WORD LISTS

"The Maze Runner" by James Dashner, Chapters 1–5

Wed Jul 29 10:53:19 EDT 2015
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Thomas wakes up in a strange place with his memories erased, surrounded by people he doesn't know. The only way out is through a shifting, kaleidoscopic maze — and no one has ever reached the end.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–15, Chapters 16–31, Chapters 32–46, Chapter 47–Epilogue

Here is a link to our lists for The Kill Order by James Dashner.
devoid
A tall kid with blond hair and a square jaw sniffed at him, his face devoid of expression.
salvageable
“Where am I?” Thomas asked, surprised at hearing his voice for the first time in his salvageable memory.
disorienting
The Latin noun "orientem" means "the rising sun, the east, part of the sky where the sun rises." People used to rely on the sun to find their way. Turning away from the sun (or east) was disorienting, which often resulted in being lost. The example sentence focuses on mental confusion, but Thomas is also physically and emotionally lost.
It was as if his memory loss had stolen a chunk of his language — it was disorienting.
dilapidated
An odd, dilapidated wooden building near one of the corners of the square contrasted greatly with the gray stone.
malicious
“They?” Thomas didn’t like the malicious way the boy had said the word.
intact
He mostly remembered the workings of the world — but emptied of specifics, faces, names. Like a book completely intact but missing one word in every dozen, making it a miserable and confusing read.
vertigo
He felt an uncomfortable sense of vertigo looking at the towering walls, as if he hovered above them instead of sitting at their base.
indifferent
It bothered Thomas that Chuck didn’t seem to care about what he’d just said. That he seemed indifferent to having his life taken away from him.
disquieting
Nothing developed, but something about that creepy old building gave him goose bumps, a disquieting chill.
obscurity
He tried to grasp the memory, hold on to it, complete the picture with faces, names, a place, but it faded into obscurity.
trepidation
Thomas felt one final moment of trepidation, a quick slice of fear through his body, and then it vanished.
monumental
“Wow,” he said, feeling dumb at such a monumental understatement.
suppress
He did his best to suppress everything he was feeling and followed.
epiphany
The Latin verb "phainein" means "to bring to light, explain" so an epiphany usually clears up confusion. But here, Thomas has an epiphany that is confusing, because it tells him what he needs to do, but he doesn't understand how he knows this. There is no mention of any divine being guiding him (in fact, Gally later accuses him of thinking he's a god).
Not quite understanding how, he knew what he needed to do. He didn’t get it. The feeling—the epiphany—was a strange one, foreign and familiar at the same time.
eradicate
But Thomas rolled over and refused to say another word, worried he’d mess up this new sense of being encouraged, eradicate the reassuring calm that filled his heart.

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