The House of Hades: Chapters 17–32

by Rick Riordan
In the fourth book of the Heroes of Olympus series, the Doors of Death must be found and closed. Rick Riordan uses these words to describe the demigods' adventures in the Underworld.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–16, Chapters 17–32, Chapters 33–48, Chapters 49–62, Chapters 63–78

Here are links to our lists for The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan: The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena, The House of Hades, The Blood of Olympus

And here are links to our lists for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan: The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. retaliate
    make a counterattack and return like for like
    Leo made things harder by constantly teasing Frank, and Ares demanded that Frank retaliate for every insult.
  2. bounty
    payment or reward for acts such as catching criminals
    When they’d learned that Gaea the evil earth goddess had put a bounty on their heads, Leo had wanted to know for how much.
  3. crescendo
    a gradual increase in loudness
    Frank’s eye started twitching. The war gods’ voices rose to a crescendo in his head: Kill him! Graecus scum!
  4. lurk
    lie in wait or behave in a sneaky and secretive manner
    Nico stared at the canals, as if wondering what new and interesting forms of evil spirits might be lurking there.
  5. supplement
    add to what seems insufficient
    Unless they supplement their diet with demigods.
  6. nausea
    the state that precedes vomiting
    Frank glimpsed a glowing green eye under one’s mane, and instantly he was hit with a wave of nausea, the way he felt when he ate too much cheese or ice cream.
  7. tendril
    slender structure by which some plants attach to an object
    The roots snaked out in his direction, trying to follow. The tendrils got thicker, exuding a steamy green vapor that smelled of boiled cabbage.
  8. trample
    injure by stomping heavily
    Frank knew he had only seconds before the monsters trampled or poisoned him, but he couldn’t think.
  9. stampede
    a wild headlong rush of frightened animals
    Every katobleps in Venice seemed to have joined the herd and was pushing through the streets behind him as tourists screamed and scattered, maybe thinking they were caught in the midst of a stray dog stampede.
  10. overwhelm
    overcome by superior force
    Whenever he got overwhelmed and the clouds of gas began to choke him, he changed shape—became an elephant, a dragon, a lion—and each transformation seemed to clear his lungs, giving him a fresh burst of energy.
  11. terror
    an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
    He couldn’t believe what he’d just done. The terror started to catch up to him. He felt like sobbing, but he guessed that would not be a good idea in front of Mars.
  12. treacherous
    dangerously unstable and unpredictable
    Annabeth decided the monsters wouldn’t kill her. Neither would the poisonous atmosphere, nor the treacherous landscape with its pits, cliffs, and jagged rocks.
  13. overload
    an excessive burden
    Most likely she would die from an overload of weirdness that would make her brain explode.
  14. wasteland
    an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation
    They picked their way across the ashen wasteland as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds.
  15. hospitable
    favorable to life and growth
    One story described it as the inverse of the sky—a huge, hollow, upside-down dome of rock. That seemed the most accurate, though if Tartarus was a dome, Annabeth guessed it was like the sky—with no real bottom but made of multiple layers, each one darker and less hospitable than the last.
  16. incarnation
    time passed in a particular bodily form
    This whole twisted landscape—the dome, pit, or whatever you called it—was the body of the god Tartarus—the most ancient incarnation of evil.
  17. vivid
    evoking lifelike images within the mind
    Demigod dreams were always bad. Even in the safety of her bunk at camp, she’d had horrible nightmares. In Tartarus, they were a thousand times more vivid.
  18. hostile
    characterized by enmity or ill will
    There was only one thing she was sure of: they had to keep moving. They couldn’t be caught by six or seven hostile immortals.
  19. seep
    pass gradually or leak or as if through small openings
    The black fog seeped into her body, turning her bones into moist Styrofoam.
  20. indiscriminate
    failing to make or recognize distinctions
    This place had no respect for anything—good or bad, small or large, wise or unwise. Tartarus swallowed Titans and demigods and kittens indiscriminately.
  21. malicious
    having the nature of threatening evil
    The voice cackled maliciously. To curse you, of course! To destroy you a thousand times in the name of Mother Night!
