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The Grapes of Wrath: Chapters 9-15

During the Great Depression, the Joad family leaves a failing farm in Oklahoma in hopes of a better life out west.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–8, Chapters 9–15, Chapters 16–19, Chapters 20–24, Chapters 25–30

Here are links to our lists for other books by John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, East of Eden, Cannery Row, Travels with Charley
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Full list of words from this list:

  1. inveterate
    habitual
    But Winfield was still a trifle of a snot-nose, a little of a brooder back of the barn, and an inveterate collector and smoker of snipes.
  2. demure
    shy or modest, often in a playful or provocative way
    ...her whole body had become demure and serious.
  3. sate
    fill to contentment
    But when one of his appetites was sated, he was sad and ashamed and lonely again.
  4. fatuous
    devoid of intelligence
    Connie Rivers lifted the high tail-gate out of the truck and got down and helped Rose of Sharon to the ground; and she accepted it nobly, smiling her wise, self-satisfied smile, mouth tipped at the corners a little fatuously.
  5. complacent
    contented to a fault with oneself or one's actions
    “You do not see,” she said, and she smiled her complacent smile and went into the house.
  6. lucent
    softly bright or radiant
    The film of evening light made the red earth lucent, so that its dimensions were deepened, so that a stone, a post, a building had greater depth and more solidity than in the daytime light; and these objects were curiously more individual—a post was more essentially a post, set off from the earth it stood in and the field of corn it stood out against.
  7. eminent
    standing above others in quality or position
    Indeed his position was eminent, for Uncle John moved sideways, leaving space between Pa and himself for the preacher.
  8. revulsion
    intense aversion
    And the revulsion spread to the rest. “Whyn’t we go? Get sleep on the way.”
  9. saunter
    walk leisurely and with no apparent aim
    Pa said, “Al, go down, wake up Granma, Grampa. Tell ’em to come an’ eat. We’re goin’ before long.” And as Al sauntered toward the barn, “Muley, ya wanta squeeze in with us an’ go?
  10. vitality
    a healthy capacity for vigorous activity
    And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn there is a life and a vitality left, there is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive.
  11. wizened
    lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
    The tent flaps opened and a wizened woman came out—a face wrinkled as a dried leaf and eyes that seemed to flame in her face, black eyes that seemed to look out of a well of horror.
  12. timbre
    the distinctive property of a complex sound
    When she spoke her voice had a beautiful low timbre, soft and modulated, and yet with ringing overtones.
  13. cowl
    a loose hood or hooded robe
    She brought the corner of the quilt over his head like a cowl and pulled it down over his face.
  14. restive
    in a very tense state
    A half-million people moving over the country; a million more restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness.
  15. languid
    lacking spirit or liveliness
    Languid, heat-raddled ladies, small nucleuses about whom revolve a thousand accouterments: creams, ointments to grease themselves, coloring matter in phials—black, pink, red, white, green, silver—to change the color of hair, eyes, lips, nails, brows, lashes, lids.
Created on Sat Oct 05 17:26:27 EDT 2013 (updated Fri Aug 01 15:55:02 EDT 2025)

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