English IV: "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane used his real-life experiences as the inspiration for this tale of survival after a shipwreck.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. dejection
    a state of melancholy depression
    The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.
  2. tumultuous
    characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination
    The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad tumultuous expanse; shining and wind-riven.
  3. wallow
    rise up as if in waves
    She seemed just a wee thing wallowing, miraculously, top-up, at the mercy of five oceans.
  4. impetuous
    marked by violent force
    But the waves continued their old impetuous swooping at the dinghy, and the little craft, no longer under way, struggled woundily over them.
    Compare with "tumultuous"--both adjectives are used to describe the sea, but "tumultuous" describes the up and down, wind-blown movement of the waves, while "impetuous" focuses more on the violent force of these waves. "Impetuous" also means "characterized by undue haste and lack of thought"--this definition would emphasize the personification of the sea.
  5. apropos
    at an opportune time
    Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing. If men could only train for them and have them occur when the men had reached pink condition, there would be less drowning at sea.
  6. founder
    sink below the surface
    Of the four in the dinghy none had slept any time worth mentioning for two days and two nights previous to embarking in the dinghy, and in the excitement of clambering about the deck of a foundering ship they had also forgotten to eat heartily.
  7. aberration
    a disorder in one's mental state
    It was not an amusement; it was a diabolical punishment, and even a genius of mental aberrations could never conclude that it was anything but a horror to the muscles and a crime against the back.
  8. opprobrious
    expressing offensive reproach
    It is fair to say here that there was not a life-saving station within twenty miles in either direction, but the men did not know this fact and in consequence they made dark and opprobrious remarks concerning the eyesight of the nation's life-savers.
  9. obstreperous
    boisterously and noisily aggressive
    His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched him once more.
  10. maim
    injure or wound seriously and leave permanent disfiguration
    When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.
  11. supplicant
    humbly entreating
    Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."
  12. respite
    a pause from doing something
    This plan enabled the oiler and the correspondent to get respite together.
  13. acquiesce
    agree or express agreement
    If we stay out here much longer we will be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all." The others silently acquiesced in this reasoning.
  14. pallor
    an unnatural lack of color in the skin
    There were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain agitation.
  15. cessation
    a stopping
    In his struggle to reach the captain and the boat, he reflected that when one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable arrangement, a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large degree of relief, and he was glad of it, for the main thing in his mind for some moments had been horror of the temporary agony.
Created on Fri Apr 17 15:15:01 EDT 2026 (updated Fri Apr 17 15:29:37 EDT 2026)

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