
shivering, flutter; (n) palpitation,
quiver, vibration, shiver, quake.
ANTONYMS: (adj) stable, steady
tremendous: (adj) terrific, fantastic,

enormous, immense, wonderful,
dreadful, huge, marvelous, gigantic,
formidable, mighty. ANTONYMS:
(adj) awful, unimportant, tiny,
small, unremarkable, poor, dreadful,
abysmal
tremor: (n, v) shiver, quake, shudder,
shake; (n) agitation, vibration,
earthquake, convulsion; (adj, v)
flutter; (adj, n) trepidation; (v)
tremble
trick: (n, v) deceive, cheat, fraud,
deceit, joke, sham, con; (n) prank,
deception, device; (v) mislead.
ANTONYMS: (n) frankness,
honesty, misunderstanding,
seriousness, truthfulness; (adj) real,
genuine, innocent
trifles: (n) jests, nonsense, nugae,
trivia
trimmer: (v) Vicar of Bray, timist; (n)
trimming capacitor, hand shearer,
timeserver, hedger, guillotine,
lopper, electrical condenser,
condenser; (adj) foes to nobleness
trimming: (n) decoration, dressing,
adornment, ornament, fringe,
border, clipping, cutting, frill,
edging, lace
trip: (n, v) journey, excursion, tour,
expedition, travel, jaunt; (adj, n, v)
slip, stumble, blunder; (n) flight;
(adj, v) fall. ANTONYMS: (n)
correction; (v) correct
trot: (n, v) run; (n) crib, canter, pony,
gait, ride, lope; (v) gallop, general,
frequent, household
troubled: (adj, v) concerned,
solicitous; (adj) distressed, anxious,
worried, uneasy, uncomfortable,
disconcerted, upset, apprehensive,
restless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unconcerned, composed, calm, easy,
relaxed, tranquil, assured, carefree,
brave, stable, unaffected
troubles: (n) dilemma, evils, harms,
ills
trousers: (n) breeches, knickers,
pantaloons, trews, bellbottoms,
chinos, cords, denim, flannel,
gabardine, knickerbockers
truck: (n, v) barter, traffic; (n) lorry,
van, hand truck, car, cart, trade,
bogie; (v) swap, swop
truly: (adj, adv) really; (adv)
sincerely, in truth, exactly, in fact,
indeed, in reality, genuinely, right,
certainly, honestly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) insincerely, dubiously,
doubtfully, apparently, inaccurately,
indefinite, dishonestly, mildly,
wrongly

301
trunk: (n) stem, boot, torso, bole,
body, stalk, snout, proboscis, stock,
tree trunk, box
trunnion: (n) peg, jutty, button, rib,
stud, ridge, pin, rowlock, neck, snag,
shaft journal
trustee: (n) guardian, regent,
administrator, consignee, steward,
keeper, committee, custodian,
receiver, questor, legal guardian
tumbled: (adj) disordered
tumble-down: (adj) run-down,
shaky, rickety, decrepit
tuned: (adj) keyed, adjusted, musical,
tempered, melodious
turk: (n) effendi, Ottoman
turning: (n) turn, revolution, bend,
rotation, deviation, gyration,
conversion, veering; (adj) rotating,
revolving, rotary
twain: (n) pair, brace, dyad, deuce,
twosome, duo, straddle, bitstock,
coupling, braces, yoke
twenties: (n) decennium, decennary,
decade
twilight: (n) nightfall, night, sunset,
gloaming, evening, sundown,
eventide, fall, decline, evenfall; (adj)
aurora. ANTONYMS: (n) daybreak,
sunrise
twist: (n, v) turn, bend, curl, coil,
wind, pervert, spin, wrench; (adj, v)
distort; (v) contort, deform.
ANTONYMS: (v) untwist, undo,
uncurl, explain, explicate, unbend,
smooth, clarify, smile
twisted: (adj) perverted, deformed,
bent, distorted, misshapen, coiled,
twined, curved, wry, contorted; (adj,
v) winding. ANTONYMS: (adj) tidy,
normal, perfect, wholesome
typical: (adj) characteristic, regular,
model, classic, distinctive, natural,
standard, figurative, emblematic;
(adj, v) representative; (adj, n)
average. ANTONYMS: (adj)
atypical, unusual, uncharacteristic,
unconventional, different, new,
extraordinary, unique, exceptional,
common, abnormal
ugliness: (n) eyesore, offensiveness,
hideousness, garishness, gaudiness,
grotesqueness, grotesquery,
repulsiveness, homeliness,
unsightliness; (adj, n)
unpleasantness. ANTONYMS: (n)
beauty, attractiveness, pleasantness
ugly: (adj, adv) surly; (adj) nasty,
repulsive, frightful, forbidding,
disagreeable, hideous, gruesome,
evil, offensive, shocking.
ANTONYMS: (adj) attractive,

302
flowing, ornamental, nice, lovely,
pleasant, safe, kind, gentle,
appealing, agreeable
unaccustomed: (adj) new, strange,
unusual, inexperienced,
unseasoned, unacquainted,
uncustomary, rare, unfamiliar,
unwonted; (adj, v) untrained.
ANTONYMS: (adj) familiar, normal,
ready, usual, prepared,
knowledgeable, customary
unaffected: (adj) sincere, artless,
natural, plain, real, genuine,
unimpressed, ingenuous, naive,
untouched, honest. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unnatural, sophisticated,
refined, pretentious, moved, hurt,
disturbed, changed, vulnerable,
dishonest, emotional
unbearable: (adj) insufferable,
excruciating, insupportable,
unendurable, hateful, unacceptable,
repugnant, impossible, grievous,
enormous, dreadful. ANTONYMS:
(adj) bearable, manageable,
imperceptible, tolerable, wonderful,
lovable, nice, pleasant
unbearably: (adv) excruciatingly,
unendurably, horrifically,
disagreeably, unfeasibly,
impossibly, terribly, rudely,
agonizingly, badly, dreadfully
unbelievable: (adj) improbable,
implausible, unlikely, inconceivable,
fabulous, impossible, unthinkable,
marvelous, marvellous, tall; (adj, v)
staggering. ANTONYMS: (adj)
credible, plausible, believable,
mundane, ordinary, real,
conceivable, unremarkable, truthful,
sensible, probable
uncanny: (adj) weird, eerie, strange,
ghostly, unearthly, unnatural,
eldritch, mysterious, odd, frightful,
hideous. ANTONYMS: (adj) normal,
common, ordinary
uncertain: (adj) changeable, dubious,
questionable, indistinct, equivocal,
chancy, unsure, unsafe; (adj, v)
indefinite, vague; (adj, n) doubtful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) definite, clear,
decisive, sure, decided,
unquestionable, inevitable, safe,
unreserved, sealed, determined
uncertainly: (adv) dubiously,
doubtfully, unsurely, unsettledly,
falteringly, unsteadily, waveringly,
irresolutely, undecidedly,
undeterminedly, unfixedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) firmly,
determinedly, decisively, steadily,
indisputably, boldly, certainly,

