March 2007

Notable and Quotable: Jack Kerouac

Beat writer Jack Kerouac was born March 12, 1922, and his most popular work, On the Road, turns 50 this year. Dead at 47, Kerouac filled his life and his notebooks with wild times and colorful words. Thirteen of those terms are used to illustrate senses of words in the Unabridged Dictionary.

Interested in searching out instances of your favorite author making the dictionary? It's easy to find them. Pick the Collegiate or Unabridged as your reference source, click Advanced Search, type the last name of the author in the Authors Quoted field, and click on Search.

anytime adverb
"can get a job anywhere anytime"

cat noun
"some young Indian cat asked me to go drinking with him"

explode verb
"clay jars exploded with bouquets"

hepcat noun
"horn-rimmed intellectual hepcats with wild black hair"

needment noun
"the old canvas bag in which all his poor needments for a long journey were packed"

nub noun
"saw a fawn standing at a nub of grass"

pointy adjective
"pointy little firs"

rejoicement noun
"a golden festival of rejoicement was taking place"

roust verb
"the bartender rousted up an odd bottle of . . . port"

scrolled adjective
"the dark scrolled iron of balustrades"

symphonic adjective
"the symphonic hum of a million insects"

thumb verb
"thumbed the big trucks that started rolling"

trail noun
"discovered a rattlesnake trail in the sand"


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