The Thirty-Nine Steps (24 page)

chits
NOUN
chits is a slang word which means girls
I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!
(
Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott)

chopped
VERB
chopped means come suddenly or accidentally
if I had chopped upon them
(
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe)

chute
NOUN
a narrow channel
One morning about day-break, I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to the main
shore
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

circumspection
NOUN
careful observation of events and circumstances; caution
I honour your circumspection
(
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen)

clambered
VERB
clambered means to climb somewhere with difficulty, usually using your hands and
your feet
he clambered up and down stairs
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

clime
NOUN
climate
no season knows nor clime
(
The Sun Rising
by John Donne)

clinched
VERB
clenched
the tops whereof I could but just reach with my fist clinched
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)

close chair
NOUN
a close chair is a sedan chair, which is an covered chair which has room for one
person. The sedan chair is carried on two poles by two men, one in front and one behind
persuaded even the Empress herself to let me hold her in her close chair
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)

clown
NOUN
clown here means peasant or person who lives off the land
In ancient days by emperor and clown
(
Ode on a Nightingale
by John Keats)

coalheaver
NOUN
a coalheaver loaded coal onto ships using a spade
Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish labourers
and a coalheaver
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

coal-whippers
NOUN
men who worked at docks using machines to load coal onto ships
here, were colliers by the score and score, with the coal-whippers plunging off stages
on deck
(
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens)

cobweb
NOUN
a cobweb is the net which a spider makes for catching insects
the walls and ceilings were all hung round with cobwebs
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)