The Most Beautiful Roof in the World: "A Column of Life"

by Kathryn Lasky
This nonfiction account follows Dr. Meg Lowman as she explores the rainforest.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Pioneer in the Rainforest, Out of the Shadow and Into the Light, A Column of Life
30 words 310 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. aerial
    existing, living, growing, or operating in the air
    For this is often when there is a flurry of activity in the canopy as the macaws and toucans fly home to their roosts after foraging and the spider monkeys show off with aerial leaps as the day cools.
  2. buttress
    reinforce with a support usually of stone or brick
    The banks of the creek here grow thick with moss and strange ferns. And the immense buttressed tree roots are covered with thin veils of bright orange lichen.
  3. lichen
    a plant occurring in crusty patches on tree trunks or rocks
    The banks of the creek here grow thick with moss and strange ferns. And the immense buttressed tree roots are covered with thin veils of bright orange lichen.
  4. inventory
    make or include in an itemized record or report
    It is her aim to try to inventory, or count, the different species of plants and insects, starting from the ground up.
  5. devise
    arrange by systematic planning and united effort
    There have been many methods devised for doing just this.
  6. pitfall
    a trap in the form of a concealed hole
    The boys begin by helping another one of Meg’s graduate student assistants dig pitfall traps within the square.
  7. trowel
    a small hand tool with a handle and metal blade
    With spoons and small garden trowels, they dig holes seven or eight inches (18 to 20 centimeters) deep.
  8. sapling
    young tree
    These understory trees might someday emerge into the canopy, or they might be crowded out by the young saplings of the next layer down.
  9. temperate
    mild or free from extremes
    In a temperate forest, such an area might hold a total of fifty plants and at the most thirty different species.
  10. dirigible
    a steerable self-propelled aircraft
    Instead there was an immense inflatable raft that a dirigible floated over the rainforest canopy and settled upon the emergent crown of trees.
  11. grueling
    characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion
    As fun as this giant trampoline in the sky was, working from it was also grueling.
  12. battalion
    a large indefinite number
    Once, in the middle of the night as she made her way to the outhouse, she stepped smack into a battalion of army ants.
  13. flit
    move along rapidly and lightly; skim or dart
    Thousands of insects flood the air and ground. Safer at night, they come out to feed, flit, and fly.
  14. burnish
    polish and make shiny
    Streams of leafcutter ants might still be visible in a chip of moonlight; on the underside of a leaf, another armored beetle, burnished bright as gold, goes silently about its work.
  15. winch
    pull or lift up with or as if with a lifting device
    “It’s the spider, Mom!” James exclaims. Indeed, the spider is winching in its own web by pulling on a line.
  16. inaudible
    impossible to hear; imperceptible by the ear
    Then it is almost as if there is an inaudible ping. The web springs back, and at its trembling center is a small insect.
  17. cunning
    showing inventiveness and skill
    Two, three, four more times, the spider takes aim with its cunning web and traps another insect.
  18. deftly
    with dexterity; in a dexterous manner
    With her tweezers she deftly plucks the spider from its web and puts it into the vial.
  19. permissible
    acceptable, especially as according to rule
    What is permissible, or justifiable, is always a concern—do the ends justify the means?
  20. justifiable
    capable of being shown to be reasonable
    What is permissible, or justifiable, is always a concern—do the ends justify the means?
  21. buccaneer
    someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea
    She begins: “The council of the buccaneers had lasted some time, when one of them reentered the house....”
  22. drone
    an unchanging intonation
    The boys’ eyelids grow very heavy. The drone of the mosquitoes does not bother them.
  23. mutineer
    someone who rebels against an authority
    “I saw Silver now engaged upon—keeping the mutineers together with one hand, and grasping, with the other, after every means, possible and impossible, to make his peace and save his miserable life....”
  24. prowl
    the act of walking about in a stealthy manner
    An ocelot on the prowl has passed the empty web of the slingshot spider and moves toward the strange sounds.
  25. frond
    compound leaf of a fern or palm or cycad
    In the understory, above the chameleon, a frog slaps its sticky padded feet on a palm frond and freezes—are these the sounds of its enemy, the coati?
  26. illuminate
    make lighter or brighter
    She gets out her computer, and in the dim, foggy night of the rainforest a small neon-green rectangle is illuminated.
  27. ponder
    reflect deeply on a subject
    Meg spends much of her time alone in the canopy and then back on the forest floor, pondering what she has seen above.
  28. solitary
    lacking companions or companionship
    But despite the solitariness of her work, the lonely hum of the computer, and the clicking of the keys, in the back of her mind is the consoling knowledge of other scientists and pioneers.
  29. console
    give moral or emotional strength to
    But despite the solitariness of her work, the lonely hum of the computer, and the clicking of the keys, in the back of her mind is the consoling knowledge of other scientists and pioneers.
  30. chasm
    a deep opening in the earth's surface
    It is easy for her to bridge the chasm of more than one hundred years and reach out toward the one who navigated the path to freedom by feeling for the moss on the north sides of trees.
Created on Tue Nov 03 20:16:00 EST 2020 (updated Mon Nov 09 13:20:24 EST 2020)

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.