The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Vocabulary (Chapter 1)

1) It stood on its own and looked over a broad spread of West Country farmland. Not a remarkable house by any means - it was about thirty years old, squattish, squarish, made of brick, and had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly failed to please the eye.

Spread - простор, пространство; протяжённость

Not by any means - отнюдь не

Squattish - приземистый и коренастый; низкий и широкий

2) He had lived in it for about three years, ever since he had moved out of London because it made him nervous and irritable. He was about thirty as well, dark haired and never quite at ease with himself.

At ease - комфортно, свободно, непринужденно

Irritable - несдержанный, раздражительный

3) It hadn't properly registered with Arthur that the council wanted to knock down his house and build an bypass instead.

Register - осознавать, понимать

Knock down - сломать, разрушить; снести (дом)

Bypass - обходная дорога

4) At eight o'clock on Thursday morning Arthur didn't feel very good. He woke up blearily, got up, wandered blearily round his room, opened a window, saw a bulldozer, found his slippers, and stomped off to the bathroom to wash.

Blearily - смутно, неясно; сонно

Stomp - топать

5) Properly adjusted, it reflected Arthur Dent's bristles.

Bristle - щетина

6) He caught a glint in the shaving mirror.

Glint - вспышка, сверкание

7) He'd been telling people about it, telling people about it at great length, he rather suspected: his clearest visual recollection was of glazed looks on other people's faces.

At great length - долго

Recollection - воспоминание

Glazed - тусклый, стеклянный, безжизненный (о глазах, взгляде)

8) He took a swig of water. It would sort itself out, he'd decided, no one wanted a bypass, the council didn't have a leg to stand on.

Swig - большой глоток (спиртного)

Not to have a leg to stand on - быть беспочвенным; быть необоснованным

9) Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats.

Intervening - промежуточный, переходный

Juggle - жонглировать; совмещать; подтасовывать, искажать

Discernible - видимый, различимый

Vestige - след

Ancestry - предки, прародители; происхождение; родословная

Pronounced - резко выраженный, отчётливый

Stoutness - полнота, тучность, дородность

Predilection - склонность, пристрастие

10) He was by no means a great warrior: in fact he was a nervous worried man.

By no means - никоим образом не, нисколько не

11) "Come off it, Mr Dent," he said, "you can't win you know. You can't lie in front of the bulldozer indefinitely".

Come off - переставать

Indefinitely - неограниченно; бесконечно, беспредельно, безгранично

12) He tried to make his eyes blaze fiercely but they just wouldn't do it. Arthur lay in the mud and squelched at him.

Blaze - гореть ярким пламенем; сверкать, сиять

Squelch - хлюпать, шлёпать по воде, по грязи

13) "I'm game," he said, "we'll see who rusts first."

I'm game - я согласен

14) He flushed hotly under the derisive grins of the bulldozer drivers.

Flush - краснеть, рдеть

Derisive - иронический, насмешливый

15) Obviously somebody had been appallingly incompetent and he hoped to God it wasn't him.

Appallingly - ужасно, чрезвычайно

16) "Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur.

Hoot - громко кричать; улюлюкать

17) A cloud passed overhead. It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent as he lay propped up on his elbow in the cold mud.

Prop up - поддерживать, подпирать

18) Mr Prosser's mouth opened and closed a couple of times while his mind was for a moment filled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of Arthur Dent's house being consumed with fire and Arthur himself running screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding from his back.

Inexplicable - необъяснимый, непостижимый

Hefty - тяжёлый; мощный; большой

Spear - копье

19) He stuttered for a moment and then pulled himself together.

Stutter - заикаться; запинаться

Pull oneself together - взять себя в руки, собраться с духом

20) For instance he had spent those fifteen years pretending to be an out of work actor, which was plausible enough.

Plausible - похожий на правду, правдоподобный; внушающий доверие; вполне убедительный (об информации)

21) He had made one careless blunder though, because he had skimped a bit on his preparatory research. The information he had gathered had led him to choose the name "Ford Prefect" as being nicely inconspicuous.

Blunder - промах, просчёт

Skimp on - урезывать (что-л.), экономить на (чём-л.)