Winesburg, Ohio
admirably
uncertainty: (n) doubtfulness,
suspicion, distrust, indecision,
suspense, irresolution, hesitation,
incertitude, dubiety, question,
dubiousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
certainty, decisiveness, confidence,
clarity, sureness, definiteness,
resolution, predictability, security,
certitude, understanding
uncle: (n) father's younger brother,
elder uncle, father's older brother,
father's sister's husband, husband of
paternal aunt, maternal uncle, niece,
benefactor, EME, helper, kinsman
unclean: (adj) foul, impure, nasty,
dirty, grubby, muddy, squalid,
grimy, sordid, dingy, soiled.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, hygienic,
pure, uncontaminated
uncomfortable: (adj) ill at ease,
embarrassing, troubled,
disagreeable, inconvenient, difficult,
discomfited, anxious, uneasy,
cheerless; (v) untoward.
ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed, comfy,
happy, untroubled, painless,
content, easy, straightforward
uncomplicated: (adj) easy,
unsophisticated, straightforward,
elementary, naive, innocent,
unproblematic, painless, facile,
effortless, plain. ANTONYMS: (adj)
convoluted, problematical, difficult,
jaded, complicated, sophisticated,
tricky, troublesome, complex, fussy
unconcerned: (adj) apathetic,
detached, insouciant, casual,
careless, nonchalant, thoughtless,
easygoing, listless, carefree; (adj, n)
cold. ANTONYMS: (adj) caring,
eager, troubled, sensitive, uptight,
craving, involved, energetic,
interested, annoyed, strict
unconditional: (adj) absolute, flat,
unqualified, categorical, complete,
unlimited, utter, categoric,
consummate, positive, outright.
ANTONYMS: (adj) conditional,
limited, provisional, unenthusiastic,
polite
unconscious: (adj) involuntary,
unaware, ignorant, unwitting,
subconscious, oblivious, automatic,
insensible, unintentional, instinctive,
senseless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
conscious, awake, deliberate, aware,
voluntary, intentional, alive, wary
uncontrollable: (adj) unruly,
incontrollable, ungovernable,
unmanageable, intractable,
undisciplined, disobedient, indocile,

overwhelming, boisterous; (adj, v)
uncontrolled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
controllable, imperceptible, orderly,
biddable, weak
uncovered: (adj) naked, open, bare,
nude, unclothed, bald, unreserved,
unprotected, evident, frank,
manifest. ANTONYMS: (adj) indoor,
concealed
underbody: (n) underbelly, lower
side, belly, abdomen, stomach
underbrush: (n) brushwood, brush,
underwood, groundcover, thicket,
scrub, bushes, coppice, ground
cover, shrub, weed
underfoot: (adj) abject, downtrodden
underlying: (adj) basic, essential,
elementary, rudimentary, primary,
implicit in, central, inherent, main,
cardinal, principal. ANTONYM:
(adj) overt
understandable: (adj) intelligible,
apprehensible, plain, graspable,
obvious, evident, lucid, clear,
reasonable, perceivable, simple.
ANTONYMS: (adj) indefensible,
unintelligible, inexcusable,
unpardonable, inexplicable,
illegible, unclear, obscure, illogical,
unreasonable, incomprehensible
understood: (adj) tacit, implicit,
implied, silent, assumed, accepted,
appreciated, unstated, undeclared;
(v) of course, admitted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) explicit, spoken,
written, explained
undertone: (n) undercurrent,
murmur, tinge, nuance, whisper,
suggestion, implication,
connotation, overtone, association,
hint
underwear: (n) underclothing,
undergarment, lingerie, skivvy,
undies, long Johns, skivvies,
underthings, ladies' underwear
undress: (v) strip, unclothe, divest,
discase, doff, unrobe, strip down,
uncase; (n) dishabille, disarray,
morning dress. ANTONYMS: (v)
dress, clothe
undressed: (adj) naked, unclad,
unclothed, bare, raw, stripped,
unattired, unappareled, crude,
rough, disrobed. ANTONYMS: (adj)
covered, decent
uneasily: (adv) apprehensively,
restlessly, worriedly, nervously,
solicitously, unquietly,
constrainedly, awkwardly, fretfully,
unsettledly, fearfully. ANTONYMS:
(adv) calmly, confidently,
unconcernedly, comfortably,

Sherwood Anderson
fearlessly
uneasy: (adj) anxious, fidgety,
restless, concerned, nervous,
apprehensive, ill at ease, unquiet,
awkward, fretful, restive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
untroubled, composed, relaxed,
easy, unconcerned, still,
comfortable, carefree, confident,
serene
unexpected: (adj) sudden, abrupt,
casual, unforeseen, unanticipated,
accidental, strange, unsuspected;
(adj, v) unlooked for, unpredicted;
(n) surprise. ANTONYMS: (adj)
expected, gradual, normal,
commonplace, protracted, ordinary,
typical, customary
unexpectedly: (adv) by chance,
suddenly, abruptly, casually,
unforeseenly, unawares,
surprisingly, unanticipatedly,
hastily, strangely, circumstantially.
ANTONYMS: (adv) intentionally,
gradually, normally, predictably
unexpressed: (adj) implicit, tacit,
mute, implied, unvoiced; (v)
undisclosed, unexposed,
unbreathed, unsung, untalked of;
(adj, v) untold
unfastened: (adj) open, movable,
loose, unbuttoned, overt, opened,
opened out, slack, undecided,
undetermined, assailable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) buttoned, fixed,
shut, tied
unfortunate: (adj) inauspicious, sad,
hapless, bad, inopportune,
disastrous, adverse, deplorable,
infelicitous, untoward, lamentable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lucky,
auspicious, good, opportune,
joyous, timely, appropriate,
successful, easy, privileged
unfriendly: (adj) inimical, distant,
adverse, antagonistic, unkind, cold,
inhospitable, icy; (adj, adv) chilly;
(adj, v) unfavorable; (adv) hostilely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
welcoming, warm, amiable,
approachable, sociable, hospitable,
kindly, nice, outgoing, pleasant
unhappiness: (n) sadness, misery,
melancholy, distress, grief, regret,
infelicity, woe, sorrowfulness,
depression, displeasure.
ANTONYMS: (n) cheerfulness,
pleasure, joy, elation, contentment,
satisfaction, cheer
unhealthy: (adj) harmful, sickly,
insanitary, ailing, ill, noxious,
injurious, insalubrious, sick,

