Winesburg, Ohio: The Book of the Grotesque

by Sherwood Anderson
Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the Winesburg, Ohio anthology of short stories:
The Book of the Grotesque, Hands, Paper Pills, Mother, The Philosopher, Nobody Knows, Godliness, A Man of Ideas, Adventure, Respectability, The Thinker, Tandy, The Strength of God, The Teacher, Loneliness, An Awakening, "Queer," The Untold Lie, Drink, Death, Sophistication, Departure
10 words 99 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. ludicrous
    inviting ridicule
    The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous.
  2. beset
    annoy continually or chronically
    For years he had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker and his heart fluttered.
  3. notion
    an odd or fanciful or capricious idea
    The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got, during his long life, a great many notions in his head.
  4. intimate
    marked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity
    And then, of course, he had known people, many people, known them in a peculiarly intimate way that was different from the way in which you and I know people.
  5. procession
    the action of a group moving ahead in regular formation
    He imagined the young indescribable thing within himself was driving a long procession of figures before his eyes.
  6. grotesque
    distorted and unnatural in shape or size
    The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were amusing, some almost beautiful, and one, a woman all drawn out of shape, hurt the old man by her grotesqueness.
  7. indelible
    not able to be forgotten, removed, or erased
    It was never published, but I saw it once and it made an indelible impression on my mind.
  8. composite
    a conceptual whole made up of complicated and related parts
    Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.
  9. thrift
    extreme care in spending money
    There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon.
  10. profligacy
    the trait of spending extravagantly
    There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon.
Created on Thu Feb 18 13:17:30 EST 2021 (updated Wed Feb 24 13:45:31 EST 2021)

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.