Study Appendix and characterize the main personages. Traits of character Active always doing things or ready to do things, especially physical activities: We had an active holiday
Appendix
Traits of character
| Active | always doing things or ready to do things, especially physical activities: We had an active holiday, sailing, swimming and water skiing. | She may be over 80, but she's still veryactive! |
| Inert | not having the strength or power to move; very slow and unwilling to take any action: an inert form lying on the bed. Congress remained inert and skeptical about the proposal. |
| Vivacious | someone who is vivacious has a lot of energy and a happy attractive manner: a vivacious and outgoing personality |
| Sleepyhead (spoken) | someone, especially a child, who looks as if they want to go to sleep: Come on sleepyhead, wake up! |
| Slowcoach (noun [countable] BrE informal) | someone who moves or does things too slowly; slowpoke AmE : Come on slowcoach, hurry up! |
| Cheerful | behaving in a way that shows you are happy, for example by smiling or being very friendly: Despite feeling ill, she managed to keep cheerful. | a cheerful grin/smile/face (=showing that you are happy): Nancy gave me a cheerful grin and waved me over. |
| Bore (noun [countable]) | someone who is boring, especially because they talk too much about themselves: He was something of a bore - going on about his charity work all evening. | soccer/photography etc bore(=someone who talks too much about photography etc) |
| Amiable | friendly and likeable: The driver was an amiable young man. |
| Nuisance (noun [countable usually singular]) | a person, thing, or situation that annoys you or causes problems: Those dogs next door are a thorough nuisance. | What a nuisance! spoken: What a nuisance! I've forgotten my ticket. | make a nuisance of yourself (=behave in a way that annoys other people): Stop making anuisanceof yourself. |
| Sullen | silently showing anger or bad temper: a look of sullen resentment |
| Calm | quiet and without excitement, nervous activity, or strong feeling: Richard spoke with calm authority. | Keep calm, and try not to panic! |
| Placid | a placid person or animal does not easily get angry or excited: He had a placid nature, well-suited to teaching. |
| Irritable | getting annoyed quickly or easily: Jo was tired,irritable, and depressed. |
| Peevish | easily annoyed by small and unimportant things; bad-tempered: The kids were peevish after so long in the car. |
| Composed | seeming calm and not upset or angry: He appeared very composed despite the stress he was under. |
| Hot-tempered | having a tendency to become angry easily |
| Quick-tempered | easily becoming angry: Our young men werequick-temperedand likely to do rash things. |
| Short-tempered | easily becoming angry or impatient: Roger's back pain is making him pretty short-tempered these days. |
| Neat | someone who is neat likes to keep things tidy: The new lodger was fortunately a neat person. |
| Defiant | refusing clearly to do what someone tells you to do: He gave a short, defiant laugh. |
| Yielding | willing to agree with other people's wishes and letting them decide instead of you: She is too yielding when clients make demands on her time. |
| Obedient | always doing what you are told to do by your parents, by someone in authority etc: an obedient and dutiful child |
| Disobedient | deliberately not doing what you are told to do by your parents, teacher, employer etc |
| Serious | someone who is serious is always very sensible and quiet: He's a nice guy, but very serious; seeming slightly worried or unhappy: You look serious. What's wrong? |
| Easy-going | not easily upset, annoyed, or worried: Her easy-goingnature made her popular. |
| Sensitive | able to understand other people's feelings and problems: Underneath all that macho stuff, he's really asensitive guy; easily hurt, upset, or offended by things that people say: Don't be so sensitive - I wasn't criticizing you! [+ about]: Lara's very sensitive about her figure. | sensitive soul (=someone who is easily upset by small or unimportant things) |
| Callous | not caring that other people are suffering: We were shocked at the callous disregard for human life. | the callous slaughter of thousands of seals |
| Cool | calm and not nervous, upset, embarrassed etc: Now just stay cool. Everything's OK. | (as) cool as a cucumber (=very calm): Robert walked into the exam looking cool as a cucumber. | cool customer(=someone who behaves calmly in a difficult situation) | cool head (=ability to remain calm in a difficult situation): The job is quite demanding, so we need someone with a cool head. | cool, calm, and collected(=calm): Although she was nervous before the interview she managed to appear cool, calm and collected. |
| Touchy | easily becoming offended or annoyed: Since his girlfriend left him, he's been very touchy. |
| Emotional | showing your feelings to other people, especially by crying when you are upset: He became very emotionalwhen we had to leave. |
| Rational | sensible and able to make decisions based on intelligent thinking rather than on emotion: rational behaviour | We should be able to sort this out like rationalhuman beings! |
| Irrational | someone who is irrational tends to behave or do things without thinking clearly or without good reasons: He's becoming increasingly irrational. |
| Worldly | having a lot of experience and knowledge about people and life: Crystal was worldly but willing to take a risk. |
| Trustworthy | someone who is trustworthy can be trusted and depended upon; dependable |
| Superstitious | influenced by old-fashioned beliefs about luck and magic |
| Ambitious | determined to be successful, rich, powerful etc: an ambitiousand hard-working junior manager | be ambitious for sb (=want them to be very successful): Mothers are often highly ambitious for their children. |
| Arrogant | so proud of your own abilities or qualities that you behave as if you are much more important than anyone else: I found him arrogantand overbearing. |
| Boastful | talking too proudly about yourself: We all got drunk and became very loud and boastful. |
| Capricious | likely to change your mind suddenly or behave in an unexpected way: as capricious and manipulative as her mother had been |
| Complacent | pleased with what you have achieved so that you stop trying to improve or change things: There's a danger of becoming complacent if you win a few games. [+ about]: We simply cannot afford to be complacent about the future of our car industry. |
