the Catcher in the Rye Ch.15

Agerstown is a town in Pennsylvania where Holden Caulfield's school Pencey Preparatory School is located.

Sally Hayes: a very attractive girl whom Holden has known and dated for a long time.

matinee: a musical or dramatic performance or social or public event held in the daytime and especially the afternoon

tempt: to cause to be strongly inclined

edgewise: sideways

cadet: a person in training for a military or naval commission

hung up: anxiously nervous

modesty: the quality of not being too proud or confident about yourself or your abilities

beat one's brains out: to try intently to resolve something difficult by thinking

fortune: a very large sum of money

king's ransom: a very large sum of money

spendthrift: a person who spends improvidently or wastefully

Sample sentence: Here's your change, Sir.

Broadway: the New York commercial theater and amusement world

flop: to change or turn suddenly

ax: quit school

bacon: DJ[ˋbeikən]

nun: a woman belonging to a religious order

convent: a local community or house of a religious order or congregation

congregation: a religious community

The location of Elkton Hills is not mentioned in the novel. At this preparatory school, Holden remembers rooming with a guy named Dick Slagle whose suitcase was of an inferior quality to his own.

Rack; a framework, stand, or grating on or in which articles are placed

Mark Cross is an American luxury leather goods brand.

cowhide: leather made from this hide

leather: DJ[ˋleðə]

penny: a similar monetary unit of any of various other countries in or formerly in the Commonwealth of Nations

snotty: snooty: showing disdain

disdain: a feeling of contempt for someone or something regarded as unworthy or inferior

comtempt: lack of respect or reverence for something

reverence: honor or respect felt or shown

bourgeois: of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class

Stradlater is Holden’s roommate at Pencey.

strike up: (pt) struck up: to cause to begin

strike up a conversation

straw basket: a basket made of wickerwork

wickerwork: work consisting of interlaced pliable twigs or branches

uptown: the residential district of a city or town

Eustacia Vye, fictional character, a beautiful, sensual young woman who marries Clym Yeobright in the novel The Return of the Native (1878) by Thomas Hardy.

Mercutio is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's 1597 tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio's death enables Shakespeare to develop him as a tragic figure and alter the trajectory of the play from a comic to a tragic course. Mercutio's final speech employs dark comedy to illustrate the tragic significance of the latest violence. After being stabbed by Tybalt, he admits his wound is fatal.

Capulet and Montague are the heads of two feuding families in William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Their blood feud brings about the deaths of the title characters when Juliet (the daughter of Capulet) and Romeo (the son of Montague) fall in love.

blood feud: a feud between different clans or families

feud: mutual enmity or quarrel that is often prolonged or inveterate

enmity: positive, active, and typically mutual hatred or ill will

quarrel: a ground of dispute or complaint

inveterate: firmly established by long persistence

get off: leave

descent: derivation from an ancestor

infirmary: a place (as in a school or prison) where sick or injured individuals receive care and treatment

Online Dictionary Used: https://www.merriam-webster.com