The Fight of Our Lives: List 6

by David Levithan, Gabriel Duckels
This blend of history, memoir, and poetry tells the story of AIDS in the United States, from before its formal discovery to the present day.

This list covers vocabulary from "Timeline: 1992–1996"–"Testimony: Robert Levithan."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5, List 6
15 words 6 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. incumbent
    currently holding an office
    Both presidential candidates in 1992, Bill Clinton and the incumbent president, George H. W. Bush, want to show that they’re compassionate to people with AIDS and committed to finding a treatment.
  2. latent
    potentially existing but not presently evident or realized
    These services were always playing catch-up, because the latent period between HIV infection and AIDS meant that new cases were always appearing, increasingly.
  3. semblance
    the outward or apparent appearance or form of something
    They sleep on cots and hang sheets to create some semblance of privacy.
  4. contend
    maintain or assert
    Many contend that he put the other divers in danger because his blood might have gone into the pool, though experts say the chance of transmission that way is virtually nonexistent.
  5. inexorable
    impossible to prevent, resist, or stop
    It’s an act of will matched by faith and selective reasoning, because eventually the mind must be outstripped by the inexorable, bloody, pure, and pitiless, unshakable, and wet heart.
  6. capricious
    changeable
    Though my body be racked by
    Capricious pains and fevers,
    I’m not even about to yield to
    Fashionable gay Black temptation.
  7. admonish
    warn strongly; put on guard
    “You failed dapsone,” the emergency-room physician admonishes as I lie on a gurney in a basement hallway at New York University Hospital.
  8. herald
    foreshadow or presage
    Kaletra heralds the arrival of a more efficient, tolerable category of anti-HIV drugs.
  9. waive
    do without or cease to hold or adhere to
    Three years later, Brown waives his right to anonymity because he wants people to understand: “I did not want to be the only person in the world cured of HIV; I wanted other HIV-positive patients to join my club. I want to dedicate my life to supporting research to search for a cure or cures for HIV!”
  10. pragmatic
    concerned with practical matters
    Federal funding for international aid is compassionate, but it’s also pragmatic; the healthier the rest of the world is, the healthier Americans are.
  11. willful
    done by design
    Ignorance—particularly the willful ignorance of a certain breed of politician—endures.
  12. quintessential
    representing the perfect example of a class or quality
    He was this quintessential Black leather daddy, but he was also the prevention director for AIDS Project Rhode Island.
  13. inequitable
    not just or fair
    For that reason, access to combination therapy has always been uneven and inequitable, whether in different parts of the US or around the rest of the world.
  14. emaciated
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    The footage was depressingly familiar: white gay men in San Francisco and in hospitals, Latinos and African-Americans shooting up, white teens, emaciated Africans, children of color in hospitals and white doctors, white journalists, and white government officials.
  15. interplay
    the way in which two things mutually affect one another
    Long-term survival is a combination of luck, genetics, resiliency, attitude and the interplay amongst them all.
Created on Fri Oct 09 05:38:37 EDT 2026 (updated Mon Oct 19 19:35:52 EDT 2026)

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