The Screwtape Letters

1. sojourn (noun):

a temporary stay

“There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy’s camp and are now with us.” (Chapter 2)

2. inveterate (adjective):

deeply rooted, longstanding, persistent in a habit, tendency or feeling

“‘[S]ons’ is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals.” (Chapter 2)

3. expurgated (past participle adjective):

scrubbed of offensive or harmful material; censored

“He thinks his conversion is something inside him and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the states of his own mind—or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see.” (Chapter 3)

4. innocuous (adjective):

harmless; rare: weak

“It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous.” (Chapter 3)

5. luminosity (noun):

brightness, radiancy

“[Humans] have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives.” (Chapter 4)

6. puerile (adjective):

immature, childishly silly or unsophisticated

“There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation: there will be vaguer—perhaps quite savage and puerile—images associated with the other two Persons.” (Chapter 4)

7. sophistical (adjective):

clever and plausible at first glance, but ultimately misleading (typically in reference to an argument or line of reasoning)

“He often makes prizes of humans who have given their lives for causes He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew.” (Chapter 5)

8. diffused (adjective):

spread or scattered thinly across a wide area, or over time

“I am speaking now of diffused suffering over a long period such as the war will produce.” (Chapter 5)

9. fortitude (noun):

strength of character in the face of difficulty, suffering or danger

“[L]et him forget that, since [his fears] are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practise fortitude and patience to them all in advance.” (Chapter 6)

10. benevolence (noun):

good will or feeling towards others

“The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know.” (Chapter 6)

11. induced (past tense verb):

brought about or caused through influence

“If your patient can be induced to become a conscientious objector he will automatically find himself one of a small, vocal, organized, and unpopular society, and the effects of this, on one so new to Christianity, will almost certainly be good.” (Chapter 7)

12. ignoble (adjective):

dishonorable, base, lowly

“For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves” (Chapter 8)

13. assimilate (verb):

entirely absorb or take in

“[T]he creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve.” (Chapter 8)

14. anodyne (noun, sometimes adjective):

a substance that numbs or stops pain

“You are much more likely to make your man a sound drunkard by pressing drink on him as an anodyne when he is dull and weary than by encouraging him to use it as a means of merriment among his friends when he is happy and expansive.” (Chapter 9)

15. redolent (adjective):

literally, scented with a particular aroma; figuratively, reminiscent or suggestive of

“Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable.” (Chapter 9)

16. acquiesce (verb):

agree to or go along with, typically without truly wanting to

“‘If he is of the more hopeful type your job is to make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all.” (Chapter 9)

17. urbane (adjective): sophisticated, refined

“He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening.” (Chapter 10)

18. opaque (adjective):

not transparent or clear (literally or figuratively)

“Something like it is expressed in much of that detestable art which the humans call Music, and something like it occurs in Heaven—a meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience, quite opaque to us.” (Chapter 11)

19. austerity (noun):

extreme plainness or lack of adornment; severity of manner or appearance

“Besides, the phenomenon is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, dignity, and austerity of Hell.” (Chapter 11)

20. bawdy (adjective):

explicitly sexual in a humorous or raucous way

“I am no thinking primarily of indecent or bawdy humour, which, though much relied upon by second-rate tempters, is often disappointing in its results.‘” (Chapter 11)

21. flippancy (noun):

inappropriate and often disrespectful lightheartedness or shallowness

“But flippancy is best of all [...] [E]very serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.” (Chapter 11)

22. asphyxiating (adjective):

choking or suffocating

“As you ought to have known, the asphyxiating cloud which prevented your attacking the patient on his walk back from the old mill, is a well-known phenomenon.” (Chapter 13)

23. endowment (noun):

something (typically valuable) that has been gifted, bestowed, or entrusted

“No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation of an endowment of ‘grace’ for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation!” (Chapter 14)

24. vocation (noun):

a practice or line of work that brings personal or spiritual fulfillment, or for which someone is especially suited; a calling

“His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind at once of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.” (Chapter 15)

25. insipid (adjective):

bland, lacking in interest, taste or intensity

“A sermon which such people could accept would be to him as insipid as a poem which they could scan.” (Chapter 16)

26. genuflecting (verb):

bending a knee to the ground in a show of respect for something or someone

“You would expect to find the ‘low’ churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his ‘high’ brother should be moved to irreverence” (Chapter 16)

