I Am David: Chapters 5–6

by Anne Holm
This novel chronicles a young boy's escape from an Eastern European prison camp.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–2, Chapters 3–4, Chapters 5–6, Chapters 7–8
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. ingrained
    deeply rooted; firmly fixed or held
    And yet the children did not seem to understand that, and he dared not tell them how disgusting it was when men who had been clean, with clean shiny hair and clean teeth, grew so matted and ingrained with dirt that everything about them smelled repulsive and looked loathsome.
  2. loathsome
    highly offensive; arousing aversion or disgust
    And yet the children did not seem to understand that, and he dared not tell them how disgusting it was when men who had been clean, with clean shiny hair and clean teeth, grew so matted and ingrained with dirt that everything about them smelled repulsive and looked loathsome.
    "Repulsive" and "loathsome" are synonymous adjectives whose slight difference can be seen in their roots: "re" means "back" and "pellere" means "to drive" (from Latin) while "loth" means "hateful" (from Middle English). The smell of the dirty men can physically drive people back, while the look of their dirtiness can make them seem worthy of hate.
  3. gracious
    characterized by kindness and warm courtesy
    He did not understand either why they did not regard mealtimes as gracious occasions.
  4. wheedle
    influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
    The first couple of days, Carlo had tried to wheedle himself into David’s good books, but David was only too familiar with that kind of approach, and so Carlo had stopped.
  5. divert
    turn aside; turn away from
    At such moments she would divert attention from him by saying something herself, or else she would answer for him so that all he had to say was, “Yes, that’s what I meant.”
  6. pluck
    look for and gather
    One day David decided to pluck up courage and ask Maria.
    Compare with "muster" in the list for Chapters 3-4--although "muster" is also used to mean the gathering of troops for military service, in both example sentences, the verbs refer to the gathering of strength from within.
  7. contrary
    exact opposition
    Johannes used to lay his hand on him, and he had not hated it and shrunk away then—on the contrary, it had given him a warm, comforted feeling.
  8. listless
    marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm
    So the man had given him something that Was good for him—something to make him strong and not always ill and weak and emaciated and listless like the other prisoners!
    "Ill" and "weak" are used here as synonyms with "emaciated" ("very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold")--all three adjectives connect to physical weakness while "listless" refers to spiritual weakness.
  9. pry
    be nosey
    It’s not that I want to pry, Giovanni, but you must admit he’s a strange child!
  10. vital
    urgently needed; absolutely necessary
    He owns a knife and an empty bottle, which he obviously regards as vital necessities.
  11. indebted
    owing gratitude to another for help or favors
    But wherever he comes from, Elsa, we are deeply indebted to him, and since it worries him to be questioned about his background, then I think we ought to let him alone.
  12. ingratiate
    gain favor with somebody by deliberate efforts
    Do you suppose it gives me any pleasure to see my eldest son trying to ingratiate himself with a lying little vagabond and being rebuffed with hatred and contempt?
    As suggested by the structure of the sentence, an antonym of "ingratiate" is "rebuff" ("reject outright and bluntly") and "hatred" and "contempt" are near-synonyms ("contempt" is "lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike").
  13. reticent
    not inclined to talk or provide information
    With the rest of us David is silent and reticent, but he talks to Maria because it never occurs to her to question him, except to ask him what he thinks about things.
  14. inclination
    a characteristic likelihood of or natural disposition
    I would never have thought David had a brutal mind or an inclination to cruelty.
  15. jot
    a slight but appreciable amount
    Do you think that anything at all that anyone could say to David would alter by one jot what he thinks?
  16. obstinate
    resistant to guidance or discipline
    The lad isn’t obstinate or headstrong, and he wants to learn, but he reserves the right to think for himself, and he’ll not surrender his personality.
  17. foreboding
    a feeling of evil to come
    But he seemed unable to direct his thoughts properly; they were full of heaviness and foreboding, so that nothing felt right.
  18. perish
    pass from physical life
    It must have been shining for some time, for he was no longer perished with cold as he had been during the night.
    In this sentence, "perish" is closer in meaning to "suffering greatly from."
  19. epaulet
    an ornamental cloth pad worn on the shoulder
    The king was wearing a uniform with epaulets on his shoulders and many orders on his breast, and the queen looked like a woman in a painting dressed in a long sleeveless gown that revealed her beautiful arms.
  20. wretched
    characterized by physical misery
    If the child was really wretched, he said, and was wandering about by himself, it was their duty to inquire into his circumstances and help him.
Created on Wed Dec 18 19:06:01 EST 2013 (updated Wed Aug 15 17:54:57 EDT 2018)

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