Death Comes for the Archbishop: Prologue–Book One

by Willa Cather
Following the Mexican-American War, Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant work to build a new Roman Catholic dicoese in New Mexico.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Book One, Book Two, Book Three, Book Four, Book Five, Book Six, Book Seven, Book Eight, Book Nine

Here is a link to My Antonia by Willa Cather.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. declivity
    a downward slope or bend
    The hidden garden in which the four men sat at table lay some twenty feet below the south end of this terrace, and was a mere shelf of rock, overhanging a steep declivity planted with vineyards.
  2. promenade
    a public area set aside as a pedestrian walk
    A flight of stone steps connected it with the promenade above.
  3. undulate
    move in a wavy pattern or with a rising and falling motion
    Beyond the balustrade was the drop into the air, and far below the landscape stretched soft and undulating; there was nothing to arrest the eye until it reached Rome itself.
  4. foliage
    the collective amount of leaves of one or more plants
    It bored into the ilex trees, illuminating their mahogany trunks and blurring their dark foliage; it warmed the bright green of the orange trees and the rose of the oleander blooms to gold; sent congested spiral patterns quivering over the damask and plate and crystal.
  5. cassock
    a black garment reaching down to the ankles
    The three Cardinals wore black cassocks with crimson pipings and crimson buttons, the Bishop a long black coat over his violet vest.
  6. tepid
    feeling or showing little interest or enthusiasm
    Their interest in the projected Vicarate was tepid, and had to be continually revived by the missionary, Father Ferrand; Irish by birth, French by ancestry--a man of wide wanderings and notable achievement in the New World, an Odysseus of the Church.
  7. vigorous
    characterized by forceful and energetic action or activity
    The French and Italian Cardinals were men in vigorous middle life--the Norman full-belted and ruddy, the Venetian spare and sallow and hook-nosed.
  8. ruddy
    inclined to a healthy reddish color
    The French and Italian Cardinals were men in vigorous middle life--the Norman full-belted and ruddy, the Venetian spare and sallow and hook-nosed.
  9. sallow
    unhealthy looking
    The French and Italian Cardinals were men in vigorous middle life--the Norman full-belted and ruddy, the Venetian spare and sallow and hook-nosed.
  10. formidable
    extremely impressive in strength or excellence
    Lawn tennis had not yet come into fashion; it was a formidable game of indoor tennis the Cardinal played.
  11. arroyo
    a stream or brook
    The very floor of the world is cracked open into countless canyons and arroyos, fissures in the earth which are sometimes ten feet deep, sometimes a thousand.
  12. seminary
    a school for training ministers or priests or rabbis
    He came to us directly from the Seminary."
  13. progenitor
    an ancestor in the direct line
    When my progenitor was an old man, along came one of these missionary priests from New Spain, begging.
  14. wheedle
    influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
    He wheedled a good sum of money out of the old man, as well as vestments and linen and chalices--he would take anything--and he implored my grandfather to give him a painting from his great collection, for the ornamentation of his mission church among the Indians.
  15. chalice
    a bowl-shaped drinking vessel
    He wheedled a good sum of money out of the old man, as well as vestments and linen and chalices--he would take anything--and he implored my grandfather to give him a painting from his great collection, for the ornamentation of his mission church among the Indians.
  16. anomalous
    deviating from the general or common order or type
    Not a word was spoken of the Lombard war, in which the Pope's position was so anomalous.
  17. omnipresence
    the state of being everywhere at once
    "Mais, c'est fantastique!" he muttered, closing his eyes to rest them from the intrusive omnipresence of the triangle.
  18. vertigo
    a reeling sensation; a feeling that you are about to fall
    Since morning he had had a feeling of illness; the taste of fever in his mouth, and alarming seizures of vertigo.
  19. interminable
    tiresomely long; seemingly without end
    He, supposed to be the intelligence of the party, had got the poor animals into this interminable desert of ovens.
  20. consecrated
    made, declared, or believed to be holy
    The traveller was Jean Marie Latour, consecrated Vicar Apostolic.
  21. yonder
    distant but within sight
    The wagon train had been going all day through a greasewood plain, when late in the afternoon the teamsters began shouting that over yonder was the Villa.
  22. sacrament
    a formal religious ceremony conferring a specific grace
    His brothers and cousins, discouraged by his experience, had taken wives without the marriage sacrament.
  23. baptism
    a sacrament signifying spiritual cleansing and rebirth
    Every soul in the village, except Salvatore's sick wife, had come to the Mass. He had performed marriages and baptisms and heard confessions and confirmed until noon.
  24. supercilious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    There was great variety in their faces, but in nearly all something supercilious and sardonic.
  25. sardonic
    disdainfully or ironically humorous
    There was great variety in their faces, but in nearly all something supercilious and sardonic.
  26. apocalypse
    a cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the powers of evil
    As they leaped through the sunlight they brought to mind the chapter in the Apocalypse, about the whiteness of them that were washed in the blood of the Lamb.
  27. catechism
    an elementary book summarizing the principles of a religion
    This settlement was his Bishopric in miniature; hundreds of square mile of thirsty desert, then a spring, a village, old men trying to remember their catechism to teach their grandchildren.
  28. prelate
    a senior clergyman and dignitary
    At Durango the old Mexican prelate there had, after some delay, delivered to him the documents.
  29. amity
    a state of friendship and cordiality
    On his arrival he found amity instead of enmity awaiting him.
  30. enmity
    a state of deep-seated ill-will
    On his arrival he found amity instead of enmity awaiting him.
  31. deft
    skillful in physical movements; especially of the hands
    The thick clay walls had been finished on the inside by the deft palms of Indian women, and had that irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand.
  32. countenance
    the appearance conveyed by a person's face
    He was short, skinny, bow-legged from a life on horseback, and his countenance had little to recommend it but kindliness and vivacity.
  33. succulent
    tasty and full of juice
    A bold, blunt-tipped nose, positive chin, a very large mouth,--the lips thick and succulent but never loose, never relaxed, always stiffened by effort or working with excitement.
  34. pervasive
    spreading or spread throughout
    Keeping his eyes closed, he cherished for a moment this sudden, pervasive sense of the East.
  35. edified
    instructed and encouraged in moral, intellectual, and spiritual improvement
    He has just been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and has been much edified.
  36. rapt
    feeling great delight and interest
    He was so rapt that nothing else interested him.
  37. neophyte
    a new convert being taught the principles of Christianity
    On Saturday, December 9th, in the year 1531, a poor neophyte of the monastery of St. James was hurrying down Tapeyac hill to attend mass.
  38. apparition
    a ghostly appearing figure
    When he returned to the apparition, She bent over the flowers and took pains to arrange them, then closed the ends of the tilma together.
Created on Mon Mar 25 11:50:24 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Jul 16 17:30:44 EDT 2018)

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