Inconspicuous - не привлекающий внимания, незаметный

22) His hair was wiry and gingerish and brushed backwards from the temples.

Wiry - похожий на проволоку; гибкий, жёсткий

23) Perhaps it was that he smiled slightly too broadly and gave people the unnerving impression that he was about to go for their neck.

Unnerving - пугающий

24) He struck most of the friends he had made on Earth as an eccentric, but a harmless one - an unruly boozer with some oddish habits. For instance he would often gatecrash university parties, get badly drunk and start making fun of any astrophysicist he could find till he got thrown out.

Unruly - буйный, непокорный, несдержанный

Boozer - пьяница

Gatecrash - приходить без приглашения

25) "Green ones!" he would reply with a wicked grin, laugh wildly for a moment and then suddenly lunge for the nearest bar and buy an enormous round of drinks.

Lunge - ринуться, устремиться (куда-л.)

Round of drinks - заказ выпивки для всех

26) Evenings like this usually ended badly. Ford would get out of his skull on whisky, huddle into a corner with some girl and explain to her in slurred phrases that honestly the colour of the flying saucers didn't matter that much really.

Out of one's skull - пьяный

Huddle - толпиться, собираться (вместе), жаться (друг к другу)

Slurred - нечеткий, неясный, невнятный

27) Thereafter, staggering semi-paralytic down the night streets he would often ask passing policemen if they knew the way to Betelgeuse.

Stagger - шататься, покачиваться; идти шатаясь

28) The reason he said green was that green was the traditional space livery of the Betelgeuse trading scouts.

Livery - ливрея; наряд, одеяние

29) Ford Prefect was desperate that any flying saucer at all would arrive soon because fifteen years was a long time to get stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mindboggingly dull as the Earth.

Stranded - оказавшийся в затруднительной ситуации

Mind-boggling - потрясающий, ошеломляющий, поразительный

30) Ford wished that a flying saucer would arrive soon because he knew how to flag flying saucers down and get lifts from them.

Flag down - остановить, поймать (попутку, такси)

31) In fact, Ford Prefect was a roving researcher for that wholly remarkable book The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Roving - бродячий, кочующий

32). it was Mr Prosser's accepted role to tackle Arthur with the occasional new ploy such as the For the Public Good talk, the March of Progress talk, the They Knocked My House Down Once You Know, Never Looked Back talk and various other cajoleries and threats.

Tackle - энергично, с усердием браться, приниматься (за что-л.); пытаться найти решение (каких-л. вопросов)

Ploy - экстравагантный и весёлый проступок, уловка, ухищрение

Cajolery - обхаживание, упрашивание

33) The Earth moved slowly in its diurnal course.

Diurnal - ежедневный

34) Arthur looked up and squinting into the sun was startled to see Ford Prefect standing above him.

Startle - поразить, сильно удивить

35) Then suddenly he squatted down beside Arthur.

Squat - садиться на корточки, приседать

36) Between them would be placed a bottle of Janx Spirit (as immortalized in that ancient Orion mining song "Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit").

Immortalize - обессмертить, увековечить

Fry - жарить; высушить, выжечь

Sinful - греховный, грешный; разг. ужасный, страшный (в усилительном значении)

37) Each of the two contestants would then concentrate their will on the bottle and attempt to tip it and pour spirit into the glass of his opponent - who would then have to drink it.

Tip - наклонять

38) As soon as a predetermined quantity had been consumed, the final loser would have to perform a forfeit, which was usually obscenely biological.

Forfeit - расплата (за проступок); штраф

Obscenely - неприлично, непристойно

39) "But what about my house?." he asked plaintively.

Plaintively - печально, грустно, жалобно

40) Mr Prosser (who was arguing with a spokesman for the bulldozer drivers about whether or not Arthur Dent constituted a mental health hazard, and how much they should get paid if he did) looked around. He was surprised and slightly alarmed to find that Arthur had company.

Constitute - составлять; учреждать, создавать

Alarmed - встревоженный, обеспокоенный

41) "Well, if you're resigned to doing that anyway, you don't actually need him to lie here all the time do you?"

Be resigned to - примириться (с чем-либо)