The Great Gilly Hopkins: List 2

by Katherine Paterson
When eleven-year-old Galadriel Hopkins is sent to live with Maime Trotter in Maryland, the latest in a series of foster parents, she hatches a plan to run away to her biological mother in California.

This list covers "Sarsaparilla to Sorcery"–"Harassing Miss Harris."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4
40 words 477 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. sidle
    move unobtrusively or furtively
    She had long red hair that fell rather greasily to her waist, and when she sidled up to Gilly on the playground, the first thing Gilly noticed was how dirty her fingernails were.
  2. conspiratorial
    relating to or characteristic of a secret plot or agreement
    “Agnes Stokes”—she lowered her voice conspiratorily—“You can call me Ag.”
  3. divert
    turn aside; turn away from
    To Gilly’s relief, the blind man’s attention was diverted from his tale of childhood schooldays to the organization of the food on his plate and the eating of it, which he did with a constant murmuring of delight, dropping little bits from his mouth to his chin or tie.
  4. prim
    affectedly dainty or refined
    She smiled primly and mouthed, “How do you do, sweetums?”
  5. pious
    having or showing or expressing reverence for a deity
    She had a vision of herself trapped forever in the dusty brown parlor reading the Bible to Trotter and Mr. Randolph. She would read on and on forever, while the two of them nodded piously at each other.
  6. muddle
    a confused multitude of things
    It bothered her to have everything in a muddle.
  7. rickety
    inclined to shake as from weakness or defect
    On tiptoe, leaning against the rickety lower shelves to keep from toppling, she could barely reach the book.
  8. celestial
    relating to or inhabiting a divine heaven
    “There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
    The earth, and every common sight,
    To me did seem
    Apparell'd in celestial light,
    The glory and the freshness of a dream.”
  9. blissful
    completely happy and contented
    He would listen blissfully for a while and then join, turning her single voice into the sound of a choir.
  10. humility
    a lack of arrogance or false pride
    “The word mean has more than one definition, Miss Gilly. Here the word is talking about humility, lowliness, not”—he laughed softly—“not bad nature.”
  11. guru
    a Hindu or Buddhist religious leader and spiritual teacher
    There he sat, cross-legged on the floor at the end of the couch, a near-sighted guru, blinding behind his glasses.
  12. impulse
    an instinctive motive
    Gilly’s first impulse was to turn around and go back into the house until Agnes had left, but it was too late.
  13. flush
    glow or cause to glow with warm color or light
    Agnes flushed with pleasure.
  14. waver
    pause or hold back in uncertainty or unwillingness
    Agnes’s uncertainty wavered.
  15. threshold
    the entrance for passing through a room or building
    Although a part of Gilly's head wanted to get on with her schemes of how to get Mr. Randolph’s money, once she crossed the threshold of Harris 6, she forced herself to concentrate on her lessons.
  16. infuriate
    make extremely angry
    It was infuriating to find herself behind in almost every subject, but she knew that the fault lay in Hollywood Gardens Elementary and not in herself.
  17. delicate
    exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing
    Gilly paused to give a generous smile to the other people at the table while spreading her napkin delicately on her lap and picking up the milk carton with her pinky curled the way Mrs. Nevins used to do when she picked up her coffee cup.
  18. tentative
    hesitant or lacking confidence; unsettled in mind or opinion
    Once Agnes ventured a tentative “Hey, Gil,” but Gilly spun around with such a frightening look that any further words withered.
  19. benign
    pleasant and beneficial in nature or influence
    Gilly smiled benignly. “We’ll see,” she said. “We’ll just see how it goes.”
  20. fledgling
    young bird that has just become capable of flying
    Agnes opened her mouth like a starved baby bird, but she didn’t give a chirp. Good bird. Gilly patted the skinny, freckled arm and swept up the walk into the house, leaving the open-mouthed fledgling outside the gate.
  21. inspiration
    a sudden intuition as part of solving a problem
    In the middle of the last cookie, an inspiration came to her.
  22. engaged
    having one's attention or mind or energy consumed
    Trotter’s honey baby engaged in a life of crime.
  23. filch
    make off with belongings of others
    Baby-Face Teague, the frog-eyed filcher.
  24. delectable
    capable of arousing desire
    The possibilities were unlimited and delectable.
  25. lilt
    a jaunty rhythm in music or speech
    She spoke the words with just the right musical lilt.
  26. enthralled
    filled with wonder and delight
    She slid down beside him, and when his eyes checked her out sideways, she gave a quiet, sisterly kind of smile and pretended to be enthralled with Big Bird.
  27. clamber
    climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
    She clambered up on the concrete post that held the porch railing in place and raised her arm.
  28. audible
    heard or perceptible by the ear
    “I say”—the veins on his neck stuck out with the effort of raising his voice to an audible level—"I say, It sure fly good.”
  29. solemnly
    in a serious and dignified manner
    He nodded his head solemnly.
  30. rave
    an extravagantly enthusiastic review
    Surely, it must kill old priss face to have to put rave notices—“Excellent” “Good, clear thinking” “Nice Work”—on the papers of someone who so obviously disliked her.
  31. despise
    look down on with disdain or disgust
    If she knew that Gilly despised her, she never let on.
  32. underhanded
    marked by deception
    Since no one at school would take the blame for Gilly’s sudden refusal to achieve, they decided to blame her foster parents, which made Mrs. Nevins so furious that she demanded that Miss Ellis remove Gilly at once instead of waiting out the year—the year Mrs. Nevins had reluctantly agreed to after her first complaints about Gilly’s sassy and underhanded ways.
  33. cajole
    influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
    It was rather comfortable to go to school with no one yelling or cajoling—to know that your work was judged on its merits and was not affected by the teacher’s personal opinion of the person doing the work.
  34. indifference
    unbiased impartial unconcern
    But other days, Miss Harris’s indifference grated on Gilly. She was not used to being treated like everyone else.
  35. tolerate
    put up with something or somebody unpleasant
    As long as she had been behind the mass, she tolerated this failure to treat her in a special manner, but now, even the good-morning smile seemed to echo the math computer’s “Hello, Gilly number 58706, today we will continue our study of fractions.”
  36. neutralize
    make ineffective by counterbalancing the effect of
    It was like old Mission Impossible reruns on TV: Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to get inside this computerized robot, discover how it operates, and neutralize its effectiveness.
  37. incompetence
    lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications
    At first she tried to draw a picture on the front, wasting five or six precious sheets of paper in the attempt. Cursing her incompetence, she stole one of Trotter’s magazines and cut from it a picture of a tall, beautiful black woman in an Afro.
  38. anticipation
    expecting with confidence of fulfillment
    By lunchtime Gilly’s heart, which had started the day jumping with happy anticipation, was kicking angrily at her stomach.
  39. envy
    feel desirous of another's advantages
    “But I didn’t ask you to stay after school to tell you how intelligent you are or how much I envy you, but to thank you for your card.”
  40. sarcasm
    witty language used to convey insults or scorn
    It had to be sarcasm, but Harris-6 was smiling almost like a human being. When did the cobra strike?
Created on Fri Sep 23 20:36:00 EDT 2016 (updated Tue Aug 01 10:25:02 EDT 2023)

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