Death Comes for the Archbishop: Book Eight

by Willa Cather
Following the Mexican-American War, Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant work to build a new Roman Catholic dicoese in New Mexico.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Book One, Book Two, Book Three, Book Four, Book Five, Book Six, Book Seven, Book Eight, Book Nine

Here is a link to My Antonia by Willa Cather.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. auction
    the public sale of something to the highest bidder
    Olivares left Santa Fé to return to New Orleans and sold her effects at auction, Father Latour bought her sideboard, and the dining-table around which friends had so often gathered.
  2. pulverize
    become powder or dust
    The thin, pebbly earth, which was merely the rock pulverized by weather, had the same green tint.
  3. gratify
    make happy or satisfied
    I could hardly have hoped that God would gratify my personal taste, my vanity, if you will, in this way.
  4. pelt
    the dressed hairy coat of a mammal
    Even the fur trappers, coming down from Wyoming to Taos with their pelts, avoided that humped granite backbone.
  5. wastrel
    someone who squanders resources or time
    Denver City was full of saloons and gambling-rooms; and among all the wanderers and wastrels were many honest men, hundreds of good
    Catholics, and not one priest.
  6. populous
    densely filled with inhabitants
    This new and populous community must, for the present, the Kansas Bishop wrote, be accounted under Father Latour's jurisdiction.
  7. provisions
    a stock or supply of foods
    He must take his bedding and camp outfit, medicines and provisions, and clothing for the severe winter.
  8. equestrian
    of or relating to or featuring horseback riding
    At the Mexican village of Chimayo, over toward the Truchas mountains,the good people were especially devoted to a little equestrian image of Santiago in their church, and they made him a new pair of boots every few months, insisting that he went abroad at night and wore out his shoes, even on horseback.
  9. jugular
    relating to or located in the region of the neck or throat
    After a somewhat doubtful beginning, Ramón's cock neatly ripped the jugular vein of his opponent; but the owner of the defeated bird, before anyone could stop him, reached into the ring and wrung the victor's neck.
  10. procure
    get by special effort
    All the bedding and clothing was packed in great sacks of dressed calfskin, which Sabino procured from old Mexican settlers.
  11. aloof
    in a remote manner
    Now it came over him in a flash, how the Bishop had held himself aloof from his activities; it was a very hard thing for Father Latour to let him go; the loneliness of his position had begun to weigh upon him.
  12. successor
    a person who inherits some title or office
    Doubtless Bishop Latour's successors would be men of a different fibre.
  13. atrophy
    any weakening or degeneration
    It was not a solitude of atrophy, of negation, but of perpetual flowering.
  14. diadem
    an ornamental jeweled headdress signifying sovereignty
    She had a rich wardrobe; a chest full of robes and laces, and gold and silver diadems.
  15. pagan
    relating to a polytheistic, pre-Christian religion
    Long before Her years on earth, in the long twilight between the Fall and the Redemption, the pagan sculptors were always trying to achieve the image of a goddess who should yet be a woman.
  16. torrent
    a violently fast stream of water or other liquid
    He used to say that the mountain torrents were the first road builders, and that wherever they found a way, he could find one.
  17. Indian summer
    a period of unusually warm weather in the autumn
    Before this accident befell him, however, he had one long visit among his friends in Santa Fé and Albuquerque, a renewal of old ties that was like an Indian summer in his life.
  18. fortnight
    a period of fourteen consecutive days
    It was nearly a fortnight before Father Vallient found a man who would undertake to get him through the mountains.
  19. remonstrate
    argue in protest or opposition
    "Father Joseph," he remonstrated, "you will never be able to take all these things back to Denver.
Created on Tue Mar 26 17:38:01 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Jul 16 17:34:14 EDT 2018)

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