All the Light We Cannot See: Parts Three–Four

by Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laure is a blind French girl who flees the Nazi occupation of Paris. Werner Pfennig is a young orphan living in a German mining town. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, their lives intertwine in unexpected ways as they try to survive the havoc of war.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Parts Zero–Two, Parts Three–Four, Parts Five–Six, Parts Seven–Nine, Parts Ten–Thirteen
15 words 811 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. intrepid
    invulnerable to fear or intimidation
    Only in his most intrepid dreams did he allow himself to hope that he might travel so far.
  2. staccato
    marked by or composed of disconnected parts or sounds
    A wireless set mumbles the names of ministers in a harried, staccato voice—de Gaulle in London, Petain replacing Reynaud.
  3. tableau
    any dramatic scene
    Her arms are wrapped around her head and her wool blanket is twisted around her midsection and her pillow is jammed into the crack between mattress and wall—even in sleep, a tableau of friction.
  4. aide-de-camp
    an officer who acts as an assistant to a more senior officer
    He exchanges a few words with a thin aide-de-camp, who translates to the mayor.
  5. unadulterated
    not mixed with impurities
    Not in the clearest hour of Zollverein’s clearest day has Werner breathed air so unadulterated by dust.
  6. conscript
    someone who is drafted into military service
    Learning happens on backless benches, at wooden tables grooved by the boredom of countless boys before them—squires, monks, conscripts, cadets.
  7. asceticism
    rigorous self-denial and active self-restraint
    The star-flooded nights, the dew-soaked dawns, the hushed ambulatories, the enforced asceticism—never has Werner felt part of something so single-minded.
  8. capitulation
    the act of surrendering, usually under agreed conditions
    The capitulation of France is only weeks past, and already he has seen things he did not dream he would see in six lifetimes.
  9. sequester
    keep away from others
    One day Etienne sits with Marie-Laure and reads to her in his feathery voice; the next he suffers from what he calls a headache and sequesters himself inside his study behind a locked door.
  10. overzealous
    marked by excessive enthusiasm for a cause or idea
    The warrant officer in charge of field exercises is the commandant, an overzealous schoolmaster named Bastian with an expansive walk and a round belly and a coat quivering with war medals.
  11. impasse
    a situation in which no progress can be made
    The assistant director seems resigned to an impasse and pulls a thick perfect-bound stack of paper from a drawer and begins to read.
  12. virulent
    extremely poisonous or injurious; producing venom
    He is still murmuring, trying to talk himself off some innermost ledge, and she can feel fear pumping off him, virulent, toxic; it reminds her of fumes billowing off the vats of formalin in the Department of Zoology.
  13. banality
    a trite or obvious remark
    Her letters consist mostly of banalities—we are busy; Frau Elena says hello—or else arrive in his bunkroom so full of censor marks that their meaning has disintegrated.
  14. nostalgia
    a longing for something past
    What might be several seconds pass, though they feel to Werner like hours, and the wind tears through the frosted grass, sending zephyrs and wisps of snow sirening off across the white, and a sudden nostalgia for Zollverein rolls through him in a wave: boyhood afternoons wandering the soot-stained warrens, towing his little sister in the wagon.
  15. laconic
    brief and to the point
    In the morning the Germans run him through a second, more laconic spell of questioning while a typist clatters away in the corner.
Created on Mon Jun 15 19:01:08 EDT 2015 (updated Fri Jul 11 18:45:12 EDT 2025)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.