Hi there!
I was wondering if you could help me with some vocabulary and phrases I encountered while reading short stories:
1) "If only he took as much exercise as I did he wouldn't have
that spare lyre, I thought unsympathetically" (I looked it up in several dictionaries but I couldn't find anything, I know she implies her boyfriend is overweight but I don't understand how a musical instrument can be related to fat
)
2) "It was an
anonymous, almost
commonplace face..." (I thought these two adjectives were synonyms, when they are used to talk about a person's facial features, am I correct?)
3) "Now an orphan, I began to
drift, often trying to
stay one step ahead of the law- not so easy when you haven't always got somewhere
to put your head down" (I guess the first phrase means trying not to get into trouble with the police and the other means having a place to sleep?)
4) "Roger managed to get his feet into the wrong slippers -always
a fifty-fifty chance- before
lumbering towards the bathroom" (does this mean that he gets his feet into the wrong slippers 50% of the time? I know the verb 'to lumber' means 'to walk slowly and awkwardly' but can it also be used for a drunk person or just a sleepy one like this case?)
5) "I could anticipate
almost to the second when breakfast was ready" (could this phrase mean 'immediately'?)
From another story:
1) "His insolent voice was
edged with menace" (Could this mean filled with menace?)
2) 'to
say evenly/unevenly' as in for instance: ''They are my things,'' he said
evenly. or ''This is ridiculous'', he said
unevenly. ''I must ask you...''
3) "She wanted Larry to learn
to fight his own battles" (Could this mean that she wanted her son to defend himself? Her son is being bullied by another kid)
I know it's a lot but I would really appreciate it if you could shed some light on this!
Vocabulary 
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