27. querulousness (verb):

the tendency to complain; irritability

“But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern?‘” (Chapter 17)

28. axiom (noun):

a self-evidently true statement (often one that serves as the basis for further argument or inference)

“The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self.” (Chapter 18)

29. panacea (noun):

a literal or figurative cure-all

“The good of one self is to be the good of another. This impossibility He calls love, and this same monotonous panacea can be detected under all He does and even all He is—or claims to be.” (Chapter 18)

30. jocular (adjective):

joking, not intended seriously

“By the way, I hope you understood, too, that some apparently uncomplimentary references to Slubgob were purely jocular.” (Chapter 19)

31. amenable (adjective):

open to persuasion, willing to be led, or conducive or susceptible to 

“There is one type [of fantasy woman] for which his desire is such as to be naturally amenable to the Enemy—readily mixed with charity, readily obedient to marriage, coloured all through with that golden light of reverence and naturalness which we detest” (Chapter 20)

32. zealously (adverb):

enthusiastically or passionately, especially in the service of a particular belief or cause

“You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’.” (Chapter 21)

33. virile (adjective):

strong, manly, and potent (especially sexually)

“Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires.” (Chapter 22)

34. primeval (adjective):

originating in the world’s earliest ages

“For humans must not be allowed to notice that all the great moralists are sent by the Enemy not to inform men but to remind them, to restate the primeval moral platitudes against our continual concealment of them.” (Chapter 23)

35. venial (adjective):

relatively minor in terms of sinfulness or immorality and therefore excusable or forgivable

“Can you get him to imitate this defect in his mistress to exaggerate it until what was venial in her becomes in him the strongest and most beautiful of the vices—Spiritual Pride?” (Chapter 24)

36. congruity (noun):

the state of being in correspondence or agreement, or of fitting together well

“He thinks that he likes their talk and way of life because of some congruity between their spiritual state and his, when in fact they are so far beyond him that if he were not in love would be merely puzzled and repelled by much which he now accepts.” (Chapter 24)

37. endemic (adjective):

native or otherwise found only in a particular place (used especially in reference to diseases)

“We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic.” (Chapter 25)

38. foment (verb):

stir up or incite a usually negative emotion or behavior

“While [courtship] lasts you have your chance to foment the problems in secret and render them chronic.” (Chapter 26)

39. inculcating (verb):

teaching or instilling something through repetition

“Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are of all men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. We have done this by inculcating the Historical Point of View.” (Chapter 27)

40. obtuse (adjective):

of a person, slow to perceive or understand; dim-witted

“[O]n this aspect you seem singularly obtuse.” (Chapter 28)

41. attrition (noun):

gradual diminishment or erosion; the loss of numbers, strength, etc. over time

“The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations [...] all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.” (Chapter 28)

42. contrive (verb):

arrange for or manage to bring about, often skillfully or cleverly

“Even if we contrive to keep them ignorant of explicit religion, the incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry—the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon—are always blowing our whole structure away.” (Chapter 28)

43. stupor (noun):

a state of near unconsciousness in which the ability to sense, feel, and think is dulled

“[I]f we guide them to the opposite behaviour, this sooner or later produces (for He permits it to produce) a war or a revolution, and the undisguisable issue of cowardice or courage awakens thousands of men from moral stupor.” (Chapter 29)

44. enjoined (past tense verb):

prescribed for or demanded of

“The precautions publicly enjoined on your patient, however, soon become a matter of routine and this effect disappears.” (Chapter 29)

45. expedients (plural noun):

means or methods convenient for achieving a particular result (usually quickly and/or immorally)

“By building up a series of imaginary expedients to prevent ‘the worst coming to the worst’ you may produce, at that level of his will which he is not aware of, a determination that the worst shall not come to the worst.” (Chapter 29)

46. prostration (noun):

the state of being, or act of placing oneself, in a subservient and respectful position (often physically)

“You would like, if you could, to interpret the patient’s prostration in the Presence, his self-abhorrence and utter knowledge of his sins [...] on the analogy of your own choking and paralysing sensations when you encounter the deadly air that breathes from the heart of Heaven.” (Chapter 31)

47. mawkish (adjective):

excessively or sickeningly sentimental

“If only we could find out what He is really up to! Alas, alas, that knowledge, in itself so hateful and mawkish a thing, should yet be necessary for Power!” (Chapter 31)