- phlegm
saliva mixed with discharges from the respiratory passages
Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels' throat; he swallowed and pushed it down.
Phlegm is a thick secretion of mucous
- glorious
having great beauty and splendor
all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death
When something is fabulous and gorgeous.
- sway
pitching dangerously to one side
Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff.
Back and forth.... Back and forth... Back and forth are you sea sick yet?
- envelop
enclose or enfold completely with or as if with a covering
The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away and they were in an old time, a very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with their blue metal guns across their knees.
When something is enveloped, it is wrapped around you.
- franchise
a business authorized to sell a company's goods or services
We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise.
franchise is a right granted by a government or corporation to an individual or group of individuals
- finicky
exacting especially about details
A Time Machine is finicky business.
You reject any vegetable that isn't yellow. You like basmati rice, but detest jasmine, Arborio, and brown.
- annihilate
kill in large numbers
With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!
Killing ends when the thing you are killing is dead
- expendable
suitable to be used up
And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no!
- slay
kill intentionally and with premeditation
It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren.
- infinitesimal
immeasurably small
Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally.
- disproportion
imbalance among the parts of something
A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally, a change in social temperament in far-flung countries.
- correlate
bring into a mutual, complementary, or reciprocal relation
Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway.
- bisect
cut in half or cut in two
"Up ahead, We'll bisect his trail in sixty seconds.
- resilient
rebounding readily
It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs.
- poised
marked by balance or equilibrium and readiness for action
It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons.
- remit
send in payment
We'll remit half your fee."
- engulf
flow over or cover completely
A windstorm from the beast's mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood.
- malfunction
fail to work properly
Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever.
- tonnage
a tax imposed on ships that enter the US
Bones cracked; the tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath.
In this sentence, the tonnage is the flesh itself which is so heavy it's crushing.
- stagnate
exist in a changeless situation
They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor.
- primeval
having existed from the beginning
Eckels turned slowly to regard the primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror.
- subtle
working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way
Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there.
- subliminal
below the threshold of conscious perception
Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there.
- embedded
enclosed firmly in a surrounding mass
Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.
- scrabble
feel searchingly
He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. "Can't we," he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, "can't we take it back, can't we make it alive again? Can't we start over? Can't we-"
