A Snake Falls to Earth: List 1

by Darcie Little Badger
When she was a child, Nina heard stories about shape-shifters from her great-great-grandmother; at 16, Nina encounters a shape-shifter who has come to Earth seeking a cure for his companion's illness.

This list covers "Nina, Age 9"–"Cottonmouth Is Hunted By a Monster."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
40 words 359 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. stifled
    held in check or kept back with difficulty
    In most old-timey photos, the subjects didn’t smile, but young Rosita’s lips quirked in the suggestion of stifled laughter, as if she’d remembered a joke, one she could barely wait to share.
  2. contour
    any spatial attributes, especially as defined by outline
    Her eyes, now opening slowly and wearily, were sunken; advanced age had sculpted her face against the contours of her skull, revealing sharp ridges that had once been hidden by plump cheeks.
  3. quirk
    twist or curve abruptly
    Unfortunately, Nina knew even less Spanish, but her attempt to communicate worked, because at the word Abuelita, Rosita’s lips quirked, creating the same anticipatory, gentle smile that shone from the old photograph.
  4. sporadic
    recurring in scattered or unpredictable instances
    Occasionally, Rosita used a Spanish phrase, but they were so sporadic, Nina couldn’t piece together the story—history?—using the Spanish translations alone.
  5. gingerly
    in a manner marked by extreme care or delicacy
    Gingerly, she touched Rosita’s vein-threaded hand; finding it to be cold, Nina entwined their fingers together.
  6. embellish
    make more attractive, as by adding ornament or color
    Nina's father wore his best pair of tattered blue jeans and a black felt cowboy hat, the fancy one embellished by yellow and red beadwork around the rim.
  7. nuance
    a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude
    Rosita was an entertainer, the keeper of ten thousand stories, each stranger than the last. Now and then, she’d share one with Nina, and though she was sure much of the nuance was lost in translation, the app had usually been able to capture the essence of her words.
  8. incognito
    without revealing one's identity
    After studying the screen, his brow split by a vertical wrinkle of concentration, he guessed: “It may be an Apache dialect. Rosita’s parents spoke Lipan, ’round when our people had to go culturally incognito for survival.”
  9. fanciful
    indulging in or influenced by the imagination
    When awake, she told fanciful, ancient stories about the days when humans and spirits lived together.
  10. wistful
    showing pensive sadness
    With a final, wistful look at my favorite sunning rock and the family cottage, a squat dome of moss-covered stones, I heaved the rucksack over my shoulder and scooped up the blanket.
  11. oust
    remove from a position or office
    I should have been prepared for my ousting, should have already scoped out the territory for my new home.
  12. warp
    yarn arranged lengthways on a loom
    They’d moved hesitantly over the spun yarn, warp strings, and batten.
  13. bifurcation
    a separation into two branches
    I hesitated, trying to remember whether I should follow the right or left branch of the bifurcation.
  14. meander
    move or cause to move in a winding or curving course
    It meandered deep into the forest, past elms, oaks, and sap-glistening pines.
  15. dearth
    an insufficient quantity or number
    There was no dearth of wood for the dammed town, particularly since the beavers replaced every tree they gnawed down.
  16. cacophony
    loud confusing disagreeable sounds
    The voice of a lovesick frog person wove between the cacophony of screeches and chirps.
  17. shoddy
    of inferior workmanship and materials
    I couldn’t even bite her again; I’d used all my venom, and that defense mechanism was doing a shoddy job dampening her strength.
  18. sullen
    showing a brooding ill humor
    I didn’t dare leave hiding while my attacker was still awake. But how could I tell the difference between sullen silence and unconscious silence?
  19. sparse
    not dense or plentiful
    I shifted, peeking between sharp, sparsely leafed branches.
  20. altercation
    a noisy, angry argument or fight between people
    I was almost willing to risk another physical altercation just to get it back.
  21. discern
    perceive, recognize, or detect
    I could always discern the chemical composition of the air, even in my false form.
  22. teeming
    abundantly filled with especially living things
    Luckily, unlike earlier, my surroundings were now teeming with life.
  23. bequeath
    leave or give, especially by will after one's death
    Sometimes, it felt like Nina’s great-great grandmother had bequeathed her a locked treasure chest.
  24. mangle
    alter so as to make unrecognizable
    Unfortunately, the translation app recording had mangled most of the Lipan phrases beyond recovery.
  25. polyglot
    a person who speaks more than one language
    Even Nina’s mother, a genuine polyglot, ultimately gave up.
  26. prodigious
    great in size, force, extent, or degree
    Everyone knew they had left Earth thousands of years ago after the joined era, but considering their prodigious lifespans, Nina had to ask the question.
  27. amiable
    diffusing warmth and friendliness
    A series of audible footsteps indicated that her father had gotten tired of their loud back-and-forth—he’d probably had a busy day at work, considering his fondness for amiable hollering—and was crossing the hallway, which always creaked like the floorboards in a haunted house.
  28. galley
    the area for food preparation on a ship
    Needless to say, the situation became very tense after the galley ran out of sweet biscuits.
  29. obscure
    make unclear, indistinct, or blurred
    Still, as Nina flipped through rainbowy entries, she noticed several scratched-out sentences. A whole page from October 1 was obscured by a whirlwind of frustrated blue scribbles.
  30. figment
    a contrived or fantastic idea
    After the EMTs and fire service came, everyone—including
    Rosita—decided that the fish girl had been a hallucination. A figment of dementia or mental stress.
  31. replete
    deeply filled or permeated
    Following the single-sentence entry, Nina had filled three journal pages with a copy of Rosita’s story, replete with the jumbled-up nonwords from the app.
  32. profoundly
    to a great depth psychologically
    In the air, I tasted something profoundly wrong, as if it came from a different world.
  33. bray
    make a sound characteristic of donkeys
    A couple feet up, I heard a shrill, repetitive braying.
  34. deciduous
    shedding foliage at the end of the growing season
    From my vantage point, I could see previously hidden details of the forest: the mushroom-shaped, domed heads of deciduous trees mixed among conical conifers.
  35. chide
    scold or reprimand severely or angrily
    My inner bad-mouther chided: Timid little snake. Last of your siblings to leave home. You never had enough guts to survive. You'd run back to Momma if you weren't lost.
  36. obsidian
    glass formed by the cooling of lava without crystallization
    In his false form, the elder had scales down the back of his neck and upper arms. They were as dark and sleek as obsidian chips.
  37. modest
    not large but sufficient in size or amount
    The path, although modest, was well worn; down its center, all but a comb-over of wimpy grass had been stamped away.
  38. unwitting
    not aware or knowing
    That’s why no map leads to the path, just like no map can lead to a roaming pack of wolves. Guess that’s also why most people who walk the path do so unwittingly.
  39. ambiguity
    unclearness by virtue of having more than one meaning
    Everyone assumed the man’s son had drowned, but a body was never found, and that ambiguity sharpened the father’s grief.
  40. knack
    a special way of doing something
    See, all animal people have a knack for communication. We don’t all speak the same language, but we’re adept at understanding all languages, get it? And I have a particular knack for the skill.
Created on Wed Dec 01 14:53:02 EST 2021 (updated Fri Dec 03 13:10:29 EST 2021)

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