diseased; (adj, v) unsound.
ANTONYMS: (adj) healthy, fit,
hygienic, light, well, good, strong,
luxuriant
unimportant: (adj) insignificant,
frivolous, inconsequential,
irrelevant, trifling, slight, petty,
little, negligible, immaterial, minor.
ANTONYMS: (adj) important,
significant, major, crucial, relevant,
serious, powerful, connected,
central, profound, considerable
uninterested: (adj) apathetic, listless,
unconcerned, cool, unenthusiastic,
blas, lukewarm, unbiased, languid,
disinterested; (v) used up.
ANTONYMS: (adj) enthusiastic,
interested, caring, fanatical,
committed, keen, concerned,
energetic
uninteresting: (adj) insipid, dreary,
tedious, bland, commonplace, flat,
stupid, tame, tasteless, humdrum;
(adj, n) dull. ANTONYMS: (adj)
exciting, fascinating, scandalous,
eventful, impressive, charming,
brilliant, animated, colorful, lively,
special
universal: (adj) general, global,
ecumenical, international, common,
worldwide, public, ubiquitous,
comprehensive, widespread,
oecumenical. ANTONYMS: (adj)
local, specific, idiosyncratic,
confined, isolated, narrow, rare
unkind: (adj) cruel, harsh, unfeeling,
inconsiderate, pitiless, heartless,
inhuman, hard, thoughtless, brutal,
mean. ANTONYMS: (adj) kind,
considerate, pleasant, friendly,
thoughtful, tactful, mild, gentle,
generous, flattering, compassionate
unknown: (adj, n) secret, alien; (adj)
hidden, unfamiliar, unidentified,
obscure, nameless, foreign,
anonymous; (n) stranger, foreigner.
ANTONYMS: (adj) familiar,
recognized, famous, documented,
identified, transparent; (n) native
unlike: (adj) dissimilar, different,
diverse, unequal, disparate, distinct,
separate, unalike, opposite,
heterogeneous, not similar.
ANTONYMS: (adj) like, alike, same
unmoved: (adj) apathetic, unaffected,
indifferent, unconcerned,
unimpressed, uninspired,
dispassionate, imperturbable, calm,
undisturbed, fixed. ANTONYMS:
(adj) affected, compliant, uptight,
concerned, enthusiastic, tolerant,
sensitive

303
unnamable: (adj) nameless,
indescribable, anonymous,
inexpressible
unnatural: (adj) affected, artificial,
grotesque, supernatural, forced,
abnormal, eccentric, uncanny,
stilted, mannered, anomalous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) natural, normal,
real, unaffected, commonplace,
genuine, sincere
unnecessary: (adj) redundant,
gratuitous, needless, dispensable,
surplus, pointless, excessive, excess,
undue, spare, useless. ANTONYMS:
(adj) reasonable, basic, worthwhile,
required, indispensable, helpful,
justified, essential, moderate,
inevitable
unnoticed: (v) unheeded, unthought
of, unregarded; (adj) disregarded,
unmarked, hidden, neglected,
ignored, obscure; (adj, v)
unremarked, unobserved.
ANTONYMS: (adj) evident, seen,
noticeable, noted, obvious
unoccupied: (adj) empty, vacant,
unemployed, free, desolate, void,
uninhabited, idle, inactive, deserted,
abandoned. ANTONYMS: (adj) full,
inhabited, overcrowded, solid,
working, busy
unpack: (v) undo, unbind, discharge,
get out, take out, remove, unbox,
unchain, unload, unloose, take
away. ANTONYMS: (v) fill, load,
pack, wrap
unpainted: (adj) undyed
unperturbed: (adj, v) unruffled; (adj)
calm, tranquil, placid, cool,
unconcerned, composed,
unflustered, untroubled, easy; (v)
undisturbed. ANTONYMS: (adj)
agitated, anxious, perturbed
unpleasant: (adj, n) harsh; (adj)
disagreeable, obnoxious, ugly,
nasty, sour, awkward, repulsive,
forbidding, bad, hard. ANTONYMS:
(adj) delightful, agreeable,
wonderful, nice, enjoyable,
attractive, comfortable, charming,
inoffensive, amicable, cordial
unpleasantly: (adv) distastefully,
disagreeably, rudely, obnoxiously,
bitterly, painfully, awfully,
troublesomely, offensively, hardly,
displeasingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
delightfully, agreeably, kindly,
politely, graciously, attractively,
sweetly, well, humbly
unpremeditated: (adj) spontaneous,
unintentional, involuntary,
impromptu, casual, offhand,

304
impulsive, extemporaneous,
unintended, unguarded,
unconscious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
premeditated, intentional, prepared
unpretentious: (adj) plain, humble,
unassuming, quiet, simple,
unpretending, unobtrusive,
unostentatious, understated,
homely, small. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pretentious, affected, arrogant,
ostentatious, fancy, flashy
unprofitable: (adj) profitless,
fruitless, futile, inutile,
disadvantageous, unfruitful, barren,
idle, vain, uneconomic,
unproductive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
fruitful, lucrative
unresponsive: (adj) cold, apathetic,
insensitive, unaffected, cool, dull,
unreactive, chill, dead, unemotional,
undemonstrative. ANTONYMS:
(adj) enthusiastic, sympathetic,
spirited, alive, sensitive, expressive,
concerned, emotional
unsatisfied: (adj) dissatisfied,
disgruntled, unsatiated, unsated,
ungratified, restless, discontent,
fidgety, fretful, unsatiable; (v)
unslaked. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pleased, happy
unseen: (adj, v) unknown; (adj)
invisible, concealed, hidden,
unobserved, secret, veiled, latent; (v)
unheeded, unperceived; (n) spiritual
world. ANTONYMS: (adj) seen,
visible, open, famous, noticeable
unspeakable: (adj) ineffable,
dreadful, awful, terrible,
inexpressible, nasty, horrible,
atrocious, indefinable, shocking;
(adj, v) unutterable. ANTONYMS:
(adj) nice, wonderful, pleasant,
good, lovely, bearable
unspeakably: (adv) indescribably,
horrifically, horrifyingly,
staggeringly, inexcusably,
unbearably, unkindly, unpleasantly,
unutterably, offensively,
horrendously. ANTONYM: (adv)
pleasantly
unsteadiness: (n) giddiness,
fickleness, unstableness, wavering,
volatility, irregularity, levity,
insecurity, shakiness, inconsistency,
ease. ANTONYMS: (n) stability,
steadiness
unsuccessful: (adj, v) fruitless, sterile;
(adj) unlucky, unfortunate, futile,
ineffective, stillborn, unhappy, vain,
failed, ineffectual. ANTONYMS:
(adj) successful, lucky, persuasive,
fruitful, lucrative, effective,

