Table Of ContentTHE PICTURE OF DORIAN
GRAY
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
Oscar Wilde
PSAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship
Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT is a registered trademark of the College
Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE, AP and Advanced Placement are registered
trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT is a
registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book
nor endorses this book, LSAT is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither
sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
The Picture of Dorian
Gray
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
Oscar Wilde
PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the
College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are
registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book,
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated
with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council
which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
ICON CLASSICS
Published by ICON Group International, Inc.
7404 Trade Street
San Diego, CA 92121 USA
www.icongrouponline.com
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT®,
and AP® English Test Preparation
This edition published by ICON Classics in 2005
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright ©2005 by ICON Group International, Inc.
Edited by Philip M. Parker, Ph.D. (INSEAD); Copyright ©2005, all rights reserved.
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PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the
National Merit Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book;
SAT® is a registered trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses
this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the
Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a
registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither
affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law
School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights
reserved.
ISBN 0-497-25310-0
iii
Contents
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR..........................................................................................1
THE PREFACE..................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1......................................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2....................................................................................................................19
CHAPTER 3....................................................................................................................35
CHAPTER 4....................................................................................................................49
CHAPTER 5....................................................................................................................65
CHAPTER 6....................................................................................................................77
CHAPTER 7....................................................................................................................85
CHAPTER 8....................................................................................................................97
CHAPTER 9..................................................................................................................111
CHAPTER 10.................................................................................................................123
CHAPTER 11.................................................................................................................133
CHAPTER 12.................................................................................................................151
CHAPTER 13.................................................................................................................159
CHAPTER 14.................................................................................................................167
CHAPTER 15.................................................................................................................181
CHAPTER 16.................................................................................................................191
CHAPTER 17.................................................................................................................201
CHAPTER 18.................................................................................................................209
CHAPTER 19.................................................................................................................219
CHAPTER 20.................................................................................................................229
GLOSSARY...................................................................................................................235
Oscar Wilde 1
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR
Designed for school districts, educators, and students seeking to maximize performance on
standardized tests, Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently
assigned readings in English courses. By using a running thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this
edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde was edited for students who are actively
building their vocabularies in anticipation of taking PSAT®, SAT®, AP® (Advanced Placement®),
GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT® or similar examinations.1
Webster’s edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of
synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in
other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic
words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are “difficult,
and often encountered” in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided
for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of the English language,
and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word’s meaning within
context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not
already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it
has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the
book; Synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster’s Online Dictionary.
Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-online-
dictionary.org. Please send suggestions to [email protected]
The Editor
Webster’s Online Dictionary
www.websters-online-dictionary.org
1 P S A T ® i s a r e g i s t e r e d t r a d e m a r k o f t h e College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the
College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are
registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book,
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated
with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council
which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
Oscar Wilde 3
THE PREFACE
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is
art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new
material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those
who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For
these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only
beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written,
or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his
own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not
seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-
matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an
imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true
can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an
artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist
can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an
art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of
form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of
feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those
who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so
at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of
opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man
for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for
making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
OSCAR WILDE
Oscar Wilde 5
CHAPTER 1
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light
summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the
open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-
flowering thorn.%
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying,
smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could
just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a
laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of
a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds
in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of
the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making
him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the
medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of
swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way
through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round
the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness
more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant
organ.
In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length
portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some
little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden
Thesaurus
bourdon: (adv) terzetto; (n) drone pipe, heliotrope, ash, common lilac, family clumsiness.
drone. Oleaceae. tremulous: (adj) shaky, trembling,
divan: (n) anthology, settee, sofa, painters: (n) painter. shaking, fearful, apprehensive,
diwan, directory, Chamber of shouldering: (n) assumption. quavering, fidgety, shivering; (n)
Deputies, chair, Cortes, sanhedrim, straggling: (adj) rambling, straggly, nervous, diffident, coy. ANTONYMS:
woolsack, chesterfield. spread, few, trailing, untidy, (adj) stable, confident, steady.
easel: (n) bench, workbench, trestle, vagabond, sprawly, sprawled. unmown: (adj) not trimmed, rough,
tripod, studio easel, desk. ANTONYM: (adj) compact. not cut, complete, standing.
flamelike: (adj) blazing, flamy. swiftness: (n) speed, haste, rapidity, woodbine: (n) honeysuckle,
laburnum: (n) genus laburnum. celerity, acceleration, quickness, woodbind, American ivy, genus
lilac: (adj) lavender, mauve, purple, promptness, pace, velocity, agility, Lonicera, Lonicera, vine, Virginia
violet, puce, chromatic; (n) shrub, dispatch. ANTONYM: (n) creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia.