| Conceited | behaving in a way that shows you think you are very clever, skilful, beautiful etc: He's a conceited little so-and-so. |
| Proud | thinking that you are more important, skilful etc than you really are: Proud and boastful, Jaggers was typical of the young brokers. |
| Unpretentious | not trying to seem better, more important etc than you really are: an unpretentious restaurant |
| Self-assured | calm and confident about what you are doing: His air of self-assuredconfidence made him a born leader. |
| Self-confident | sure that you can do things well, that people like you, that you are attractive etc, and not shy or nervous in social situations |
| Self-reliant | able to decide what to do by yourself, without depending on the help or advice of other people: Hong Kong must prepare to be more self- reliantfor growth in the 1990s. |
| Self-denying | not doing or having the things you enjoy, either because you cannot afford it, or for moral or religious reasons |
| Self-disciplined | having the ability to make yourself do the things you know you ought to do, without someone making you do them: I just wonder if I'm self-disciplined enoughto finish the course. |
| Villain (noun BrE informal) | a bad person or criminal: Watch him - he's a bit of a villain! |
| Broadminded | willing to respect opinions or behaviour that are very different from your own: Her parents were broadminded, tolerant and liberal. |
| Narrow-minded | unwilling to accept or understand new or different ideas or customs; prejudiced |
| Small-minded | too concerned with the small problems and details of your life, so that you do not think about what is really important; petty (1): a greedy, bigoted and small-mindedman |
| Quick-witted | able to understand things quickly and give quick, clever replies |
| Slow-witted - | not good at understanding things: He was a big, slow-witted man who would hurt no-one. |
| Slowcoach (noun [countable] BrE informal) | someone who moves or does things too slowly; slowpokeAmE : Come on slowcoach, hurry up! |
| Bright | intelligent and likely to be successful: Rosa's a brightchild - she should do well at school. | (have) a bright idea: We've no money and the last bus has gone. Any bright ideas? |
| Dull | not able to think quickly or understand things easily |
| Clever (especially BrE) | able to learn and understand things quickly; intelligent: a cleverstudent | You tied your shoes up yourself? What a clever girl! |
| Sluggish | moving or reacting more slowly than normal: I always feel sluggish first thing in the morning. | the company's sluggish sales performance |
| Sharp | able to think and understand things very quickly, and not easily deceived: a journalist with an extremely sharpmind |
| Foolish | a foolish person behaves in a silly way or looks silly: I was young and foolish at the time. |
| Smart (especially AmE) | a) intelligent: The smart kids get good grades and go off to college. | Some smart lawyer got him out of jail. b) trying to seem clever in a disrespectful way: Don't get smart with me, young man. |
| Intelligent | having a high level of mental ability so that you are good at understanding ideas and thinking quickly and clearly: If you're reasonably intelligent the maths involved should present no problems. USAGE NOTE: INTELLIGENT WORD CHOICE: intelligent, intellectual An intelligent person is someone with a quick and clever mind, but an intellectual person is someone who is well-educated and interested in subjects that need long periods of study. A small child, or even a dog, can be intelligent but cannot be called intellectual. Intelligent and intellectual are both adjectives, but intellectual can also be a noun: There are too many intellectuals in the government. |
| Witty | using words in a clever and amusing way: a wittyspeaker | witty remarks |
| Deep | someone who is deep or has deep thoughts thinks very hard about things, often in a way that other people find difficult to understand: Hal seems to me to be a very deep, sensitive type of person. |
| Shallow | not interested in or showing any understanding of important or serious matters: a shallow argument | If he's only interested in your looks, that just shows how shallow he is. |
| Well-read | having read many books and knowing a lot about different subjects |
| Knowledgeable | knowing a lot [+ about]: Graham's very knowledgeable about wines. |
| Ignoramus (noun [countable] plural ignoramuses) | someone who does not know about things that most people know about |
| Ignorant | not knowing facts or information that you ought to know: an ignorant and uneducated man [+ of]: They were ignorant of any events outside their own town. [+ about]: I'm very ignorant about politics. |
| Scholarly | someone who is scholarly spends a lot of time studying, and knows a lot about a particular subject |
| Illiterate | someone who is illiterate has not learned to read or write |
| Learned | formal having a lot of knowledge because you have read and studied a lot |
| Unlettered | formal unable to read or uneducated |
| Enlightened | showing a good understanding of something and not believing things about it that are false: enlightened opinions |
| Mediocre | not very good: I thought the film was pretty mediocre. | a mediocrestudent |
| Feeble-minded | unable to think clearly and decide what to do: Her husband's so feeble-minded - he won't do a thing unless she tells him to. |
| Gifted | having a natural ability to do one or more things extremely well: a gifted pianist |gifted child (=one who is extremely intelligent) |
| Ordinary | not particularly good or impressive: I thought the paintings were pretty ordinary. |
| Genius (noun [uncountable]) | a very high level of intelligence, mental skill, or artistic ability, which only a few people have: a writer/work/woman etc of genius: an imaginative novelist of great genius| The film reveals Fellini's genius. | a stroke of genius(=a very clever idea) [countable] someone who has an unusually high level of intelligence, mental skill or artistic ability: a musical genius | You can't compare him with a true genius like Einstein. | be a genius at sth: Watch your money - Lou's a genius at cards. |
| Simple-minded | unable to understand complicated things, and not showing much understanding of the world: a simple-minded desire for a return to the past |
| Sophisticated | having a lot of experience of life, good judgment about socially important things such as art, fashion etc: a play that will only appeal to a sophisticatedaudience | a suave, sophisticated Frenchman |
| Unreasonable | behaving in an unfair, unpleasant, or stupid way: Will thinks I'm being unreasonable in not lending him the car. |