Winesburg, Ohio
competent, useful, glorious
unthinking: (adj) inconsiderate,
heedless, careless, mindless,
incautious, negligent, rash,
imprudent, involuntary, instinctive;
(adj, v) unconscious. ANTONYMS:
(adj) deliberate, considered,
cautious, voluntary, careful, caring,
discreet, stilted, guarded; (adv)
thoughtfully
untied: (adj) unfastened, unchained,
unshackled, unlaced, unbound,
unfettered, free, unsewed, open,
unconnected, rambling.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tied, laced
unto: (prep, v) to, till, up to; (prep)
towards, before
untold: (adj) infinite, incalculable,
innumerable, vast, uncounted,
unnumbered, unlimited, endless; (v)
unsaid, untalked of, unpublished.
ANTONYMS: (adj) little, minor,
small, tiny, open, slight
unused: (adj, v) unaccustomed; (adj)
idle, fresh, extra, uncommon,
unfamiliar, not used, surplus,
leftover, clean, inactive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) used,
knowledgeable, accustomed, busy,
active, working, main
unusual: (adj) peculiar, odd,
uncommon, quaint, exotic, eccentric,
remarkable, curious, irregular,
special, exceptional. ANTONYMS:
(adj) normal, common, customary,
typical, ordinary, familiar, routine,
conventional, orthodox,
inconspicuous, commonplace
unusually: (adj, adv) uncommonly,
particularly, outstandingly,
remarkably, singularly, curiously;
(adv) rarely, peculiarly,
extraordinarily, signally,
abnormally. ANTONYMS: (adv)
usually, regularly, typically,
frequently, slightly, commonly,
ordinarily
unutterably: (adv) ineffably,
inexpressibly, indescribably, beyond
words, deeply, overwhelmingly
unwashed: (adj) dirty, grubby,
unclean, filthy, common, mean,
unstrained, unpurified; (v) unswept,
unscoured, unwiped. ANTONYM:
(adj) clean
upper: (adj) top, higher, overhead,
over, topmost, highest; (n)
stimulant, bennie, meth, speed,
amphetamine. ANTONYMS: (adj)
lower, below, junior, under, bottom
upright: (adj) perpendicular, erect,
fair, good, righteous, just, virtuous,

true, honorable, plumb; (adj, n)
vertical. ANTONYMS: (adj) prone,
disreputable, degenerate, hanging,
unwholesome, dishonest,
dishonorable, lying, horizontal,
falling; (adv) horizontally
upset: (n, v) overturn, trouble,
disquiet, overthrow; (v) agitate,
subvert, perturb, confuse, reverse;
(adj) unsettled; (n) disturbance.
ANTONYMS: (v) please, soothe,
encourage, delight, fail; (adj)
pleased, confident, happy, content;
(n) peace, happiness
upstairs: (adj) upstair; (adv) on a
higher floor, in the mind, in the
head, up the stairs, over; (n) heaven,
administration, authority, board,
eternity. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv)
downstairs
uptown: (adj) wealthy, thriving,
tasteful, suburban, stylish,
sophisticated, worldly, affluent,
moneyed; (n) community,
residential district. ANTONYMS:
(adj, adv) downtown; (adj) business
upturned: (adj) retrousse,
overturned, upside-down, broken,
disordered, disquieted, distressed,
disturbed, confused, topsy-turvy,
shapely
upward: (adv) upwards, upwardly,
aloft; (adj) overhead, rising, upper,
increasing, open, vertical, mounting,
upright. ANTONYMS: (adj)
descending, downward; (adv) down
urgency: (n) pressure, haste,
necessity, hurry, press, stress,
insistence, exigency, instancy,
importance, speed. ANTONYMS:
(n) unimportance, tardiness
urging: (n) spur, encouragement,
prod, prodding, goad, advocacy,
spurring, goading, influence,
exhortation; (adj) driving
useless: (adj) pointless, unnecessary,
needless, worthless, fruitless,
hopeless, abortive, idle, barren,
superfluous, unavailing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) helpful,
effective, competent, convenient,
valuable, necessary, brilliant, great,
meaningful, usable, worthwhile
uselessly: (adv) ineffectually, futilely,
fruitlessly, needlessly, pointlessly, in
vain, worthlessly, abortively,
hopelessly, bootlessly,
unnecessarily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
helpfully, successfully, effectively
utopia: (n) fantasy, paradise,
Utopistic, Happy Valley,
millennium, fool's paradise,

Sherwood Anderson
chateaux en Espagne, dreamboat,
Israel, castles in the air, Erewhon.
ANTONYM: (n) hell
utterly: (adv) completely, absolutely,
totally, entirely, extremely,
altogether, expressly, purely, dead,
fully, wholly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
partly, uncertain, slightly,
incompletely, hardly, somewhat
uttermost: (adj, n) extreme; (adj, adv)
farthest; (n) maximum, level best;
(adj) furthest, utter, last,
farthermost, furthermost, ultimate,
most. ANTONYM: (adj) moderate
vacant: (adj) blank, hollow, unfilled,
void, free, unoccupied, bare, idle,
expressionless, open; (adj, v) devoid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) full, cognizant,
overflowing, inhabited, aware,
comprehending, animated, solid,
expressive, knowing
vague: (adj) obscure, indistinct,
indeterminate, undefined,
undetermined, indefinite, uncertain,
faint, ambiguous; (adj, v) loose,
equivocal. ANTONYMS: (adj) clear,
distinct, exact, particular, precise,
specific, sure, certain, defined, alert,
detailed
vaguely: (adv) hazily, faintly,
indistinctly, ambiguously, dimly,
mistily, unclearly, loosely,
shadowily, indeterminately,
obscurely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
clearly, definitely, unmistakably,
exactly, closely, distinctly, alertly,
calmly, considerably, intelligibly
vainly: (adv) uselessly, futilely,
fruitlessly, conceitedly, in vain,
worthlessly, abortively, bootlessly,
arrogantly, unproductively; (adj,
adv) foolishly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
fruitfully, successfully, effectively
valley: (n) vale, gully, dale, hollow,
glen, depression, dell, gap, gorge,
canyon, coulee. ANTONYM: (n) hill
vapor: (n) fog, cloud, steam, haze,
evaporation, vapour, fume; (adj, n)
gas, air; (adj, v) bluster; (v) boast
vaporous: (adj) hazy, foggy,
vaporific, ethereal, cloudy, vaporish,
steamy, airy, unsubstantial,
evaporable, cobwebby
vast: (adj) large, immense, spacious,
extensive, immeasurable, enormous,
gigantic, wide, boundless, colossal,
great. ANTONYMS: (adj) narrow,
tiny, cramped, small, miniature,
affordable, bounded, insignificant,
slight, shallow, restricted
vegetable: (adj, n) vegetal; (n) plant,
earthnut, fennel, pumpkin, rhubarb,

gumbo, truffle, artichoke, cucumber,
celery. ANTONYM: (adj) mineral
vehemently: (adj, adv) ardently;
(adv) violently, zealously, strongly,
fervently, passionately, ferociously,
fervidly, keenly, intensely, furiously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) feebly, gently,
impassively
vehicle: (n) instrument, means,
channel, automobile, transport,
carrier, transportation, agent, car,
carriage, conveyance
vein: (n) vena, strain, nervure, mine,
temper, blood vessel, tone; (adj, n)
mood, humor, strip, frame of mind
venture: (n, v) hazard, chance, stake,
peril, attempt, gamble, adventure;
(adj, n, v) dare; (n) speculation,
danger; (v) endanger
veranda: (n) gallery, porch, portico,
verandah, terrace, patio, stope,
stoop, piazza, deck, corridor
verisimilitude: (n) probability,
likelihood, plausibility, similarity,
expression, comparison, likeness,
reality, representation, resemblance,
semblance. ANTONYM: (n)
falseness
vexed: (adj) troubled, irritated, angry,
pestered, peeved, harassed, sore,
harried, uneasy, cross, offended.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
uncomplicated
victorious: (adj) triumphant,
successful, winning, jubilant, victor,
fortunate, lifted up; (adj, v)
triumphal, exultant, triumphing, on
top. ANTONYMS: (adj) beaten,
unsuccessful, failing, losing,
sorrowful
victory: (n) conquest, success,
mastery, superiority, subjugation,
win, laugher, achievement,
checkmate, expugnation, fall.
ANTONYMS: (n) defeat, loss,
beating, failure, overthrow, forfeit
vigor: (n, v) energy; (adj, n) intensity;
(n) spirit, vitality, force, life,
strength, power, might, vim,
stamina. ANTONYMS: (n)
weakness, apathy, frailty, laziness,
enervation, inactivity, indifference,
illness, lifelessness, sluggishness,
tardiness
vigorously: (adv) smartly, strongly,
energetically, mightily, forcefully,
heartily, actively, robustly, freshly,
vehemently, ardently. ANTONYMS:
(adv) lifelessly, wearily, passively,
languorously, slowly, submissively,
weakly, impassively, gently,
lethargically

