The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

1. decorous (adjective):

in keeping with manners, good taste, or custom

“Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked.” (Paragraph 1)

2. lithe (adjective):

slender and graceful

“[B]oys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race.” (Paragraph 1)

3. archaic (adjective):

obsolete, belonging to an earlier era

“All smiles have become archaic.” (Paragraph 3)

4. litter (noun):

a covered seat or bed attached to poles; used to carry one or more passengers

“Given a description such as this, one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves.” (Paragraph 3)

5. dulcet (adjective):

sweetly pleasant; often used ironically

“Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians.” (Paragraph 3)

6. pedants (plural noun):

people who are preoccupied with trivial or obscure facts and knowledge

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid.” (Paragraph 3)

7. banality (noun):

the state of being unoriginal, boring, or cliche

“This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” (Paragraph 3)

8. puritanical (noun):

extremely morally strict and often harshly judgmental

“I thought at first there were not drugs, but that is puritanical’” (Paragraph 4)

9. languor (noun):

a usually pleasant sense of tiredness, weakness, and immobility

10. arcana (noun):

deep mysteries or secrets that few people have access to

“[D]rooz [...] first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe” (Paragraph 4)

11. magnanimous (adjective):

generous, especially to someone weak or undeserving

“A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere” (Paragraph 4)

12. amiably (adverb):

in a friendly or kind manner

“The faces of small children are amiably sticky” (Paragraph 5)

13. imperious (adjective):

haughty in one’s manner or dealings with others

“[A]ll at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing.” (Paragraph 7)

14. festered (adjective/past tense verb):

rotten, infected

“Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.” (Paragraph 9)

15. impotence (noun):

powerlessness

“They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations.” (Paragraph 11)

16. uncouth (adjective):

lacking manners, rude or coarse

“Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment.” (Paragraph 13)

17. vapid (adjective):

empty of significance, interest, or life

“Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness.” (Paragraph 13)

18. credible (adjective):

believable

“Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible?” (Paragraph 14)