The Bean Trees: Chapters 1–3

by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver's first novel tells the story of Taylor Greer, who leaves Kentucky and tries to make a life for herself and an orphaned Native American girl in Tucson, Arizona.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–6, Chapters 7–8, Chapters 9–12, Chapters 13–17

Here is a link to our lists for The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
14 words 807 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. hokey
    obviously artificial or phony
    Some had Indians in various hokey poses, but most were views-from-the-air of Oral Roberts University, which apparently was in the vicinity — although I’m pretty sure if it had been within two hundred miles I could have seen it from the parking lot.
  2. plait
    a hairdo formed by braiding or twisting the hair
    Her hair lay across her shoulders in a pair of skinny, lifeless plaits.
  3. silo
    a cylindrical tower used for storing grain
    The sounds of the cars on the highway seemed to get sucked straight out over the empty fields where there was nothing, not even a silo, to stop them from barreling on forever into the night.
  4. taxidermist
    a craftsman who stuffs and mounts animal skins for display
    It was basically the same idea as the guy and his mother in Psycho, except that Norman Bates in Psycho was a taxidermist and knew how to preserve his mother so she wouldn’t totally rot out.
  5. prosthesis
    a device that replaces a missing part of the body
    When he got the prosthesis she was fascinated at first by the way it was put together, and then thought nothing of it at all.
  6. conniption
    a display of bad temper
    Lou Ann made the baptism decision purely for practical reasons: if one of the grandmothers was going to have a conniption, it might as well be the one who was eighteen hundred miles away rather than the one who lived right across town.
  7. emanate
    proceed or issue forth, as from a source
    On the side of the pleated tin building there was a large picture of Jesus with outstretched hands and yellow streamers of light emanating from His head.
  8. transient
    one who stays for only a short time
    Lou Ann crossed the park in a hurry, skirting around an old wooden trellis where several transients were congregating.
  9. pike
    a broad highway designed for high-speed traffic
    But on the other hand, I was glad for the chance to make some bucks before I headed on down the pike.
  10. ulterior
    lying beyond what is openly revealed or avowed
    Mrs. Hoge’s ulterior motive, I believe, was the child, which she looked after a great deal of the time.
  11. smithereens
    a collection of small fragments considered as a whole
    She handed Turtle a peanut-butter cracker, which she grabbed with both hands. It broke to smithereens, and she got such big sad eyes I thought she was going to cry.
  12. fanatical
    marked by excessive enthusiasm for a cause or idea
    She laughed. “No, me and my husband started it up. His dad was a mechanic, so Sam was a grease monkey born and raised. He was the one that named the place. He was kind of fanatical, you might say. Bless his soul.”
  13. snooty
    overly conceited or arrogant
    She was about my age, no more than twenty-five anyway, and had no reason I could see for being so snooty.
  14. strew
    spread by scattering
    For some odd reason they had artificial grapes strewed out over the ice all around the buckets.
Created on Tue Dec 04 11:00:18 EST 2018 (updated Tue Aug 05 12:58:14 EDT 2025)

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.