Glossary
13 words · each as a reader of its year met it
- 1939balkedIn 1939 balked meant to stop short and refuse to go further, to shy away from a thing instead of proceeding. In the passage, the early members hesitated and…
- 1939boredomThe passage uses boredom for the dull, listless weariness that the normal drinker supposedly escapes through drink: it is listed beside "care" and "worry" as…
- 1939classHere class is a group of people sharing a common characteristic, here the agnostics. The author says many who once belonged to that group are now members.
- 1939discontentedThe passage uses discontented in its ordinary adjective sense of dissatisfied and uneasy in mind. It says drinkers are restless, irritable and uneasy until a…
- 1939discouragedThe adjective discouraged in its ordinary sense of disheartened, having lost courage or hope. The passage tells the newcomer who has just read the Steps and…
- 1939earnestnessIntense seriousness and sincerity of purpose; a grave, wholehearted intent that is the opposite of flippancy or half-measures. In the Big Book it names both…
- 1939fellowshipThe passage uses fellowship in the sense of a company of equals bound by a shared aim and friendly intercourse — here, the group of recovered alcoholics…
- 1939flatteredIn the passage, flattered is the plain past-participle sense of the verb: pleased and gratified by the attention and honor shown to him. The young officers…
- 1939prospectA person who is a candidate for A.A.'s help: an alcoholic singled out as someone to be approached with the message. Here the nurse's "first-class alcoholic…
- 1939releaseA noun meaning deliverance or relief from a burden: here the freedom from drinking and its misery that the first members felt, which made them glad enough to…
- 1939ResentmentHere resentment is the settled, nursed anger and sense of injury felt toward people, institutions or principles that have hurt or threatened one's…
- 1939ruinHere ruin is the noun in its sense of destruction of a person's standing, livelihood and good name. The man who has gone to make amends trembles because…
- 1939spiritual experienceThe passage uses spiritual experience for the vital change the Book says an alcoholic needs in order to stop drinking, something beyond will power. The man…