SAT Vocabulary: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Here are the vocabulary definitions for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Happy studying!

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Penguin, 2003.

SAT Vocabulary Words in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

NOTABLE QUOTE: "Papa says if you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite." (p. 180)

Cagey: reluctant to give information owing to caution or suspicion.
"I'm cagey enough to fool them that much." (p. 4)

Combine: a group of people or companies acting together for a commercial purpose.
Cull: select from a large quantity; obtain from a variety of sources.
"Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine's product, the Chronics." (p. 14)

Bent: a natural talent or inclination.
Goldbrick: swindle (someone).
"He says he was just a wanderer and a logging bum before the Army took him and taught him what his natural bent was; just like they taught some men to goldbrick and some men to goof off, he says, they taught him to play poker." (p. 20)

Sitdown: (of a protest) in which demonstrators occupy their workplace or sit down on the ground in a public place, refusing to leave until their demands are met.
"You look like Sittin' Bull on a sitdown strike." (p. 22)

Brawn: physical strength in contrast to intelligence.
Dandy: a man unduly devoted to style, neatness, and fashion in dress and appearance.
"My dear sweet but illiterate wife thinks any word or gesture that does not smack of brickyard brawn and brutality is a word or gesture of weak dandyism." (p. 39)

Fracas: a noisy disturbance or quarrel.
"The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn." (p. 51)

Passel: a large group of people or things of indeterminate number; a pack.
"You must of done something to make a passle of enemies here in this place, buddy, because it seems there's sure a passle got it in for you." (p. 52)

Clod: a lump of earth or clay. A stupid person (often used as a general term of abuse).
"an illeterate clod" (p. 52)

Castors: each of a set of small wheels, free to swivel in any direction, fixed to the legs or base of a heavy piece of furniture so that it can be moved easily.
"Some kind of castors under it I can't hear." (p. 77)

Snigger: give a smothered or half-suppressed laugh.
"He's being the clown,  working at getting some of the guys to laugh. It bothers him that the best they can do is grin weakly and snigger sometimes." (p. 90)

Maudlin: self-pityingly or tearfully sentimental, often through drunkenness.
"this maudlin display of nostalgia" (p. 95)

Bum: get by asking or begging.
"Sure, I always got cigarettes. Reason is, I'm a bum. I bum them wheneer I get the chance is why my pack lasts longer than Harding's here. He smokes only his own." (p. 158)

Bird: a person of a specified kind or character.
" 'What they do is' - McMurphy listens a moment - 'take some bird in there and shoot electricity through his skull?' " (p. 162)

Aplomb: self-confidence or assurance, especially when in a demanding situation.
Induce: bring about or give rise to.
"And here, before them, stood a man inducing seizures every so often with remarkable aplomb." (p. 162)

Bird dog: search out or pursue with dogged determination.
"You're just a young guy! You ought to be out running around in a convertible, bird-dogging girls." (p. 167)

Conniption: a fit of rage or hysterics.
"I had an uncle who through conniptions twice as bad as yours" (p. 167)

Hovel: a small, squalid, unpleasant, or simply constructed dwelling.
"I, for one, am not going inside that hovel." (p. 181)

Juniper: an evergreen shrub or small tree that bears berrylike cones, widely distributed throughout Eurasia and North America. Many kinds have aromatic cones or foliage.
Stetson: a hat with a high crown and a wide brim, traditionally worn by cowboys and ranchers in the US.
"sits down in the swing Papa built for me in the juniper tree, and sits there swinging back and forth a little bit and fanning himself with his Stetson" (p. 181)

Guinea hen: a guinea fowl, especially a female one.
Premises: a house or building, together with its land and outbuildings, occupied by a business or considered in an official context.
"Then Papa's guinea hen wakes up in the juniper branches and sees we got strangers on the premises and goes to barking at them like a dog, and the spell breaks." (p. 182)

Pullet: a young hen, especially one less than one year old.
"I tried to laugh with him, but it was a squawking sound, like a pullet trying to crow." (p. 186)

Mossback: an old-fashioned or extremely conservative person.
"the mossbacked old bastards" (p. 187)

Criminy: used to express surprise or disbelief.
"Are you kidding? Criminy, look at you." (p. 187)

Swagger: walk or behave in a very confident and typically arrogant or aggressive way.
Deck: a structure of planks or plates, approximately horizontal, extending across a ship or boat at any of various levels, especially one of those at the highest level and open to the weather.
Bosun: a ship's officer in charge of equipment and the crew.
Keelhaul: punish (someone) by dragging them through the water under the keel of a ship, either across the width or from bow to stern.
Stern: the rearmost part of a ship or boat.
"He was swaggering around the floor like it was the deck of a ship, whistling in his hand like a bosun's whistle. 'Hit the deck, mateys, hit the deck or I keelhaul the lot of ye from stock to stern!' " (p. 193)

Hornpipe: a lively dance associated with sailors, typically performed by one person.
"did a little hornpipe" (p. 209)

Flophouse: a cheap hotel or rooming house.
"Wait till the captain comes out and tells us that the phone number I gave him is a flophouse up in Portland?" (p. 209)

Gaff: a stick with a hook, or a barbed spear, for landing large fish.
"he got the gaff and jerked my fish into the boat" (p. 213)

Clutch: a mechanism for connecting and disconnecting a vehicle engine from its transmission system.
"He let out the clutch and started to drive, then stopped instead." (p. 220)

Pinochle: a card game for two or more players using a 48-card deck consisting of two of each card from nine to ace, the object being to score points for various combinations and to win tricks.
"What pushed him to keep up a full head of steam when everybody else on the ward had always been content to drift along playing pinochle and reading last year's magazines?" (p. 225)

Spoof: hoax or trick (someone).
"Some of the guys wondered whether if maybe that tale of him faking fights at the work farm to get sent here wasn't just more of his spoofing" (p. 227)

Croupier: the person in charge of a gaming table, gathering in and paying out money or tokens.
"How much do you suppose he made in the short time he was croupier of his little Monte Carlo here on the ward?" (p. 228)

Simon-pure: completely genuine, authentic, or honest.
Effrontery: insolent or impertinent behavior.
"McMurphy would be embarrased to absolute tears if he were aware of some of the simon-pure motives people had been claiming were behind some of his dealings. He would take it as a direct effrontery to his craft" (p. 230)

Barker: a person who stands in front of a theater, sideshow, etc., and calls out to passersby to attract customers.
"McMurphy drew eyes to him like a sideshow barker." (p. 239)

Gimp: limp; hobble.
"I could tell by the way McMurphy gimped around that he was as stiff as I was." (p. 241)

Peaked: (of a person) gaunt and pale from illness or fatigue.
"He seems to me to have a peaked look of late - tired blood, most likely." (p. 233)

Courtesan: a prostitute, especially one with wealthy or upper-class clients.
" 'Courtesan?' Harding suggested. 'Jezebel?' " (p. 271)

Tree: force (a hunted animal) to take refuge in a tree.
"the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn't care any more about anything but himself and his dying" (p. 275)

Embankment: a wall or bank of earth or stone built to prevent a river flooding an area.
"I ran for miles before I stopped and walked up the embankment onto the highway." (p. 280)