Array Коллектив авторов: 30 лучших рассказов американских писателей

Williams – Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee, US.

Cornell – a university in Ithaca, a city in south-central New York state, founded in 1862.

New Haven – a city in south-central Connecticut, founded in 1638.

the League of Nations – the organization for international cooperation, the predecessor of the United Nations Organization, created in 1919 and disbanded in 1946.

Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) – the queen of France, wife of Louis XVI, executed during the French Revolution.

guillotine – a beheading instrument invented in 1792 during the French Revolution.

Greenwich Villager – resident of Green Village, an exclusive residential area in Lower Manhattan in New York City; in the first half of the 20th century it became the place where intellectuals, writers, artists and bohemians used to meet.

anachronism – 1) smth. or smb. out of date; 2) mistake in chronological relation.

Baltimore – a city in north-central Maryland, US, founded in 1729.

the Confederacy – 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860–1861 and formed the Confederate States of America; the secession caused the American Civil War of 1861–1865.

septuagenarian – a person from 70 to 79 years of age.

Methuselah – the Old Testament patriarch; he was 969 years old, and was considered the longest-lived man.

Havana – a famous cigar.

the Wandering Jew – a legendary character doomed to live until the end of the world in punishment for taunting Jesus Christ on his way to the Crucification.

mantilla – a large veil or scarf worn to cover the hair and shoulders.

San Juan Hill – the highest point of San Juan Ridge where one of the battles of the American-Spanish War took place in 1898.

persona grata – a person who is acceptable.

Y. W. C. A. – Young Women’s Christian Association.

sans = without. ( French )

gingham – a strong, plain-woven cotton fabric.

the Fourth of July – Independence Day, an annual national holiday in the United States; it commemorates the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776.

delirium tremens – a mental disturbance with disorientation and hallucinations in cases of alcoholism.

Sabbath – a holy day of rest (Sunday for the Christians and Saturday for the Jews).

Parthian volley – a number of curses and oaths directed at smb. one by one.

anathema – a curse and the forced expulsion of smb. from some communion (originally Christian).

the Sierras – Sierra Nevada, a major mountain range in the west of North America.

Peleus – in Greek mythology, the king of the Myrmidons and the father of Achilles.

Achilles – in Greek mythology, the son of the mortal man Peleus and a sea nymph, the bravest hero of the Trojan War.

Homer (9th–8th century BC) – a great poet of ancient Greece, the author of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’.

dyspnoea – acute shortness of breath.

Lazarus – a biblical figure; when Lazaurus was dead for four days, he was raised by Jesus Christ from the dead.

Hogarthian – painted by William Hogarth (1697–1764), an English artist, best known for his engravings and paintings.

Doxology – praise to God sung during masses in Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Protestant churches.

tarred and feathered – punished (originally by putting tar on smb. and then covering with feathers).

Hippocrates (460 BC–375 BC) – an ancient Greek physician who is regarded as the father of medicine.

the Floridian peninsula – a peninsula in the southeast of the United States in the state of Florida; Juan Ponce de LeÓn (1460–1521), a Spanish explorer, discovered Florida in 1513 while searching for the mythical fountain of youth.

grandam = obsolete an old woman.

Pygmalion – in Greek mythology, a sculptor who made an ivory statue of a woman and then fell in love with it; Venus, the goddess of love, brought life into the statue in answer for Pygmalion’s prayer.

Albertus Magnus (1200–1280) – a bishop, philosopher and teacher of German origin; he is considered patron saint of those who cultivate natural sciences.

Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) – a physician, theologian, philosopher and expert in occultism.

Paracelsus (1413–1541) – a German-Swiss physician and alchemist; he was the first to establish the role of chemistry in medicine.

Kidd – William Kidd (1645–1701), a British pirate, one of the most colourful outlaws of all time.

tomahawk – a war hatchet of the North American Indians.

quakers – Society of Friends, a religious Christian group that first appeared in the 17th century England with the idea of direct apprehension of God.

Anabaptists – a radical movement of the Protestant Reformation, the spiritual ancestor of Baptists and Quakers.

the Salem witches – in 1692, nineteen women were accused of witchcraft and hanged in the town of Salem in Massachusetts.

Eldorado – a mythical country of gold and other riches.

Zionward – in the Old Testament, Zion is a hill in ancient Jerusalem where God dwells; in Christian literature and hymns it is a heavenly city or the earthly city of true Christian faith.

the Solomons – a group of islands in southwestern Pacific Ocean, discovered by the Spanish explorers in 1568.

Sydney – a city and port on the southeastern coast of Australia.

Winchester rifle – a famous rifle developed by Oliver Winchester (1810–1880), an American manufacturer of guns.

Santa Cruz – a group of volcanic islands in the Solomon Islands

Samoans – residents of Samoa, an island in the Pacific northwest of New Zealand.

Tongans – residents of Tonga, an island in the South Pacific Ocean.

Fiji – an island group of Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, west of Samoa and Tonga.

Queensland – a state in northeastern Australia.