A Very Large Expanse of Sea: Chapters 5–10

by Tahereh Mafi
It is 2002, and Shirin, a Muslim-American teenager, faces prejudice from the students and teachers at her school. When popular basketball player Ocean James falls for Shirin, she has difficulty trusting that his affection is real — and fears their relationship will not be able to withstand the bigoted reactions of their community.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–10, Chapters 11–19, Chapters 20–26, Chapters 27–38
40 words 362 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. demure
    shy or modest, often in a playful or provocative way
    People—and often guys—liked to say that Muslim women wore headscarves because they were trying to be demure, or because they were trying to cover up their beauty, and I knew that there were ladies in the world who felt that way.
  2. sentiment
    a personal belief or judgment
    I couldn’t speak for all Muslim women—no one could—but it was a sentiment with which I fundamentally disagreed.
  3. sartorial
    of or relating to tailoring or clothing
    I thought women were gorgeous no matter what they wore, and I didn’t think they owed anyone an explanation for their sartorial choices.
  4. harem
    living quarters for wives in some Muslim households
    Some days our interactions felt like he was trying really hard to overcompensate for that first error, for thinking my parents were about to ship me off to a harem or something.
  5. pommel
    a handgrip that a gymnast uses when performing exercises
    This served as an introduction to your power move—which was your acrobatic move—the kind of thing that looked, sometimes, like what you saw gymnasts do on a pommel horse, except way cooler.
  6. splay
    widen or spread apart
    I was on the ground, splayed like a starfish, but I was smiling.
  7. incredulously
    in a disbelieving manner
    I laughed. Looked at him incredulously. “You thought I would lie about something like that?”
  8. iteration
    the act or process of doing or saying again
    It was an iteration, a simultaneous arm and evolution of hip-hop, and, coolest of all—it was originally used as an alternative to physical violence.
  9. unrelenting
    never-ceasing
    I showed up, I did the work, I dealt with the dependable, unrelenting microaggressions from the masses that influenced the emotional weather patterns of my day.
  10. colonialism
    exploitation by a stronger country of a weaker one
    My parents made everything from scratch, no matter how basic; we never celebrated Christmas, except that sometimes my mom and dad took pity on us—I received a box of envelopes one year—and my parents had taught us about the atrocities of war and colonialism since before I could read.
  11. relish
    derive or receive pleasure from
    They also had no problem sharing their feelings with me. They relished it.
  12. stylized
    using artistic forms and conventions to create effects
    Sometimes it was random doodles, but lately I’d been experimenting with graffiti—tagging, specifically—because some tagging techniques reminded me of highly stylized Persian calligraphy.
  13. calligraphy
    beautiful handwriting
    Sometimes it was random doodles, but lately I’d been experimenting with graffiti—tagging, specifically—because some tagging techniques reminded me of highly stylized Persian calligraphy.
  14. dogma
    a doctrine or code of beliefs accepted as authoritative
    I worried that one day my mom might get her hands on it, read it, realize her daughter was a complicated, flawed human being—one who often disregarded the dogma of religion—and have an actual aneurysm.
  15. aneurysm
    an abnormal bulge caused by weakening of an artery wall
    I worried that one day my mom might get her hands on it, read it, realize her daughter was a complicated, flawed human being—one who often disregarded the dogma of religion—and have an actual aneurysm.
  16. unwieldy
    difficult to use or handle because of size or weight
    The old, hulking computer in my room was a bulky, unwieldy thing.
  17. girth
    the distance around something, especially a person's body
    It was a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, except that it was my mother’s monster, and I’d been the lucky recipient of its great girth.
  18. ostentatious
    intended to attract notice and impress others
    The screen lit up, blinding and ostentatious, and its CPU component started whirring like crazy.
  19. obstinate
    refusing to change one's mind or ways; difficult to convince
    It took another ten to click around and get the internet to work, because sometimes my computer was just, I don’t know, obstinate.
  20. hummus
    a thick spread made from mashed chickpeas
    riversandoceans04: Yeah. I really like hummus.
    riversandoceans04: And falafel.
  21. falafel
    fried croquette of mashed chickpeas and spices
    riversandoceans04: Yeah. I really like hummus.
    riversandoceans04: And falafel.
  22. mystified
    totally perplexed and mixed up
    My first instinct told me he was asking me out; my second, wiser instinct told me that he would never, ever be stupid enough to do something like that, that he was almost certainly aware of the fact that nice white boys did not presume to ask weird Muslim girls out on dates, but then, barring that, I was mystified.
  23. baffle
    be a mystery or bewildering to
    This reaction baffled me because my social activities were so mild as to be almost nonexistent.
  24. vouch
    give personal assurance; guarantee
    But my brother and I had also learned a long time ago how to game the system; when I wanted to go out somewhere, and I knew my parents wouldn’t approve, he’d vouch for me.
  25. hone
    refine or make more perfect or effective
    Today, we’d be driving that beautiful beast into a new world. A world that would give me a new title and hone a new facet of my identity.
  26. facet
    a distinct feature or element in a problem
    Today, we’d be driving that beautiful beast into a new world. A world that would give me a new title and hone a new facet of my identity.
  27. palpable
    capable of being perceived
    The energy was palpable.
  28. reverberate
    ring or echo with sound
    Music was reverberating against the walls and ceilings, the bass pulsing in my eardrums.
  29. garner
    acquire or deserve by one's efforts or actions
    I didn’t know why it suddenly didn’t matter what I looked like, why my appearance garnered no reactions.
  30. demographic
    a statistic characterizing human populations
    Maybe it was because the self-selecting demographic in here was different. I was surrounded by diverse bodies and faces; I was hearing Spanish in one ear and Chinese in the other. We were white and black and brown brought together by a single interest.
  31. burly
    muscular and heavily built
    He was big, blond, and burly, and he was wearing a letterman jacket.
  32. impotence
    the quality of lacking strength or power
    I was paralyzed by an impotence and embarrassment I didn’t know how to explain.
  33. ostensibly
    from appearances alone
    I saw him move in my direction, ostensibly to make me take a turn performing his stupid experiment and instead I just stared at him, my face numb.
  34. quad
    a rectangular area surrounded on all sides by buildings
    So I cut across the quad and through the parking lot and was just about to step off campus when I felt someone grab my arm.
  35. innocuous
    not causing disapproval
    It wasn’t far from campus, and it seemed like an innocuous enough destination for cheap food and a little change of scenery.
  36. subtlety
    a fine difference in meaning, opinion, or attitude
    I’d never caught the subtleties before.
  37. inscrutable
    difficult or impossible to understand
    His face was inscrutable.
  38. muss
    make messy or untidy
    He mussed his hair, muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath, and finally said, “I just think you seem cool, okay?”
  39. flippant
    showing an inappropriate lack of seriousness
    She’d said it in an unkind, flippant way that made me think she really meant it.
  40. corroborate
    support with evidence or authority or make more certain
    I’d often wondered, since that day, if I really was pretty, but no one but my mother had ever bothered to corroborate her statement.
Created on Wed Oct 24 08:56:36 EDT 2018 (updated Wed Oct 24 12:43:02 EDT 2018)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.