305
vile: (adj, n) contemptible, dirty, low;
(adj, v) base; (adj) despicable,
ignoble, evil, sorry, revolting,
offensive, nasty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
attractive, kind, nice, lovely, lovable,
gentle, honorable, good, delightful,
admirable, noble
vine: (n) grapevine, grape, creeper,
vignette, vignoble, potato, gourd,
groundnut, haoma, horsebrier, hoya
violent: (adj, n) rough, furious,
tempestuous, severe, turbulent,
boisterous, powerful; (adj, v)
vehement; (adj) raging, intense,
sharp. ANTONYMS: (adj) gentle,
calm, nonviolent, mild, passive,
moderate, pleasant, slight, refined,
relaxed, friendly
violently: (adj, adv) vehemently,
hotly, madly, ardently; (adv) wildly,
passionately, strongly, hard,
furiously, turbulently; (adv, n)
vigorously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
gently, nonviolently, feebly,
impassively, peacefully, tamely
violin: (n) viol, bowed stringed
instrument, fiddle dock, kit, string
virgin: (adj) pure, new, chaste,
innocent, fresh, untouched, intact,
virginal; (adj, n) vestal; (n) maid,
girl. ANTONYMS: (adj) defiled,
sullied
virginal: (adj) pure, chaste, vestal,
virtuous, innocent, intact, spotless,
fresh, maidenly; (n) Ebenezer, pair
of virginals
virginia: (n) Decemvirate, Old
Dominion, old dominion state, Va;
(adj) New Jersey, Middle Atlantic,
Pennsylvania, Maryland
virginity: (n) maidenhood, pucelage,
chastity, purity, maidenhead,
pudicity, virtue, freshness,
virginhood, innocence, spirit
virtually: (adj, adv) nearly, almost,
near, about, just about, nigh, most,
all but; (adv) literally, potentially,
basically
visible: (adj) obvious, conspicuous,
apparent, open, evident, clear, plain,
manifest, discernible; (adj, adv)
noticeable, observable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) invisible,
imperceptible, unclear, obscured,
concealed, hidden, obscure,
undetectable, inconspicuous; (adv)
absent
vision: (n) view, dream, imagination,
daydream, outlook, specter, ghost,
spirit, image, apparition; (n, v)
fancy. ANTONYMS: (n)
sightlessness, fact, actuality,

306
blindness
visitation: (v) visit, examination; (n)
tribulation, calamity, annoyance,
misfortune, irritation, infliction,
inspection, test, ordeal
visitor: (n) visitant, tourist, company,
traveler, caller, inspector, stranger,
foreigner, alien, sightseer, surveyor
vital: (adj) indispensable, critical,
animated, crucial, fundamental,
main, necessary, lively, alive,
important, chief. ANTONYMS: (adj)
trivial, unimportant, insignificant,
optional, minor, sluggish,
peripheral, listless, dull, dead,
marginal
vividly: (adv) brightly, lively,
intensely, clearly, brilliantly,
graphically, strikingly, dramatically,
colorfully, glowingly, severely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) blandly,
modestly, vaguely
vividness: (n) strength, colour, color,
chroma, saturation, brightness,
vividity, vivacity, brilliance, clarity,
vibrancy. ANTONYMS: (n)
vagueness, weakness
vocabulary: (n) lexicon, glossary,
wordbook, terminology, words,
mental lexicon, language, word list,
diction, lexis, text
voiced: (adj) vocal, spoken, sounding,
articulated, verbal, intonated,
express, oral, tonic. ANTONYMS:
(adj) surd, silent
voices: (n) chorus
void: (adj, n) hollow, null, blank; (n)
emptiness, vacancy; (adj, v) vacant;
(v) nullify, quash, rescind; (adj)
invalid, vacuous. ANTONYMS: (v)
validate, sanction, permit, keep,
allow; (adj) full, occupied, filled,
meaningful, solid; (n) fullness
volcano: (n) mountain, vent, lascar,
maelstrom, etna, Fuji, vulcano,
venthole, scissure, thunderstorm;
(adj) earthquake
voluntarily: (adv) spontaneously,
willingly, intentionally, willfully,
volunteerly, deliberately,
gratuitously, readily, optionally,
independently, unforcedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) obligatory,
reluctantly, forced, grudgingly,
unwillingly
voted: (adj) elected, chosen,
designated, selected
wagon: (n) truck, wain, paddy
wagon, waggon, lorry, station
wagon, dray, car, chariot, Jagger
wagon, beach wagon
waist: (n) waistline, shank, middle,

Winesburg, Ohio
belly, isthmus, hourglass,
undersurface; (adj) stricture, middle
constriction, neck, wasp
waistcoat: (n) CHUDDER, barbe,
garment, jerkin, jubbah, oilskins,
pilot jacket, pajamas, cardigan,
singlet, talma jacket
waiting: (n) abeyance, suspense,
expectancy, hold, time lag,
postponement; (adj) ready and
waiting, ready, expectant; (adv) to
come, in the making
wake: (v) awaken, awake, rouse, stir,
vigil, provoke, arouse, waken,
excite; (n) train, trail. ANTONYMS:
(v) nap, dissuade, discourage,
snooze, stifle
waking: (adj) wakeful; (n)
awakening, wakefulness,
consciousness
walking: (n) gait, ambulation,
wading, shuffling, shambling,
marching, noctambulism, traveling;
(adv) afoot; (adj) moving, active
walls: (n) brickwork, buttresses,
defenses, masonry, ramparts,
fortifications
walnut: (n) wood, walnut tree; (v)
succotash, waffle, vanilla, trepang,
porterhouse steak, supawn, salmis,
sea slug, sauerkraut
walnuts: (n) walnut family, family
Juglandaceae, hickories,
Juglandaceae, pecans
wander: (n, v) stroll, saunter, tramp,
drift; (v) stray, digress, err, travel,
roam, deviate; (adj, v) rave.
ANTONYMS: (v) settle, stay, think,
converge
wandering: (adj) itinerant, nomadic,
erratic, rambling, errant, migratory;
(adj, v) stray, vagrant, vagabond,
unsettled; (n) peregrination.
ANTONYM: (adj) resident
wanting: (adj, v) missing; (adj)
deficient, lacking, absent, defective,
short, failing, insufficient, devoid,
poor, incomplete. ANTONYMS:
(adj) sufficient, satisfactory,
adequate, full, present
ward: (n) charge, protection, custody,
care, quarter, neighborhood, district,
defense, keep; (adj, v) shelter; (v)
protect
wares: (n) merchandise, goods,
commodities, stock, product,
commodity, freight, cargo, ware,
refill, shipment
warmly: (adv) cordially, ardently,
hotly, genially, affectionately,
vigorously, fervently, zealously,
eagerly, strongly, pleasantly.

