Bud, Not Buddy

1. depression (noun):

in economic terms, a time of declining or low levels of activity in business, employment, and stock market values 

“I know you don’t understand what it means, but there’s a depression going on all over this country. People can’t find jobs and these are very, very difficult times for everybody.” (Chapter 1, Page 2)

2. provoked (past tense verb):

induced, brought about

“Not only have you struck him, you have provoked his asthma!” (Chapter 2, Page 11)

3. vermin (noun):

objectionable, disgusting animals

“I do know I shall not allow vermin to attack my poor baby in his own house.” (Chapter 2, Page 15)

4. commenced (past tense verb):

started

“Well, bugs ain’t so different from us as you’d think, soon as he saw those tweezers coming at him he was pretty terrified and commenced to screaming, screaming in English too, not some bug language like you expect from a roach.” (Chapter 3, Page 24)

5. lam (noun):

hasty escape

“Man! I was on the lam. I was just like Public Enemy Number One.” (Chapter 4, Page 35)

6. matrimonial (adjective):

relating to matrimony (marriage)

“Really, it’s not bad news. Unless you had matrimonial plans concerning Miss Hill.” (Chapter 7, Page 56) 

7. hoodlum (noun):

gangster

“Well, kind of, he looked real scared, then told his momma to keep me away from him. They even said I was a hoodlum.” (Chapter 8, Page 62)

8. britches (noun):

breeches; trousers, sometimes knee-length

“Bugs rumbled around in his pocket and found a penny. He rubbed it up against his britches and said, ‘Heads I win, tails you lose.’” (Chapter 8, Page 65)

9. shantytown (noun):

a section of a town or city made up of shanties (crudely built houses)

“He wasn’t lying about the Flint police coming, but they’re coming to bust up the shantytown, you should all get out of here.” (Chapter 8, Page 85)

10. alias (noun):

false name used to conceal one’s true identity 

“I remembered what I read in that Little-Big Book, Gangbusters. It said a good criminal chooses a alias that’s kind of close to their own name.” (Chapter 8, Page 86)

11. gory (adjective):

characterized by bloodshed and violence

“I didn’t want to tell her that I wasn’t really interested in history, it was just that the best gory pictures in the world came from the Civil War.” (Chapter 9, Page 90)

12. crick (noun):

painful, stiff feeling

“That little idea had gone and sneaked itself into being a mighty maple, tall enough that if I looked up at the top of it I’d get a crick in my neck, big enough for me to hang a climbing rope in, strong enough that I made up my mind to walk clean across the state of Michigan.” (Chapter 9, Page 94)

13. slew (noun):

a large number of something 

“We hadn’t been driving for a minute when he started asking a whole slew of questions.” (Chapter 11, Page 111)

14. paltry (adjective):

small in size

“Well, he was walking all the way from Grand Rapids to Flint, it looks like he provided a pretty paltry meal for every mosquito on the way.” (Chapter 11, Page 116-17)

15. sully (verb):

to damage the integrity of

“Well, Bud, I don’t mean to sully your reputation, but you just ran away from that man all the way across the state, I think I’d better hand-deliver you.” (Chapter 12, Page 141)

16. festering (adjective):

rotten or offensive

“But as I was saying, beneath all that festering nastiness is a tender, kind, loving human being.” (Chapter 13, Page 155-56)

17. craws (plural noun):

stomachs

“All right, gentlemen, that’s enough, let’s go stuff our craws.” (Chapter 13, Page 160)

18. copacetic (adjective):

fine, satisfactory

“Good, ‘cause if you’re going to be traveling with us it just wouldn’t look too copacetic for you to be carrying that ratty old bag.” (Chapter 16, Page 192)

19. embouchure (noun):

the adjustment of a musician’s mouth to the instrument’s mouthpiece

“Once you’ve developed a little wind, and some tone and a embouchure we’ll move on to something a little more complicated.” (Chapter 16, Page 194)

20. prodigy (noun):

a person (often a youth) having extraordinary ability

“[...] you have listened to the smooth saxophonical musings of that prodigy of the reed, Mr. Sleepy LaBone!” (Chapter 16, Page 196)