Boxers, Briefs, and Books Flashcards
(22 cards)
star
acclaimed
The Firm starred Tom Cruise in the acclaimed film.
[VERB] If someone or something is acclaimed, they are praised enthusiastically.
litigation
he worked for a small Mississippi law firm, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation.
소송
dead-end
Grisham provides insights into how and why he became a writier after trying many hard, dead-end jobs.
[NOUN] [oft N n] A dead end job or course of action is one that you think is bad because it does not lead to further developments or progress.
crew
nursery
labor
I earned my first steady paycheck watering rose bushes at a nursery for a dollar an hour. I was in my early teens, but the man who owned the nursery saw potential, and he promoted me to his fence crew. For $1.50 an hour, I labored like a grown man as we laid mile after mile of chain-link fence.
팀
묘목장
열심히 일하다
cramped
Then, during the summer of my 16th year, I found a job with a plumbing contractor. I crawled under houses, into the cramped darkness, with a shovel, to somehow find the buried pipes, to dig until I found the problem, then crawl back out and report what I had found.
비좁은
vow to
I vowed to get a desk job. I’ve never drawn inspiration from that miserable work, and I shall never mention it again in writing, either.
맹세하다
contemplate
growling
at your command
plow over
I got a break when the operator of a Caterpillar bulldozer was fired; shown the finer points of handling this rather large machine, I contemplated a future in the cab, tons of growling machinery at my command, with the power to plow over anything.
consider
그르렁 거리는
[PHRASE] [FORMAL] If you have a particular skill or particular resources at your command, you have them and can use them fully. 자유자재로 사용하는
다 엎어버리다
sputter
My career sputtered along until retail caught my attention.
[VERB] If something such as an engine or a flame sputters, it works or burns in an uneven way and makes a series of soft popping sounds. 쭉이어지다
humiliating
be given a raise
The only opening was in men’s underwear. It was humiliating. I tried to quit, but I was given a raise.
[ADJ] If something is humiliating, it embarrasses you and makes you feel ashamed and stupid.
임금상승
Evidently
Evidently, the position was difficult to fill.
[ADV] You use evidently to say that something is obviously true, for example because you have seen evidence of it yourself.
abrupt [əbrʌpt]
surly [sɜ:rli]
pose
I became abrupt with customers. Sears has the nicest customers in the world, but I didn’t care. I was rude and surly and I was occasionally watched by spies hired by the company to pose as shoppers.
[ADJ] Someone who is abrupt speaks in a rather rude, unfriendly way.
[ADJ] Someone who is surly behaves in a rude bad-tempered way.
[VERB] If you pose as someone, you pretend to be that person in order to deceive people. -인척하다
ample
rear end
One asked to try on a pair of boxers. I said no, that it was obvious they were much too small for his rather ample rear end.
[ADJ] If there is an ample amount of something, there is enough of it and usually some extra.
엉덩이
drift
high-powered
Halfway through college, and still drifting, I decided to become a high-powered tax lawyer.
방황하다
[ADJ] [usu ADJ n] Someone who is high-powered or has a high-powered job has a very important and responsible job which requires a lot of ability. 영향력 있는
lunacy [‘lu:nəsi]
barely
The plan was sailing along until I took my first course in tax law. I was stunned by its complexity and lunacy, and I barely passed the course.
[NOUN] [disapproval] If you describe someone’s behaviour as lunacy, you mean that it seems very strange or foolish.
가까스로 통과했다.
hatch
hang out/up your shingle [ʃɪŋgəl]
hotshot
overnight
Around the same time, I was involved in mock-trial classes. I enjoyed the courtroom. A new plan was hatched. I would return to my hometown, hang out my shingle and become a hotshot trial lawyer. Tax law was discarded overnight.
VERB] If you hatch a plot or a scheme, you think of it and work it out.
start to do business from your home, especially as a doctor or a lawyer
[NOUN] If you refer to someone as a hotshot, you mean they are very good at a particular job and are going to be very successful.
[ADV] [ADV after v] You can say that something happens overnight when it happens very quickly and unexpectedly.
public defender
indigent [‘ɪndɪdʒənt]
This was 1981; at the time there was no public-defender system in my county. I volunteered for all the indigent work I could get. It was the fastest way to trial, and I learned quickly.
[NOUN] A public defender is a lawyer who is employed by a city or county to represent people who are accused of crimes but cannot afford to pay for a lawyer themselves.
[ADJ] Someone who is indigent is very poor.
lucrative [‘lu:krətɪv]
When my law office started to struggle for lack of well-paying work — indigent cases are far from lucrative — I decided to go into yet another low-paying career:
[ADJ] A lucrative activity, job, or business deal is very profitable.
come in handy
Each year from January through March I was at the State Capitol in Jackson, wasting serious time, but also listening to great storytellers. I took a lot of notes, not knowing why but feeling that, someday, those tales would come in handy.
be useful when needed
loiter [lɔɪtər]
As usual, I was loitering around the courtroom, pretending to be busy.
[VERB] If you loiter somewhere, you remain there or walk up and down without any real purpose.
gut-wrenching
graphic
riveting
juror
defendant
But what I was really doing was watching a trial involving a young girl who had been beaten and raped. Her testimony was gut-wrenching, graphic, heartbreaking and riveting. Every juror was crying. I remember staring at the defendant and wishing I had a gun. And like that, a story was born.
[ADJ] Gut-wrenching events or experiences make you feel extremely shocked or upset.
[ADJ] If you say that a description or account of something unpleasant is graphic, you are emphasizing that it is clear and detailed. 생생한
[ADJ] If you describe something as riveting, you mean that it is extremely interesting and exciting, and that it holds your attention completely. 매혹적인
[NOUN] A juror is a member of a jury. 배심원
[NOUN] A defendant is a person who has been accused of breaking the law and is being tried in court. 피고
long to
flesh something out
Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn’t sure how to start. Over the following weeks I refined my plot outline and fleshed out my characters.
[NOUN] If you feel longing or a longing for something, you have a rather sad feeling because you want it very much. 갈망하다
to add more details or information to an argument, an idea, a drawing, etc.
pay off
I had never worked so hard in my life, nor imagined that writing could be such an effort. It was more difficult than laying asphalt, and at times more frustrating than selling underwear. But it paid off.
[VERB] [intr, adverb] to turn out to be profitable, effective, etc