  22. aimlessly
    without a specific goal or focus
    The last few nights, her dreams had gotten worse. She found herself back in the Fields of Asphodel, drifting aimlessly among the ghosts.
  23. morose
    showing a brooding ill humor
    Since he’d been turned into a corn plant in Venice, he’d only gotten more reclusive and morose.
  24. carapace
    hard outer covering or case of certain organisms
    When she saw the massive dome of craggy black and brown squares, the word turtle simply did not compute. Its shell was more like a landmass—hills of bone, shiny pearl valleys, kelp and moss forests, rivers of seawater trickling down the grooves of its carapace.
  25. ambush
    wait in hiding to attack
    Hazel got the feeling this was not the first time the letter writer had ambushed a ship here.
  26. yearn
    have a desire for something or someone who is not present
    But if she showed him what he wanted to see ... well, she was a child of Pluto. She’d spent decades with the dead, listening to them yearn for past lives that were only half-remembered, distorted by nostalgia.
  27. corpse
    the dead body of a human being
    “Excellent choice!” Sciron wriggled his hairy, corpse-like toes. “I may have stepped on something with that foot. It felt a little squishy inside my boot. But I’m sure you’ll clean it properly.”
  28. batter
    strike violently and repeatedly
    Percy was a child of Poseidon’s better nature—powerful, but gentle and helpful, the kind of sea that sped ships safely to distant lands. Sciron was a child of Poseidon’s other side—the kind of sea that battered relentlessly at the coastline until it crumbled away, or carried the innocents from shore and let them drown, or smashed ships and killed entire crews without mercy.
  29. bitter
    marked by strong resentment or cynicism
    We serve the bitter and the defeated, said the arai. We serve the slain who prayed for vengeance with their final breath. We have many curses to share with you.
  30. inflict
    impose something unpleasant
    Feel the pain you inflicted upon Geryon.
  31. slaughter
    kill a large number of people indiscriminately
    Choose! the arai cried. Will you be crushed like Kampe? Or disintegrated like the young telkhines you slaughtered under Mount St. Helens? You have spread so much death and suffering, Percy Jackson. Let us repay you!
  32. embody
    represent in physical form
    If they really embodied the dying curses of every enemy Percy had ever destroyed... then Percy was in serious trouble. He’d faced a lot of enemies.
  33. solitude
    the state or situation of being alone
    Your beloved has unleashed a special curse—a bitter thought from someone you abandoned. You punished an innocent soul by leaving her in her solitude. Now her most hateful wish has come to pass: Annabeth feels her despair. She, too, will perish alone and abandoned.
  34. misery
    a feeling of intense unhappiness
    Annabeth wandered among the demons, desperately calling his name. Percy longed to run to her, but he knew the arai wouldn’t allow it. The only reason they hadn’t killed her yet was that they were enjoying her misery.
  35. subtle
    difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
    Each time a demon disintegrated, Percy felt a heavier sense of dread as another curse settled on him. Some were harsh and painful: a stabbing in the gut, a burning sensation like he was being blasted by a blowtorch. Some were subtle: a chill in the blood, an uncontrollable tic in his right eye.
  36. agonize
    suffer anguish
    Now he was in Tartarus, dying from gorgon’s blood plus a dozen other agonizing curses, while he watched his girlfriend stumble around, helpless and blind and believing he’d abandoned her.
  37. scorch
    a discoloration caused by heat
    They were placing bets on how he would die... what sort of scorch mark he would leave on the ground.
  38. version
    an interpretation of a matter from a particular viewpoint
    Percy realized that what he saw of Tartarus was only a watered-down version of its true horror—only what his demigod brain could handle. The worst of it was veiled, the same way the Mist veiled monsters from mortal sight. Now as Percy died, he began to see the truth.
  39. circulate
    move through a system and return to the starting point
    The air was the breath of Tartarus. All these monsters were just blood cells circulating through his body. Everything Percy saw was a dream in the mind of the dark god of the pit.
  40. endure
    undergo or be subjected to
    You see the horror of the pit? the arai said soothingly. Give up, Percy Jackson. Isn’t death better than enduring this place?
Created on Wed Apr 26 09:59:24 EDT 2017 (updated Wed Sep 12 15:22:59 EDT 2018)

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