Tuck Everlasting: Chapters 6–11

by Natalie Babbitt
After meeting the Tucks, a family that is able to live forever after drinking from a magical spring, Winnie Foster questions whether immortality is a blessing or a curse.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–Chapter 5, Chapters 6–11, Chapters 12–19, Chapter 20–Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. dismay
    the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles
    Mae Tuck’s round face wrinkled in dismay.
  2. implore
    beg or request earnestly and urgently
    “Dear Lord, don’t cry! Please don’t cry, child!” she implored.
  3. whit
    a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
    That tree hadn’t grown one whit in all that time. It was exactly the same.
  4. elated
    full of high-spirited delight
    Closing the gate on her oldest fears as she had closed the gate of her own fenced yard, she discovered the wings she’d always wished she had. And all at once she was elated.
  5. recede
    become faint or more distant
    Her mother’s voice, the feel of home, receded for the moment, and her thoughts turned forward.
  6. vigorous
    characterized by forceful and energetic action or activity
    The pastures, fields, and scrubby groves they crossed were vigorous with bees, and crickets leapt before them as if each step released a spring and flung them up like pebbles.
  7. brink
    the limit beyond which something happens or changes
    But everything else was motionless, dry as biscuit, on the brink of burning, hoarding final reservoirs of sap, trying to hold out till the rain returned, and Queen Anne’s lace lay dusty on the surface of the meadows like foam on a painted sea.
  8. penetrate
    spread or diffuse through
    The late sun’s brilliance could penetrate only in scattered glimmers, and everything was silent and untouched, the ground muffled with moss and sliding needles, the graceful arms of the pines stretched out protectively in every direction.
  9. indomitable
    impossible to subdue
    The Foster women had made a fortress out of duty. Within it, they were indomitable.
  10. perilous
    fraught with danger
    The kitchen came first, with an open cabinet where dishes were stacked in perilous towers without the least regard for their varying
    dimensions.
  11. helter-skelter
    haphazardly
    The parlor came next, where the furniture, loose and sloping with age, was set about helter-skelter.
  12. cavernous
    being or suggesting a large dark enclosed space
    Beyond this was the bedroom, where a vast and tipsy brass bed took up most of the space, but there was room beside it for the washstand with the lonely mirror, and opposite its foot a cavernous oak wardrobe from which leaked the faint smell of camphor.
  13. mirage
    something illusory and unattainable
    For, on the old beamed ceiling of the parlor, streaks of light swam and danced and wavered like a bright mirage, reflected through the windows from the sunlit surface of the pond.
  14. disarray
    untidiness, especially of clothing and appearance
    It was a whole new idea to her that people could live in such disarray, but at the same time she was charmed.
  15. luxurious
    rich and superior in quality
    It was all right, then, to lick the maple syrup from your fingers. Winnie was never allowed to do such a thing at home, but she had always thought it would be the easiest way. And suddenly the meal seemed luxurious.
Created on Tue Mar 26 20:46:23 EDT 2013 (updated Wed Aug 06 16:26:02 EDT 2025)

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