Ender's Game Vocab: Chapters 11-13

Insultingly contemptuous in speech or conduct

"Ender looked for the source of the voice. It was Bean, already in his flash suit, looking insolent. Time to repay old humiliations, is that it, Bean?"

Placed in battle formation or appropriate positions

"Ender pointed all around the door, to tell them that Salamander Army was undoubtedly deployed against the wall all around the door, where they couldn’t be seen but could easily flash anyone who came out."

Independence

"Your autonomy is guaranteed, and despite our difference in ranks I am quite aware that it is my authority only to advise, not to order you to take action."

Not straightforward, lacking candidness

"Do not be disingenuous with me, Colonel Graff. Americans are quite apt at playing stupid when they choose to, but I am not to be deceived."

To pass through high command

"Colonel Graff, the name Ender Wiggin has percolated through the high command."

Too valuable or excellent to be measured or appreciated

"…So that Ender Wiggin, an inestimably important international resource, will be placed in serious danger of having his brains pasted on the walls of your orbiting school house."

Resistance to a change in motion

"Ender had helped them with some techniques from gravity personal combat-many things had to be changed, but inertia in flight was a tool that could be used against the enemy…"

The recovery of a useful substance from waste

"It had been launched in one piece, as a low-orbit satellite, packed full of water reclamation equipment…"

Code of correct conduct, etiquette

"Anderson handed him the hook. Ender unfroze everyone at once. To hell with protocol. To hell with everything."

Accomplice aiding in bad acts

"And the boy has the soul of a jackal."

To entertain sumptuously, to amuse

"At dinner, though, he would often regale them with some telling point Demosthenes had made in that day's column."

Flattering; pleasing someone to gain personal advantage

"…and then wrote a column using that as a premise, to show that politicians who toadied to the Russians in order to keep the peace would inevitably end up subservient to them in everything."

Having the power to prevent usually unpleasant anticipated situations

"I've been learning about preemptive strategies. I'm very good. No one ever beat me. I'm the best soldier they ever had."

A steer able airship

"Ender turned his face to the window and watched the helicopters and dirigibles rise and fall."

Careful; meticulous attention to detail

"There were still water birds taking their fastidious little steps in the saltwater, where mossy trees dipped down as if to drink."

To rake from side to side

"…fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky."

The ratio of light reflected off a celestial body

"Its albedo is only slightly brighter than a black hole. You won't see it."

Small, under grown body parts in comparison to an earlier stage

"…the most likely thing, in fact, is that most bugger soldiers are females, but with atrophied or vestigial sexual organs."