Slaughterhouse-Five

1. So it goes (phrase):

an expression of resignation; in the story, the common verbal reaction of Tralfamadorians to inevitable tragedies

“He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes.” (Chapter 1, page 3)

2. The Children’s Crusade (phrase):

a 13th-century scheme to sell children into slavery to pay for the religious Crusades in Palestine; the alternate title for the book Slaughterhouse Five

“Mackey told us that the Children’s Crusade started in 1213, when two monks got the idea of raising armies of children in Germany and France, and selling them in North Africa as slaves.” (Chapter 1, page 18)

3. random (adjective):

without reason or pattern; by chance

“He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between”. (Chapter 2, page 25)

4. Tralfamadore (noun): in the story, an alien planet occupied by time-traveling Tralfamadorians

“The saucer was from the planet Tralfamadore, he said. He was taken to Tralfamadore, where he was displayed naked in a zoo, he said”. (Chapter 2, page 27)

5. Tralfamadorians (noun):

residents of the alien planet Tralfamadore

“He hadn’t been missed, he said, because the Tralfamadorians had taken him through a time warp, so that he could be on Tralfamadore for years, and still be away from Earth for only a microsecond.” (Chapter 2, page 28)

6. optometry (noun):

the art and science of eye examination, used to detect defects of vision and to prescribe treatment, including corrective lenses

“His father-in-law, who owned the Ilium School of Optometry, who had set Billy up in practice, was a genius in his field.” (Chapter 2, page 49)

7. Lions Club (noun):

a fraternal organization that engages in community service

“The speaker at the Lions Club meeting was a major in the Marines”. (Chapter 3, page 63)

8. Vietnam (noun):

a country in tropical Southeast Asia, caught up in colonial warfare between 1940 and 1975, including extensive aerial bombing; in the story, those raids are compared to the Dresden air raids

“He said that Americans had no choice but to keep fighting in Vietnam until they achieved victory or until the Communists realized that they could not force their way of life on weak countries”. (Chapter 3, page 63)

9. boxcar (noun):

an enclosed car on a train used for transporting freight; during the Second World War in Germany, captured soldiers and others were transferred in boxcars to camps or prisons

“Billy Pilgrim was packed into a boxcar with many other privates” (Chapter 3, page 71).

10. private (noun):

the bottom rank of enlisted soldiers

“Most of the privates on Billy’s car were very young—at the end of childhood” (Chapter 3, page 71).

11. Second World War (phrase):

to date the world’s largest military conflict, which took place between 1939 and 1945 mainly in Europe, East Asia, and the western Pacific Ocean, caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, and saw the first major use of aerial bombardment against military and civilian targets

“It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them” (Chapter 4, page 77).

12. fire-bombing (noun):

aerial bombardment using incendiary devices to create fire-storms that consume an urban area; in World War II, used extensively by American and British forces

“And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden” (Chapter 5, page 104).

13. Dresden (noun):

a city in eastern Germany known for its beauty, arts, and culture, destroyed by fire-bombing during the Second World War, and rebuilt afterwards

“The Americans arrived in Dresden at five in the afternoon. The boxcar doors were opened, and the doorways framed the loveliest city that most of the Americans had ever seen. The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd”. (Chapter 6, page 152)

14. prisoners of war (noun phrase):

soldiers captured in battle and retained in prisons or as forced labor

“Their assignment was to guard one hundred American prisoners of war, who would work as contract labor”. (Chapter 6, page 153)

15. slaughterhouse (noun):

a building where domesticated animals are killed and processed for their meat, hides, and other products

“The slaughterhouse wasn’t a busy place any more. Almost all the hooved animals in Germany had been killed and eaten and excreted by human beings, mostly soldiers”. (Chapter 6, page 156) 

16. barbershop quartet (noun):

a group of four men who sing songs from the early 1900s, often in complex harmonies

“The barbershop quartet on the airplane was singing ‘Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nelly,’ when the plane smacked into the top of Sugarbush Mountain in Vermont”. (Chapter 7, page 160)

17. Nazism (noun):

the nationalist, expansionist, and racist policies and beliefs of the National Socialist (Nazi) party that controlled Germany between 1933 and 1945 and launched the Second World War in 1939; vanquished in 1945 by American, British, Russian, and other military powers

“He spoke of the brotherhood between the American and the Russian people, and how those two nations were going to crush the disease of Nazism, which wanted to infect the whole world”. (Chapter 8, page 168)

18. air-raid siren (noun):

a mechanically produced loud and wailing public alarm that warns of an imminent bombing attack or announces a rehearsal for such an attack; at this alarm, locals are to find shelter

“The air-raid sirens of Dresden howled mournfully”. (Chapter 8, page 169)

19. fire-storm (noun):

a large fire whose heat rises quickly, sucking up nearby air and causing huge towers of flame and local weather disturbances

“There was a fire-storm out there. Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic