GLOSSARY/VOCABULARY LIST

BARMECIDE FEAST - An unsatisfying meal. The phrase comes from a story in the Arabian Knights about a Persian nobleman who served an imaginary meal to a beggar.

BLUEBEARD - A character in a French fairy tale who married and murdered one wife after another.

BOADICEA - A warrior queen of ancient Britain who led a revolt against the Romans.

BRIDEWELL - A prison.

CADEAU - The French word for gift.

CORSAIR - A pirate.

CROQUANT - French for eating or crunching on. The expression, used by Rochester, comes from the verb croquer, meaning to crunch.

CUYP-LIKE - Resembling a painting by Cuyp, a Flemish painter known for peaceful rural scenes.

DIAN - (spelled Diana in some editions) The goddess of the hunt. Blanche Ingram is said to have a figure like Dian. Normally this would be a compliment, but notice how often Blanche is compared to women who have some military or predatory function.

EUTYCHUS - A man who fell asleep while listening to a sermon by St. Paul and tumbled out of an open window.

HEATH - A wild shrub with pink or purple flowers; heather is one variety of heath.

JUGGERNAUT - An idol representing the Hindu deity Krishna. Once a year the idol was pulled through the streets in a cart and devout worshippers supposedly committed suicide by throwing themselves under the cart's wheels.

MADEIRA - An island in the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles west of Morocco.

MOOR - An area of open land not good for farming.

RASSELAS - A philosophic romance by Samuel Johnson. A young man named Rasselas searches the world for the secret of happiness and concludes that happiness lies in being content with one's lot.

RIZZIO, DAVID - An Italian musician in the court of Mary Queen of Scots. Thought to be the Queen's lover and involved in a plot to murder one of her husbands.

SYBIL - One of a group of women in ancient Greece believed to have the power to see into the future. Usually spelled Sibyl.

TYRIAN-DYED - Purple in color. The name comes from the ancient Middle Eastern city of Tyre, which was famous for the royal purple dyes produced there.

VULCAN - The Roman god of fire and metal-working. Vulcan was portrayed as a cripple and this is the characteristic Rochester has in mind when he compares himself to the god in Chapter 37.

WOLFE, JAMES - A British general who died while trying to capture Quebec from the French in 1759. The death of Wolfe, mentioned in Chapter 11, was a very common subject for patriotic paintings.

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