Vocabulary in Hard Times

Roomy and spacious; here used ironically to describe the deep-set eye sockets as if they were large, comfortable storage spaces.

Underground storage space, like a basement or vault; used here as a vivid metaphor for the deep, hollow eye sockets beneath Gradgrind's heavy brow.

Feeding on grass and other plants; a technical zoological term applied here to a horse to show how Gradgrind's system reduces living things to dry, factual classifications.

Here used as a noun-like adjective referring to incisor teeth — the sharp front cutting teeth of an animal.

Imagination, creative dreaming, or the pleasure of invented images; in this novel it stands for everything Gradgrind's system forbids as useless and unscientific.

Something that cannot exist in the real, physical world; Gradgrind uses the phrase to ban any decorative or imaginative object that does not match literal reality.

Serving as an introduction or first stage before the main work; here it describes the opening lesson in which the teacher checks what knowledge the children already hold.

A casual phrase meaning 'and other things of the same kind'; used to suggest Bounderby's many overlapping commercial roles without listing them all.

Hard, cold, and clanging in sound or quality, like struck metal; used to describe Bounderby's laugh as harsh and entirely without warmth or genuine feeling.

Going beyond all ordinary measure; here it intensifies 'feebleness,' meaning Mrs. Gradgrind is weak to an extraordinary, almost unmatched degree.

Medicine, especially a purgative or general remedy taken to treat illness; an older term for any medicinal drug or dose.

Devoted entirely to work and productive labour, with no room for pleasure or beauty; Dickens coins this word to capture Coketown's grimly utilitarian character.

Dialect and lisp spelling of 'amused' — entertained or given pleasurable recreation; Sleary's speech renders 's' sounds as 'th' throughout.

Sleary's lisped pronunciation of 'Squire,' a respectful form of address to a gentleman or man of standing, here used to address Gradgrind.

Standing apart and uninvolved, with no personal stake in what is happening; here it means Mrs. Sparsit is very much personally interested, not a neutral bystander.

Gradually acquired or picked up, as one might catch a disease; used to suggest Louisa developed a small, unexpected romantic feeling almost without meaning to.

A mental image Mrs. Sparsit constructs in her imagination — a symbolic descending staircase representing Louisa's step-by-step moral and social ruin.

Dialect form of 'will not' or 'won't'; part of the regional working-class speech Dickens gives to Stephen Blackpool and other Coketown mill-hands.

To actively reject or deny a belief; Harthouse has not bothered to form any conviction at all — he has not even gone to the effort of deciding what he does not believe.

Literally a young dog or puppy; used here as a contemptuous nickname for Tom Gradgrind, suggesting he is immature, selfish, and morally worthless.

Legally separated from a spouse by a court; in the 1850s context, divorce was extremely difficult and expensive, available only to the wealthy, which is Stephen's bitter point.

A dialect expression meaning 'good luck to them' or 'may good fortune befall them'; Stephen uses it as a mild, resigned blessing toward the wealthy.

Dialect spelling of 'always'; part of Stephen Blackpool's regional working-class accent as rendered by Dickens throughout the novel.

Prevented or held back from doing something; Stephen means he is blocked by a private reason from joining the union, a reason he cannot or will not explain.

Dialect form of 'nearer'; Stephen uses it to say that the endless running of the mills never brings the workers any closer to any distant goal or better life.