ANTONYMS: (adv) coolly,
inhospitably, sourly, disagreeably,
indifferently, frostily, roughly,
rudely, apathetically
warmth: (adj, n) glow, fire; (n)
temperature, warmness, passion,
fervor, geniality, affection,
tenderness, fondness, sympathy.
ANTONYMS: (n) aloofness, chill,
chilliness, coldness, coolness,
unfriendliness, hostility, sourness,
abruptness, plainness, frostiness
warn: (v) counsel, caution, admonish,
advise, inform, alert, threaten,
exhort, forewarn, tell, notify.
ANTONYM: (v) protect
warning: (n) notice, indication,
caution, advice, example, lesson,
hint, premonition, caveat,
admonition; (adj, n) monitory.
ANTONYMS: (n) encouragement,
recommendation, approval; (adj)
promising
warped: (adj, n) twisted; (adj)
deformed, crooked, perverted,
misshapen, kinky, curved, distorted,
wry, partisan, superficial.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wholesome,
impartial
wash: (adj, n, v) soak; (n, v) paint; (v)
clean, scrub, mop, moisten, lave,
scour, bathe; (n) washing, ablution.
ANTONYM: (v) soil
washed: (adj) wash, cleaner, colored,
refined, wet, watery
washer: (n) washerwoman, washing
machine, seal, automatic washer,
laundryman, potcher, worker,
laundrywoman, gasket, strike, slice
washing: (n) laundry, laundering,
ablution, lavation, bathing, cleaning,
purification, elutriation,
dishwashing, backwash; (adj)
cleansing
washington: (n) District of Columbia,
George Washington, booker
Taliaferro Washington, capital of the
united States, capitol, Evergreen
State, government, president
Washington, Uncle Sam, Wa,
Capitol building
washtub: (n) vat, laundry tray
wasted: (adj, v) squandered, rotten,
decayed, effete; (adj) thin,
cadaverous, emaciated, gaunt,
devastated, pointless, haggard.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bloated,
hypertrophied, strong, plump,
obese, fruitful, useful
watchman: (n) lookout, sentinel,
sentry, warden, guard, watcher,
security guard, keeper, caretaker,

Sherwood Anderson
custodian, watchdog
watered: (adj) irriguous, dewy,
watermarked, moist
waterworks: (n) aqueduct, tears,
public utility, utility, tear, water
supply
wave: (v) flap, undulate, swing,
flourish; (n, v) gesture, billow,
flutter, swell, motion, curl; (n) surge
waved: (adj) undulating, wavy, curly,
not dated, undated
waver: (v) vacillate, fluctuate,
hesitate, totter, hover, wave; (n, v)
quiver, flicker, shake, flutter,
tremble. ANTONYMS: (v) resolve,
continue
wavering: (adj, v) vacillating; (n)
fluctuation, hesitation, vacillation;
(adj) irresolute, indecisive,
undecided, hesitant, uncertain,
variable, changeable. ANTONYMS:
(adj) decided, constant, resolute,
stable, decisive; (n) resolution,
stability
waving: (adj) flying, aflare, fluttering,
flaring, flared, curly, burning,
blazing, billowy, palpitating; (n)
wafture
weak: (adj, n) frail; (adj) flat, watery,
fragile, flimsy, faint, thin, light,
sickly, soft, nerveless. ANTONYMS:
(adj) concentrated, firm, brave, safe,
forceful, effective, healthy, intense,
determined, powerful, robust
weakened: (adj) lessened, faded,
hurt, vitiated, damaged, cut, diluted,
thinned, attenuated, attenuate,
disabled
weakness: (adj, n) failing, fault,
debility, defect, infirmity, fragility,
feebleness, deficiency, imperfection,
foible; (n) flaw. ANTONYMS: (n)
power, dislike, intensity,
supremacy, determination,
advantage, brightness, superiority,
resistance, robustness, energy
wealth: (adj, n) abundance, plenty,
affluence, opulence; (n, v) money,
gold; (n) treasure, property, fortune,
capital; (adj) richness. ANTONYMS:
(n) penury, scarcity, dearth, want,
need, lack
wear: (n) clothing, clothes, apparel,
attire, garb; (v) endure, fatigue,
waste, bear, tire, fray. ANTONYMS:
(v) refresh, reject, rebuild, please,
freshen, disrobe, delight, cheer,
refuse; (n) improvement
wearied: (adj) jaded, tired, spent,
fatigued, weary, prostrate, limp,
haggard, shattered, worn, fatigate
wearily: (adv) sickly, boredly, dully,

languidly, jadedly, exhaustedly,
sadly, soberly, gravely, heavily,
seriously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
hopefully, untiringly, energetically,
dynamically
wearing: (adj) tiring, exhausting,
tiresome, wearying, trying; (n)
detrition, corrasion, attrition,
abrasion, eroding, ablation.
ANTONYMS: (adj) refreshing,
undemanding, pleasant
weary: (adj, n, v) fatigue; (v) exhaust,
tire out; (adj) tired, exhausted,
fatigued, aweary, beat, languid; (n,
v) jade, bore. ANTONYMS: (adj)
energetic, fresh, lively, untiring,
hopeful, refreshed; (v) refresh,
enliven, energize, activate, rally
weather: (v) survive, withstand,
resist, brave, stand, brave out, wear;
(n) climate, atmospheric condition,
downfall, inclemency. ANTONYMS:
(v) succumb, reject
weave: (v) twine, braid, knit,
entwine, interweave, wind, waver,
plait, fabricate, inweave; (n) texture.
ANTONYMS: (v) separate,
unweave, unpick
weaver: (n) avadavat, Baya, ricebird,
amadavat, oscine, weaver finch,
tissue, texture, textile fabric,
weaverbird, oscine bird
wedding: (adj) bridal, marital,
matrimonial; (n) matrimony,
nuptials, marriage ceremony,
wedding ceremony, wedlock,
remarriage, espousal; (adj, n) nuptial
weed: (n) grass, marijuana, pot, plant,
fireweed, smoke, ganja; (v)
eliminate, hoe, plow; (adj) pick
weeds: (n) viduity, mourning band,
garment, cypress, widowhood,
dress; (adj) willow
weekly: (n) magazine, journal,
newspaper, periodical, academic
journal, publication; (adv)
hebdomadally, each week; (v)
tertian, quotidian; (adj) hebdomadal
weep: (v) wail, bawl, lament, sob,
blubber, moan, howl, drip, greet,
whimper; (n) tear
weeping: (adj) tearful, lachrymose,
dolourous, dolorous; (n, v) lament,
lamentation; (v) wailing; (n)
sobbing, tears, cry; (adj, n) howling.
ANTONYM: (n) celebration
well-nigh: (adv) nearly, most; (adj)
practically
westbound: (n) westbound
movement; (adj) westerly
wetting: (n) moistening, damping,
watering, splash, leak, passing

