GLOSSARY / VOCABULARY LIST / HISTORICAL TERMS

Note: entries dealing with bullfighting are marked with an asterisk and are Hemingway's own definitions from his book about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon.

ABSINTHE - A green, bitter liqueur with the flavor of wormwood and anise.

AFICION - (Sp.) Passion, as Jake Barnes explains it; a devotion so complete as to make one more than an expert.

ANGEL - Someone who supports the arts financially, who hovers around the arts, keeping them alive.

ARRIBA - (Sp.) Get on up!

ARRIERO - (Sp.) A man who drives mules; muleteer.

BAL MUSETTE - (Fr.) Low-class dance hall.

* BARRERA - (Sp.) The red painted wooden fence around the sanded ring in which the bull is fought. The first row of seats are also called barreras.

BATEAU MOUCHE - (Fr.) Pleasure boat on the Seine River in Paris.

BAYONNE - French town near the Spanish border.

BIARRITZ - French resort on the Atlantic, near the Spanish border.

BRIOCHE - (Fr.) Breakfast roll.

BURGUETE - Spanish hill town near where Jake and Bill go fishing.

CENTIME - Unit of French currency, one hundredth of a franc, similar to an American penny.

CHE MALA FORTUNA! - (It.) What bad luck!

CIRCE - The enchantress who in Homer's Odyssey bewitched men and turned them into swine.

COGIDO - (Sp.) Seized; picked up and gored by a bull.

COL - A gap between mountain ranges, used as a pass.

CONCIERGE - (Fr.) Doorkeeper or superintendent of an apartment building; the manager of a hotel.

* CORNADA - (Sp.) A horn wound; a real wound as distinct from a bruising scratch.

DARB - (slang) A person or thing considered excellent (Bill uses it ironically in reference to Cohn).

DILIGENCE - A public stagecoach used in France.

* ENCIERRO - (Sp.) The driving of fighting bulls on foot, surrounded by steers, from one corral to the corral of the ring. In Pamplona this refers to the running of the bulls through the streets with the crowd running ahead of them.

FINE - (Fr.) Ordinary brandy.

FLAMENCO - (Sp.) A very lively Andalusian gypsy song and dance, with snapping castanets and clicking heels.

GENTILLE - (Fr.) Pleasant and kind.

GLOBOS ILLUMINADOS - (Sp.) Paper sacks set on fire that fly up like flaming balloons; part of the festival at Pamplona.

HARDBOILED - Slang for a tough guy whom nothing affects.

IRATI RIVER - River in Spain's Basque province where Bill and Jake go fishing.

JOTA - (Sp.) Spanish folk dance and music.

LOURDES - A town in southwest France with a famous Roman Catholic shrine. Millions of pilgrims go there yearly.

* MATADOR - (Sp.) A killer of bulls in a bullfight.

MATTOCK - A tool for loosening the soil; like a pickaxe, but with a flat blade.

MENCKEN, H. L. - American editor and columnist known for his iconoclastic view of middle-class America; a model for young people in the 1920s.

* MULETA - (Sp.) Heart-shaped scarlet cloth of serge or flannel, folded and doubled over a tapered wooden stick equipped with a sharp steel point at the narrow end and a grooved handle at the widened extremity. The muleta is used to defend the bullfighter; to tire the bull and regulate the position of his head and feet; to perform a series of passes of more or less aesthetic value with the bull,- and to aid the bullfighter in the killing.

NEY'S STATUE - A statue of Marshal Ney in Paris. Ney was one of the most celebrated of Napoleon's generals.

OSPEDALE MAGGIORE - Hospital in Milan, Italy, where Jake recuperated after being wounded in the war.

PAMPLONA - Mountain town in the Basque provinces of Spain where the annual festival of San Fermin is held.

PATRONNE - (Fr.) Manager (here of a nightclub).

PELOTA - (Sp.) A Spanish game like handball.

PESETAS - (Sp.) Spanish money.

* PICADOR - (Sp.) A man who pics bulls from on horseback under the orders of a matador.

PIMP - Slang term for a man who sets other men up with prostitutes.

POULE - (Fr.) Slang for chick, girl.

* QUITE - (Sp.) The taking away of the bull from anyone who has been placed in immediate danger by him. It especially refers to the taking away of the bull from the horse and man after he has charged the picadors.

RIAU-RIAU - Wild music played during the festival of San Fermin.

SAINT JEAN DE LUZ - Small French resort town near the Spanish border, where Mike Campbell goes after the fiesta.

SAN SEBASTIAN - Beautiful old Spanish town near the French border on the Bay of Biscay.

SOMMELIER - (Fr.) Wine steward.

V.A.D. - Voluntary Aid Detachment, a group of volunteer nurses during World War I. Brett was one of them.

* VERONICA - (Sp.) Pass with the cape as the bull charges.

WICKETS - Turnstiles going into the bullfighting arena.

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