Vocabulary in Candide

A made-up, absurdly long word Voltaire coins to mock the overly elaborate philosophical systems of thinkers like Leibniz, suggesting their reasoning is pretentious nonsense dressed up in grand-sounding language.

A philosophical principle, associated with Leibniz, holding that everything that exists has a cause or explanation; used satirically in the novel to justify absurd misfortunes as necessary parts of the best possible world.

The optimistic doctrine, mocked throughout the novel, that the world as God created it is the finest arrangement conceivable, so all suffering and evil must ultimately serve a good purpose.

A public ceremony of the Spanish Inquisition in which people convicted of heresy were sentenced and often burned; here used to describe a ritual punishment staged in the belief it would prevent earthquakes.

The Catholic Church tribunal that investigated and punished heresy; in the novel it arrests and flogs Candide and Pangloss as part of a grotesque ceremony meant to appease God after the Lisbon earthquake.

A garment of shame — a yellow robe painted with flames and devils — that the Inquisition forced condemned heretics to wear during an auto-da-fé.

A tall, pointed paper hat placed on the heads of those condemned by the Inquisition during an auto-da-fé, marking them publicly as heretics.

The chief official of the Inquisition in a given country, wielding enormous religious and political power; in the novel he shares Cunégonde as a mistress and is later killed by Candide.

A personal male servant who travels with and attends to his master's daily needs; Cacambo serves Candide in this role throughout the South American chapters.

Members of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order known for missionary work and political influence; in the novel they run a powerful, semi-independent military theocracy in Paraguay.

A fictional tribe of indigenous people in South America depicted in the novel, who capture Candide and Cacambo and nearly eat them, believing them to be Jesuits.

A legendary hidden city of fabulous wealth; in the novel it is a utopian land where gold and jewels are worthless, people are happy, and there is no religious persecution or greed.

The philosophical doctrine, associated with Leibniz and embodied by Pangloss, that this world is the best possible and all events, however terrible, are for the ultimate good; the novel relentlessly satirizes this belief.

A follower of Manichaeism, a belief system holding that the world is a battleground between equal forces of good and evil; Martin is called this because he believes evil is as powerful as good.

Caring little about anything; indifferent and hard to please. In the novel the Venetian nobleman of this name is bored by every great work of art, music, and literature he possesses.

A Muslim religious figure, here a wise old man whom Candide and his companions consult for the meaning of life; he dismisses philosophical speculation and advises silence.

The novel's closing moral: rather than debating abstract philosophy, people should focus on practical, productive work as the only reliable remedy against boredom, vice, and misery.

A formal morning reception at which a person of high rank receives visitors while dressing or rising; used in the novel to satirize the empty rituals of aristocratic and royal life.

A person devoted entirely to luxury and sensual pleasure; used in the novel to characterize those who live in idle self-indulgence while others suffer.

A large oar-powered ship on which convicted criminals were forced to row as a form of penal servitude; Pangloss and the Baron are found working as galley slaves near the end of the novel.

A gold coin used in the Ottoman Empire and parts of Europe; Candide uses sequins to ransom his friends, and the word signals the transactional, mercenary world the characters inhabit.

A title of respect used in the Ottoman Empire for educated or official men; in the novel it marks the Turkish social world Candide enters when he travels to Constantinople.

A philosopher who studies the fundamental nature of reality, existence, and causation; in the novel the term is used mockingly for Pangloss, whose grand theories are useless against real suffering.

A formal academic debate or argument, especially on a philosophical or theological question; Voltaire uses it satirically to show that learned argument changes nothing and solves no practical problem.

To enlist someone into military service, often by trickery or force; the Bulgarian soldiers use flattery and a free meal to conscript Candide into their army without his understanding what is happening.