307
water, ducking, making water,
immersion, dousing, leakage
wheat: (n) corn, spelt, bulgur, emmer,
hard wheat, maize, bulghur, wheat
berry, soft wheat, food grain, Indian
corn
wheedling: (n) blandishment,
palaver, charlatanry, empiricism,
enticement, flattery, quackery,
persuasion; (v) fawning; (adj)
fulsome, persuasive
wheelbarrow: (n) barrow, handcart,
pushcart, lawn cart, garden cart,
tumulus, burial mound, truck,
barrowful, grave mound
wheeled: (adj) on wheels.
ANTONYM: (adj) wheelless
wheeler: (n) bicycler, wheel horse, sir
Mortimer wheeler, bicyclist, cyclist,
sir Robert Eric Mortimer wheeler
wheeling: (adj) rotating, revolving,
moving; (n) rolling, city, metropolis,
peal, propulsion, roll, transmission
service, urban center
whenever: (n) anytime, convenience;
(adv) always, whene'er.
ANTONYM: (adv) immediately
whimpering: (adj) whining, puling,
childish, querulous; (n) sniveling,
cry, tear
whip: (n, v) lash, strap, goad; (v) flog,
flagellate, beat, punish, thrash,
trounce, stir, wallop. ANTONYMS:
(v) lose, return
whipped: (v) whipt
whirl: (n, v) spin, turn, eddy, roll,
wheel, twist, swirl; (v) reel, gyrate;
(n) go, fling
whirlwind: (n) tornado, hurricane,
twister, gale, tempest, cyclone,
typhoon, waterspout, windstorm,
flurry, dust devil
whiskey: (n) liquor, rye, blended
whiskey, blended whisky, bourbon,
corn, corn whiskey, corn whisky,
Irish, malt whisky, rye whiskey
whisper: (n, v) murmur, hum,
mumble, suggestion, hint, inkling;
(v) breathe, hiss; (n) rustle, trace,
breath. ANTONYM: (n) information
whispered: (adj) low, voiceless,
unvoiced, nonvocal, weak, unheard,
surd, supposed, sharp, thought,
quiet
whispering: (n) whisper, murmur,
susurration, rustle, report, stage
whisper; (adj, n) rustling; (adj)
susurrant, tranquil, hoarse,
susurrous
whistle: (v) sing, twitter, hiss, warble,
tweet, cheep, chirp, wheeze; (n, v)
cry; (n) whistling, tin whistle

308
whistling: (n) whistle, sound, tin
whistle, music, pennywhistle, sign,
signal, signaling
whiteness: (n) paleness, ivory, chalk,
pearl, bone, bleach, alabaster,
frostiness, hoariness, pallor,
innocence. ANTONYM: (n) black
whites: (n) thirds
whiting: (n) Merlangus Merlangus,
Gadus Merlangus, kingfish,
whitening, kingfishes, corbina,
gadoid fish, hake, king whiting,
percoid fish, sciaenid
whoever: (n) anyone, somebody;
(pron) whosoever, whatsoever
person
wholeheartedly: (adv) earnestly,
heartily, totally, ardently,
enthusiastically, seriously,
zealously, heartfeltly, cheerfully,
unreservedly, devotedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) partially,
unenthusiastically, jokingly,
indifferently
wholesale: (adj) indiscriminate,
extensive, broad, comprehensive;
(adv) entirely, all in all, in large
quantities, all; (v) sell; (n) retail,
selling. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv, n, v)
retail; (adj) partial, part, minor; (v)
sell, buy
wholly: (adj, adv) totally, entirely,
altogether, quite, exclusively,
perfectly, solely; (adv, pref) all;
(adv) fully, utterly, absolutely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) partially,
inclusively, hardly, incompletely,
slightly
wicked: (adj) bad, sinful, atrocious,
evil, vile, depraved, mischievous,
immoral, unholy, nasty, naughty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) innocent, pure,
pious, moral, kind, admirable,
kindhearted, helpful, decent,
assisting, aiding
widow: (n) woman, relict, widower,
adult female, widow woman, war
widow, nobbled line; (adj)
widowed, additional; (v) leave
behind
wild: (adj, n, v) waste, desert; (adj, v)
fierce, violent, reckless, raging; (adj)
boisterous, untamed, stormy, rude,
desolate. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
orderly, manageable, sane,
domestic, cultivated, tame,
restrained, mild, sensible, passive
wilderness: (adj, n, v) desert; (adj, n)
wild; (n) wasteland, solitude,
badlands, wildness, frontier,
boondocks, backwoods; (adj)
Sahara; (v) squandering.

Winesburg, Ohio
ANTONYM: (n) metropolis
wildly: (adj, adv) madly,
extravagantly; (adv) savagely,
fiercely, violently, frantically,
brutally, furiously, tempestuously,
viciously, crazily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) quietly, peacefully, meekly,
cautiously, gently
willard: (n) Frances Elizabeth
Caroline Willard, Emma hart
Willard
williams: (n) Ted Williams, Theodore
Samuel Williams, Thomas Lanier
Williams, William Carlos Williams,
Roger Williams
willing: (adj, adv) disposed; (adj)
spontaneous, voluntary, ready,
amenable, inclined, prepared,
enthusiastic, unforced, obliging;
(adj, v) consenting. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unwilling, reluctant,
compulsory, disagreeable,
unprepared, forced, unenthusiastic,
unhelpful
willingly: (adv) readily, voluntarily,
cheerfully, spontaneously, helpfully,
disposedly, actively, openly,
obligingly, eagerly; (adj, adv) freely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) grudgingly,
reluctantly, uncooperatively,
unenthusiastically
willingness: (n) alacrity, obedience,
promptness, receptiveness,
receptivity, openness, desire,
appetite, happy, volition, aptitude.
ANTONYM: (n) reluctance
wilson: (n) Thomas Woodrow
Wilson, Robert Woodrow Wilson,
President Wilson, Angus Frank
Johnstone Wilson, Edward Osborne
Wilson, Edmund Wilson, Alexander
Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees
Wilson, Woodrow Wilson, James
Wilson
wilt: (v) flag, shrivel, sag, weaken,
fade, languish, dry, wither, collapse,
tire; (n) wilting. ANTONYMS: (v)
flourish, rise, rally
windy: (adj) gusty, verbose, blowy,
flatulent, wordy, breezy,
tempestuous, empty, airy, prolix,
bombastic. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
still, straight, uncommunicative,
unresponsive, airless, pleasant,
direct
wing: (n) pinion, limb, arm, fender,
flank, pennon, Ala, extension,
feather; (v) fly, soar. ANTONYM:
(n) headquarters
winged: (adj) swift, rapid, speedy,
quick, flying, alate, sublime, lofty,
alated, aligerous, composed

