society, webciety, unremitting, vagrant

'The Vagrants'

By YIYUN LI
Reviewed by PICO IYER

Centered on the aftermath of a young woman’s execution in a desolate part of China in 1979, Yiyun Li’s grieving and unremitting first novel examines the costs and consequences of a society gone mad.

本届CeBIT的两大主题：Green IT（绿色IT）和Webciety（网络社会）依然受到极大关注。

society
n., pl. -ties.

1. 1. The totality of social relationships among humans.
   2. A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.
   3. The institutions and culture of a distinct self-perpetuating group.
2. An organization or association of persons engaged in a common profession, activity, or interest: a folklore society; a society of bird watchers.
3. 1. The rich, privileged, and fashionable social class.
   2. The socially dominant members of a community.
4. Companionship; company: enjoys the society of friends and family members.
5. Biology. A colony or community of organisms, usually of the same species: an insect society.

[French société, from Old French, from Latin societās, fellowship, from socius, companion.]

webciety --web+society

unremitting
adj.

Never slackening; persistent.

unremittingly un're·mit'ting·ly adv.
unremittingness un're·mit'ting·ness n.


Not stopping.

The rain was unremitting for days, so we were stuck inside with nothing to do.

vagrant
n.

1. One who wanders from place to place without a permanent home or a means of livelihood.
2. A wanderer; a rover.
3. One who lives on the streets and constitutes a public nuisance.

adj.

1. Wandering from place to place and lacking any means of support.
2. Wayward; unrestrained: a vagrant impulse.
3. Moving in a random fashion; not fixed in place: “Thanks to a vagrant current of the Gulf Stream, a stretch of the Kola coast is free of ice year round” (Jack Beatty).

[Middle English vagraunt, probably alteration of Old French wacrant, present participle of wacrer, to wander, of Germanic origin.]

vagrantly va'grant·ly adv.