The Scarlet Letter-en 130

Mrs. Kilcullen (United States of America)
17 words 83 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. ignominy
    a state of dishonor
    "The very law that condemned her-a giant of stern features, but with vigor to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm-had held her up, through this terrible ordeal of her ignominy" (Hawthorne 54).
  2. ignominious
    deserving or bringing disgrace or shame
    "A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turnin their heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast" (Hawhtorne 38).
  3. physiognomy
    the human face
    "Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim ridigity that petrified the bearded physignomies of these good people would have augured some awful business at hand" (Hawthorne 34).
  4. imperious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    "Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms, but was soon imperious to be set down again, and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble" (Hawthorne 69).
  5. contagion
    the communication of an attitude among a number of people
    "For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonor; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship" (Hawthorne 81).
  6. inimical
    not friendly
    "In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, would become vaguely aware that something inimical to his peace had thrust itself into relation with him" (Hawthorne 89).
  7. somniferous
    sleep inducing
    "It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature" (Hawthorne 95).
  8. propinquity
    the property of being close together
    "But it was the constant shadow of my presence! the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged! and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!" (Hawthorne 118).
  9. verdure
    green foliage
    "Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheeful verdure" (Hawthorne 120).
  10. sedulous
    marked by care and persistent effort
    "She wondered what sort of herbs they were, which the old man was so sedulous to gather" (Hawthorne 120).
  11. scrofula
    a form of tuberculosis characterized by swellings of the lymphatic glands
    "There was no other attribute that so much impressed her with a sense of new and untransmitted vigor in Pearl's nature, as this never-failing vivacity of spirits; she had not the disease of sadness, which almost all children, in these latter days, inherit, with the scrofula from the troubles from their ancestors" (Hawthorne 126).
  12. misanthropy
    hatred of mankind
    "There had been a period when Hester was less alive to this consideration; or perhaps , in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she left the minister to bear what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable doom" (Hawthorne 132).
  13. colloquy
    formal conversation
    "She had wandererd, without rule or guidance, in a moral wildeness; as vast, as intricate, as shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate" (Hawtorne 137).
  14. trammel
    a restraint that confines or restricts freedom
    "At the head of the social system, as the clergyman of the day stood, he was only the more tramelled by its regulations, its principles, and even its prejudices" (Hawthorne 137).
  15. inured
    made tough by habitual exposure
    "Hasten Pearl; or I shall be angry with thee!" cried Hester Prynne, who however inured to such behavior on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now" (Hawthorne 143).
  16. obeisance
    bending the head or body in reverence or submission
    "I profess madam," answered the clergyman, with a grave obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good-breeding made imperative, - "I profess, on my conscience and character, that I am utterly bewildered as touching the purport in your words! (Hawthorne 152).
  17. escutcheon
    a shield; especially one displaying a coat of arms
    "All around there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate-as the curious investigator may still discern and perplex himself with the puport-there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon" (Hawthorne 180).
Created on Sun Oct 27 23:50:47 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Oct 28 09:27:28 EDT 2013)

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.