As I Lay Dying: Sections 46–59

by William Faulkner
This novel uses multiple narrators and perspectives to tell the story of a family's quest to honor a relative's last wishes.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Sections 1–12, Sections 13–28, Sections 29–45, Sections 46–59

Here are links to our lists for other works by William Faulkner: A Rose for Emily, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. ascetic
    characteristic of the practice of rigorous self-discipline
    He lies on his back, his thin profile in silhouette, ascetic and profound against the sky.
  2. facade
    the front of a building
    The front, the conical façade with the square orifice of doorway broken only by the square squat shape of the coffin on the sawhorses like a cubistic bug, comes into relief.
  3. chaff
    material consisting of seed coverings and pieces of stem
    Overhead the flames sound like thunder; across us rushes a cool draft: there is no heat in it at all yet, and a handful of chaff lifts suddenly and sucks swiftly along the stalls where a horse is screaming.
  4. interminable
    tiresomely long; seemingly without end
    They sound like an interminable train crossing an endless trestle.
  5. docile
    easily handled or managed
    Then he rips the nightshirt off and flings it over the mule’s head, and it becomes docile at once.
  6. frieze
    an ornament consisting of a horizontal sculptured band
    They are like two figures in a Greek frieze, isolated out of all reality by the red glare.
  7. accumulation
    an increase by natural growth or addition
    It seems to me that I now hear the accumulation of her voice through the last five minutes, and I hear her scuffling and struggling as pa and Mack hold her, screaming “Jewel!"
  8. engender
    call forth
    It looms unbelievably tall, hiding him: I would not have believed that Addie Bundren would have needed that much room to lie comfortable in; for another instant it stands upright while the sparks rain on it in scattering bursts as though they engendered other sparks from the contact.
  9. shard
    a broken piece of a brittle artifact
    We mount the wagon again where Cash lies on the box, the jagged shards of cement cracked about his leg.
  10. disgruntled
    in a state of sulky dissatisfaction
    Pa looks at her, his shabby profile that of anticipant and disgruntled annoyance.
  11. paltry
    contemptibly small in amount or size
    Certainly not for no little paltry sawbuck.
  12. graduated
    marked with or divided into degrees
    So I took a graduated glass and kind of turned my back to her and picked out a bottle that looked all right, because a man that would keep poison setting around in a unlabelled bottle ought to be in jail, anyway.
  13. distinctive
    of a feature that helps to identify a person or thing
    It looks no different from a hundred other wagons there; Jewel standing beside it and looking up the street like any other man in town that day, yet there is something different, distinctive.
  14. imminent
    close in time; about to occur
    There is about it that unmistakable air of definite and imminent departure that trains have, perhaps due to the fact that Dewey Dell and Vardaman on the seat and Cash on a pallet in the wagon bed are eating bananas from a paper bag.
  15. interstice
    small opening between things
    Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams.
Created on Wed Aug 14 16:09:34 EDT 2013 (updated Thu Jul 03 19:10:25 EDT 2025)

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