The Underground Railroad: Ethel - Caesar

by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead's novel follows Cora, an enslaved woman, as she travels north in search of freedom. Infused with a hint of magical realism, this harrowing and groundbreaking book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Ajarry-Georgia, Ridgeway-South Carolina, Stevens-North Carolina, Ethel-Caesar, Indiana-The North
45 words 104 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. missionary
    someone sent to a foreign country to spread a religion
    Ever since she saw a woodcut of a missionary surrounded by jungle natives, Ethel thought it would be spiritually fulfilling to serve the Lord in dark Africa, delivering savages to the light.
  2. duplicitous
    marked by deliberate deceptiveness
    The perilous journey into the interior, up rivers, wending mountain passes, and the dangers escaped: lions, serpents, man-killing plants, duplicitous guides.
  3. emissary
    someone sent to represent another's interests
    And then the village, where the natives receive her as an emissary of the Lord, an instrument of civilization.
  4. disabuse
    free somebody from an erroneous belief
    Ethel thought that a slave was someone who lived in your house like family but was not family. Her father explained the origin of the negro to disabuse her of this colorful idea.
  5. clout
    strike hard, especially with the fist
    Ridgeway shouted from the head of their little caravan for him to shut his mouth, and sometimes they halted so Boseman could climb into the wagon and clout the runaway on the head.
  6. granary
    a storehouse for threshed grain or animal feed
    They rode past the blackened bones of houses and barns without number, chimneys sticking up like grave markers, the husked stone walls of ravaged mills and granaries.
  7. glower
    look angry or sullen as if to signal disapproval
    The older white man in command discouraged all conversation with his glowering.
  8. denude
    make bare or strip of a covering
    The traveler moved on, around the bend where the road limped between the denuded hills.
  9. imbue
    fill or soak totally
    The driver of the wagon was an odd little imp. Ten years old, Chester’s age, but imbued with the melancholy grace of an elderly house slave, the sum of practiced gestures.
  10. fastidious
    giving careful attention to detail
    He was fastidious about his fine black suit and stovepipe hat, extracting lint from the fabric and glaring at it as if it were a poison spider before flicking it.
  11. hector
    talk to or treat someone in a bossy or bullying way
    Homer rarely spoke apart from his hectoring of the horses.
  12. sundry
    consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds
    Homer’s duties encompassed driving the team, sundry maintenance, and what Ridgeway termed “bookkeeping.”
  13. meticulous
    marked by precise accordance with details
    Each night, with meticulous care, Homer opened his satchel and removed a set of manacles.
  14. clobber
    strike violently and repeatedly
    Boseman won the accessory in a wrestling contest, and when Strong disputed the terms of their match, Boseman clobbered the red man with a shovel.
  15. wistful
    showing pensive sadness
    Boseman stared at the hills between bites and had an uncharacteristically wistful air.
  16. ardent
    characterized by strong enthusiasm
    Ridgeway was an ardent reader of gazettes.
  17. rhetoric
    using language effectively to please or persuade
    The Trail of Tears and Death, as one Cherokee sage put it later, not without cause, not without that Indian flair for rhetoric.
  18. contusion
    an injury in which the skin is not broken
    The smoke filled the sky for hundreds of miles, tinting the sunset into gorgeous contusions of crimson and purple.
  19. mortification
    act of denying lusts of the flesh, especially by bodily pain
    As they rode toward the smoke, the sunsets inspired Jasper to share a suite of hymns whose central theme was the wrath of God and the mortifications awaiting the wicked.
  20. meager
    deficient in amount or quality or extent
    The white families swarmed in a camp off the main street, inconsolable and abject, the meager possessions they were able to save piled around their feet.
  21. escapade
    a wild and exciting undertaking
    They lingered by the road after their lunchtime meal, the white men smoking pipes by the horses and reminiscing an escapade.
  22. inscrutable
    difficult or impossible to understand
    Boseman whispered his rude suggestions and Homer turned back from the driver’s seat to give her an unsettling grin on his inscrutable schedule, but the slave catcher kept his distance at the head of the line.
  23. ply
    apply oneself diligently
    ...reliable information confirmed Nelson plied his trade as a trapper, in broad daylight, without concern of retribution.
  24. gallows
    an instrument from which a person is executed by hanging
    This much was plain from the moment his gang turned down the road to the big house and saw the three gallows.
  25. beguiling
    misleading by means of pleasant or alluring methods
    The smell of the snacks filled the street, sweet and beguiling.
  26. degeneration
    the process of declining from a higher to a lower level
    It was tragic, Ridgeway said, to see the degeneration that can happen in just one generation, but money does that to a family sometimes.
  27. concubine
    a woman who cohabits with an important man
    He assumed from Terrance’s eagerness and the size of the bounty that Cora was her master’s concubine.
  28. whelp
    young of any of various canines such as a dog or wolf
    He wasn’t going to apologize to another Randall, certainly not that whelp who ran the place now.
  29. totem
    emblem consisting of an object such as an animal or plant
    A baker’s oven in the ruins of the shop like a grim totem, human remains bent behind the steel of a jail cell.
  30. jaundiced
    affected by yellowing of the skin
    His younger brothers’ skin turned jaundiced and waxen...
  31. boor
    a crude uncouth ill-bred person lacking refinement
    The mayor was a corrupt boor, the food turned your guts runny, but he held a good thought for them.
  32. petulant
    easily irritated or annoyed
    His fear made him skittish and petulant.
  33. quarantine
    place into enforced isolation, as for medical reasons
    The trails feeding into the quarantined towns displayed no sign of the danger ahead.
  34. transgression
    the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle
    Running away was a transgression so large that the punishment enveloped every generous soul on her brief tour of freedom.
  35. comeuppance
    a usually negative outcome or fate that is well deserved
    Out in the world, the wicked escaped comeuppance and the decent stood in their stead at the whipping tree.
  36. arbitrary
    based on or subject to individual discretion or preference
    If Tennessee had a temperament, it took after the dark personality of the world, with a taste for arbitrary punishment.
  37. adamant
    impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, or reason
    Boseman was adamant about not spending the night.
  38. homespun
    (of textiles) having a rough surface
    Their clothes were coarse and homespun, less fine than the white people’s clothes in the eastern towns.
  39. ditty
    a short simple song
    Homer climbed in the wagon whistling one of Jasper’s more monotonous ditties.
  40. subjugate
    make subservient; force to submit or subdue
    “All these years later, I prefer the American spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and civilize. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed. To lift up the lesser races. If not lift up, subjugate. And if not subjugate, exterminate. Our destiny by divine prescription—the American imperative.”
  41. respite
    a pause for relaxation
    She finished her business and picked out a fugitive bulletin from the stack of paper to wipe herself. Then she waited. A pitiful respite, but it was hers.
  42. insolence
    the trait of being rude and impertinent
    The man’s posture said that he did not enjoy taking orders, and the insolence in his eyes was not slave insolence, an impotent pose, but a hard fact.
  43. fruition
    the attainment or fulfillment of a plan or objective
    If his scheme came to fruition, this would be the last time he celebrated Jockey’s birthday.
  44. brevity
    the attribute of being short or fleeting
    She smiled at Chester, and Lovey and the women from her cabin, with brevity and efficiency. Like when you see the shadow of a bird on the ground but look up and nothing’s there.
  45. guile
    shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
    Now a page here and there, in the golden afternoon light, sustained him. Guile and pluck, guile and pluck.
Created on Tue Dec 12 15:12:57 EST 2017 (updated Tue Dec 19 10:04:42 EST 2017)

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