Little House in the Big Woods: List 3

by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The first book of the Little House series introduces the Ingalls family, pioneers living in Wisconsin in 1871.

This list covers "Going to Town"–"The Deer in the Wood."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3
30 words 82 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. wisp
    a thin tuft, piece, or amount of something
    She divided their long hair into wisps, combed each wisp with a wet comb and wound it tightly on a bit of rag.
  2. plowshare
    a sharp steel wedge that cuts loose the top layer of soil
    In the middle of the store was a plow made of shiny wood, with a glittering bright plowshare, and there were steel ax heads, and hammer heads, and saws, and all kinds of knives—hunting knives and skinning knives and butcher knives and jack-knives.
  3. astonished
    filled with the emotional impact of overwhelming surprise
    When all the trading was done, the storekeeper gave Mary and Laura each a piece of candy. They were so astonished and so pleased that they just stood looking at their candies.
  4. jolt
    move or cause to move with a sudden jerky motion
    The wagon jolted along on the homeward road through the Big Woods.
  5. humble
    low or inferior in station or quality
    But Pa sang softly:
    “’Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
    Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
  6. muss
    make messy or untidy
    The Petersons had just moved in. Their house was new, and always very neat, because Mrs. Peterson had no little girls to muss it up.
  7. embroidery
    decorative needlework
    She was a Swede, and she let Laura and Mary look at the pretty things she had brought from Sweden—laces, and colored embroideries, and china.
  8. prim
    exaggeratedly proper
    Mary was all ready, sitting primly on a chair, with her golden curls shining and her china-blue dress fresh and crisp.
  9. sulk
    be in a huff and display one's displeasure
    Laura sat on a chair in the corner and sobbed. When she stopped sobbing, she sulked.
  10. heifer
    young cow
    Pa would not kill either of his calves, because they were heifers and would grow into cows.
  11. whey
    the watery part of milk that separates from cheese curds
    With a long knife Ma cut this mass into little squares, and let it stand while the curd separated from the whey.
  12. pare
    cut small bits from
    They liked to eat the curd that squeaked in their teeth and they liked to eat the edges Ma pared off the big, round, yellow cheeses to make them smooth, before she sewed them up in cloth.
  13. deceive
    cause someone to believe an untruth
    “I think people say that, because it looks like a green cheese,” she said. “But appearances are deceiving.”
  14. sprout
    any new growth of a plant such as a new branch or a bud
    After a while he said, “I’m going over to Henry’s tomorrow morning, Caroline, to borrow his grubbing hoe. Those sprouts are getting waist-high around the stumps in the wheatfield. A man just has to keep everlasting at it, or the woods’ll take back the place.”
  15. sullen
    showing a brooding ill humor
    He didn’t bring the water-jug till Uncle Henry shouted at him three or four times, and then he was sullen.
  16. swarm
    move in large numbers
    Then all the little bees in their bright yellow jackets came swarming out with their red-hot stings, and they hurt Charley so that he couldn’t get away.
  17. bawl
    cry loudly
    Charley came bawling into the yard and his face was so swollen that the tears could hardly squeeze out of his eyes.
  18. monstrous
    shockingly brutal or cruel
    She thought it served Charley right, too. It served him right because he had been so monstrously naughty.
  19. coarse
    rough to the touch
    Ma sewed hats for Mary and Laura of the finest, narrowest braid. For Pa and for herself she made hats of the wider, notched braid. That was Pa’s Sunday hat. Then she made him two everyday hats of the coarser, widest braid.
  20. scamper
    run or move about quickly or lightly
    Walnuts and hickory nuts were dropping to the ground in the Big Woods, and squirrels were scampering busily everywhere, gathering their winter’s store of nuts and hiding them away in hollow trees.
  21. pry
    move or force in an effort to get something open
    The soft outer hulls of the walnuts were full of a brown juice that stained their hands, but the hazelnut hull smelled good and tasted good, too, when Laura used her teeth to pry a nut loose.
  22. lug
    carry with difficulty
    When every skin was loose and peeling, Ma lugged the heavy kettle outdoors.
  23. shirk
    avoid one's assigned duties
    The horses walked around and around. The man who was driving them cracked his whip and shouted, “Giddap there, John! No use trying to shirk!”
  24. thresh
    beat the seeds out of a grain
    By the middle of the afternoon the machines had finished all the threshing, and the men who owned them drove them away into the Big Woods, taking with them the sacks of wheat that were their pay.
  25. flail
    an implement with a handle and a free swinging stick
    He said to Ma: “It would have taken Henry and Peterson and Pa and me a couple of weeks apiece to thresh as much grain with flails as that machine threshed today. We wouldn’t have got as much wheat, either, and it wouldn’t have been as clean...."
  26. withered
    lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
    The grass was dry and withered, and the cows must be taken out of the woods and kept in the barn to be fed.
  27. suspicious
    openly distrustful and unwilling to confide
    He seemed to be suspicious that something was wrong.
  28. determined
    strongly motivated to succeed
    “I settled myself in the tree and waited again. This time I was determined to shoot the next game I saw...."
  29. yearling
    an animal in its second year
    After a long while, a doe and her yearling fawn came stepping daintily out of the shadows. \
  30. dainty
    affectedly refined
    After a long while, a doe and her yearling fawn came stepping daintily out of the shadows.
Created on Mon Dec 02 19:57:54 EST 2019 (updated Fri Dec 06 15:31:45 EST 2019)

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