wings: (n) insignia, agency
winning: (adj) victorious,
triumphant, charming, engaging,
pleasing, lovely, enchanting,
captivating, taking, fetching,
successful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
failing, forfeiting, ugly,
unappealing, unattractive,
unconvincing, sorrowful,
unpleasant, unsuccessful
winsomeness: (n) appeal,
appealingness, beauty
wintry: (adj, v) frosty, glacial,
freezing, icy; (adj) arctic, frigid,
wintery, frozen, chilly, chill,
hibernal. ANTONYMS: (adj) mild,
summery, hot, vernal, autumnal,
balmy, tropical, warm
wire: (n) telegram, rope, line, string,
thread, cord, ribbon, flex, moorings;
(v) telegraph, electrify
wishing: (n) wish, want, velleity,
option, need, privation, lack,
deprivation, deficiency, choice; (adj)
desirous
witness: (n, v) testimony, attest,
evidence; (n) bystander, eyewitness,
onlooker, observer; (v) observe,
notice, see, view. ANTONYMS: (v)
deny, participate, refute
wives: (n) woman
womanhood: (n) muliebrity,
femininity, adulthood, maturity,
manhood, womankind, wifehood,
softness, social class, majority, adult
female
womanish: (adj) tender, feminine,
female, womanlike, womanly, weak,
unmanly
womb: (n) belly, nursery, nest,
intestines, guts, vitals, bowels,
chitterings, cradle, entrails, viscera
wonder: (adj, n) prodigy; (n)
astonishment, admiration,
amazement, surprise, miracle,
phenomenon, muse; (v) admire,
reflect, question. ANTONYMS: (n)
expectation, belief, disapproval; (v)
know, believe, anticipate, decide
wonderful: (adj, n) marvelous,
astonishing, incredible; (adj)
excellent, remarkable, phenomenal,
amazing, fantastic, great, grand,
super. ANTONYMS: (adj) terrible,
unpleasant, dreadful, poor, rotten,
abysmal, mundane, devastating,
lousy, dire, ordinary
wondering: (adj) inquisitive,
speculative, suspicious
wooded: (adj) arboreous, sylvan,
woody, timbered, densely forested,
leafy

Sherwood Anderson
wooden: (adj) wood, stilted,
awkward, expressionless, inept,
clumsy, dead, impassive, woody,
timbered, made of wood.
ANTONYMS: (adj) flexible,
bending, pliable, emotional, natural,
relaxed, expressive
woodlands: (n) country
woodpecker: (n) redhead, ivorybill,
pecker, piculet, nib, woodpeck, tool,
Speight, Specht, shaft, redheaded
woodpecker
woods: (n) forest, woodland, grove,
timber, jungle, sir Henry wood,
vegetation, timberland, Natalie
wood, virgin forest; (adj) wooden
worker: (n) employee, hand,
proletarian, labourer, toiler,
operative, workman, scab,
throwster, quarrier, practitioner.
ANTONYMS: (n) nonworker,
unemployed
worldly: (adj, adv) earthly; (adj)
mundane, secular, terrestrial,
temporal, carnal, sophisticated, lay,
profane; (adv) mundanely,
temporally. ANTONYMS: (adj)
spiritual, naive, cloistered, religious,
unsophisticated, unworldly,
unrefined, otherworldly, low,
heavenly, immaterial
worn: (adj) haggard, tired, tattered,
threadbare, ragged, drawn, jaded,
fatigued, exhausted, faded, wasted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) new, smart,
unused, unworn, pristine, original
worn-out: (adj) stale, trite,
threadbare, worn, hackneyed, jaded,
old, run-down, dilapidated,
disabled, beat
worried: (adj) uneasy, distressed,
nervous, apprehensive, upset,
anxious, disturbed, concerned,
afraid, troubled, bothered.
ANTONYMS: (adj) carefree,
reassured, relaxed, untroubled,
fearless, unworried, unconcerned,
content, confident, serene
worshipped: (adj) adored, idolized,
venerable
worst: (v) whip, trounce, defeat,
overcome, vanquish, pip, rack up;
(adj, v) best, rout; (adj) floor, lick.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) best; (adj)
highest, first, secondary
wounded: (adj, v) hurt; (n) casualty,
maimed; (adj) bruised, injured,
bloody, aggrieved, saddened; (v)
stricken, wound, struck.
ANTONYM: (adj) unaffected
wrangle: (adj, n, v) squabble; (n, v)
quarrel, dispute, brawl, debate,

bicker, contest, row, altercation,
fight, argue. ANTONYMS: (v) agree;
(n) peace
wrath: (n) rage, resentment, ire, fury,
displeasure, indignation, passion,
madness, choler, irritation; (adj)
angry. ANTONYMS: (n) happiness,
love, composure, serenity
wriggle: (n, v) squirm; (v) twist,
wrench, worm, struggle, writhe,
turn, wrestle, wind, creep, crawl
wrinkled: (adj, n) rough, rugged;
(adj) puckered, creased, wrinkly,
wizened, crumpled, lined, gnarled,
unironed, crinkled. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unwrinkled, ironed, straight
writer: (n) journalist, poet, penman,
novelist, dramatist, commentator,
playwright, authoress, amanuensis,
scribe, clerk. ANTONYM: (n) reader
writings: (n) papers, Hagiographa,
Ketubim
wronged: (adj) upset, hurt, indignant,
offended
yard: (n) court, courtyard, garden,
backyard, barnyard, grounds,
farmyard, quadrangle, close,
enclosure, junkyard
yelled: (adj) loud
yellow: (adv) cowardly; (adj) amber,
xanthous, chickenhearted, fearful,
chicken, craven, spineless; (n)
coward, saffron, maize.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bold, brave,
confident
yielded: (v) yold, yolden
yielding: (adj, v) flexible, pliable,
supple, tractable, pliant; (adj)
compliant, submissive, soft,
obedient, docile; (n) submission.
ANTONYMS: (adj) hard, firm,
inflexible, solid, rigid, obstinate,
stiff, stubborn, unyielding,
rebellious
younger: (adj) Jr, little, petty, young,
juvenile, Mickey Mouse, minor,
minuscule, niggling, picayune,
unskilled
yours: (adj) own
youth: (n) youngster, young person,
lad, juvenile, boy, adolescence, kid,
younker, stripling, juvenility; (adj, n)
young. ANTONYMS: (n) adulthood,
adult, ripeness, maturity, aged
youthful: (adj) immature, fresh,
green, juvenile, vernal, adolescent,
childish, new, tender, sappy,
beardless. ANTONYMS: (adj) adult,
mature, experienced, sophisticated,
late
zeal: (adj, n) eagerness; (n) fervor,
enthusiasm, devotion, passion,

309
vehemence, fire, fervency, heat,
fervour, ardour. ANTONYMS: (n)
apathy, lethargy, patience