"Johnny Tremain" by Esther Forbes, Chapters 3–4

The year is 1773, and fourteen-year-old Johnny is an apprentice silversmith in Boston. When a terrible accident threatens his future, Johnny must quickly adapt — just as the American colonists join forces to break free from British rule.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–2, Chapters 3–4, Chapters 5–6, Chapters 7–9, Chapters 10–12
40 words 98 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. flourish
    a showy gesture
    He did not want to show his hand, but the masters always insisted. He would take it out of the pocket where he always kept it, with a flourish, display it to the sickening curiousity of the master, apprentices, journeymen, lady customers.
  2. gilded
    made from or covered with gold
    A butcher (his sign was a gilded ox skull) would have employed him, but the idea of slaughtering animals sickened him.
  3. genial
    diffusing warmth and friendliness
    The comical little painted man looked so genial, so ready to welcome anyone, that Johnny stepped in.
  4. indolent
    disinclined to work or exertion
    The boy did not write that down. He lifted his dark face, indolent dark eyes.
  5. aloof
    distant, cold, or detached in manner
    He was both friendly and aloof.
  6. nonchalantly
    in a composed and unconcerned manner
    Nonchalantly he took out his claspknife, cut hunks of bread from the long loaf.
  7. stealthily
    in a manner marked by quiet and caution and secrecy
    He took the claspknife in his left hand and stealthily drew forth the maimed hand to steady the loaf.
  8. belligerent
    characteristic of an enemy or one eager to fight
    He told about the burn, but with none of the belligerent arrogance with which he had been answering the questions kind people had put to him.
  9. journeyman
    a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft
    The coming of Mr. Percival Tweedie, journeyman silversmith of Baltimore, cast a longer and longer shadow over the Lapham household and conversation.
  10. diffident
    lacking self-confidence
    Mr. Tweedie was diffidently standing about in the shop, hoping Mrs. Lapham would ask him to breakfast.
  11. gumption
    fortitude and determination
    The man said nothing, but he looked at Johnny and the look of bleak hatred amazed the boy. He had not guessed Mr. Tweedie had that much gumption in him.
  12. behoove
    be appropriate or necessary
    Although Johnny was now looked upon as something of a black sheep and Mrs. Lapham was no longer telling him he would end up picking rags, but on the gallows, he thought it behooved him to tell her just what he thought of Mr. Tweedie.
  13. rakish
    marked by a carefree unconventionality or disreputableness
    Since his accident he had unconsciously taken to wearing his hat at a rakish angle.
  14. industrious
    characterized by hard work and perseverance
    One thing he did not look like any more was a smart, industrious Boston apprentice.
  15. stately
    refined or imposing in manner or appearance
    She was very tall for a woman, slender and graceful, and moved slowly down the gangplank with the stately self-consciousness which happened to be the fashionable gait for a lady at the moment.
  16. cipher
    make a mathematical calculation or computation
    If your handwriting is as good as your reading and ciphering, I promise you a place right here in my counting house.
    Mathematically, a cipher is the number 0, so it is seen as "a quantity of no importance" or "a person of no influence." This is how Johnny feels when he is turned down for a job in Mr. Hancock's counting house. But this changes when Johnny later connects to another meaning of "cipher": a message written in a secret code.
  17. assuage
    satisfy, as thirst
    He stopped in the kitchen of the Afric Queen. What he saw there made him feel he had swallowed a small live kitten, but he could almost enjoy these pangs, for in his pocket was Mr. Hancock's silver. Any minute he could assuage that kitten.
  18. chagrin
    cause to feel shame
    But when he came to pay, he was chagrined to find so much of his money had gone to fill and overfill his stomach.
  19. gallows
    an instrument from which a person is executed by hanging
    You’re going to get whipped for this—set in the stocks. You’re going to jail. You’ll end up on the gallows.
  20. sparse
    not dense or plentiful
    Then he walked off into sparsely settled West Boston.
  21. frenzied
    excessively agitated
    Then he lay face down, sobbing and saying over and over that God had turned away from him. But his frenzied weeping had given him some release.
  22. gibe
    an aggressive remark directed at a person like a missile
    Johnny had seen enough of Madge and Dorcas and their suitors to know that the gibe about poor boys aspiring to Miss Lavinia had gone home.
  23. cherubic
    having a sweet nature befitting an angel
    The young man was as kind as his cherubic face suggested.
  24. exuberant
    joyously unrestrained
    He really knew they were air castles, for at bottom he was hard-headed, not easily taken in even by his own exuberant imagination.
  25. deft
    skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands
    Cilia was paring apples in that deft, absent-minded way she did such things.
  26. pompous
    puffed up with vanity
    And the tears in Merchant Lyte’s unhealthy, brilliant black eyes—the tremor in his pompous ‘ah-ha-ha’ manner of speech as he clutched his ‘long-lost whatever-you-are’ to his costly waistcoat.
  27. repeal
    cancel officially
    When the merchants agreed not to import any English goods until the Stamp Act was repealed, he was one of the first to sign—then imported secretly.
  28. strife
    bitter conflict; heated or violent dissension
    Johnny’s life with the Laphams had been so limited he knew little of the political strife which was turning Boston into two armed camps.
  29. apparition
    an act of appearing or becoming visible unexpectedly
    He had been expecting some such apparition from the past ever since last August. In spite of family efforts to keep certain things dark, he had reason to believe certain things were well known, even among the—ah—lower classes.
  30. assent
    agreement with a statement or proposal to do something
    ‘I think,’ said Mr. Lyte quietly, ‘all of you ladies and gentlemen will agree that this cup our—ah, cousin, is it?—has brought back tonight is one of this set?’
    There was a murmur of assent.
  31. florid
    inclined to a healthy reddish color
    A florid woman was flapping a pink feather fan.
  32. shifty
    characterized by insincerity or deceit; evasive
    ‘No,’ someone else was saying, ‘he has a shifty eye.’
  33. indenture
    a contract binding one party into the service of another
    As for his name, she showed Sewall the papers of his indenture, signed by his dead mother.
  34. pallet
    a mattress filled with straw or a pad made of quilts
    Oddly enough, Johnny slept well on his straw pallet in the jail.
  35. effigy
    a representation of a person
    And next day had seen the effigies they had hung, the Tory fences they had torn down or windows broken, and heard that Royal Commissioner So-and-So had been frightened out of Boston.
  36. grievance
    an allegation that something denies some legal right
    Or such-and-such a merchant had wept when haled before the Liberty Tree and sworn never to do trade with England until all grievances had been righted.
  37. enigmatic
    not clear to the understanding
    Rab, enigmatic, dark, capable, looked as always.
  38. scurvy
    of the most contemptible kind
    Undoubtedly older heads than this boy’s had egged him on to this wretched, scurvy trick, but Mr. Lyte had no wish to go into the matter beyond the recovery of his own property.
  39. attribute
    credit to
    He was amazed at the vividness of her jumbled recital and touched by the virtues she attributed to himself.
  40. lithe
    moving and bending with ease
    Miss Lyte stepped up into her high gig. It was a long step, but she was a lithe, long-legged woman.
Created on Mon Aug 08 16:30:27 EDT 2022 (updated Thu Aug 11 11:47:16 EDT 2022)

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.