The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants: List 5

by Ann Brashares
A pair of magical jeans helps four best friends feel close even when they can't be together.

This list covers "You can take a road that gets you to the stars."–Epilogue.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
35 words 5 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. hermetic
    completely sealed or airtight
    Ever since her parents had central air-conditioning installed in the house, they had kept the place hermetically sealed four to five months of the year.
  2. pompous
    puffed up with vanity
    Then there were hours of pompous rockumentaries on VH1...Those were good for putting her to sleep.
  3. listless
    lacking zest or vivacity
    From the first moment, Bridget was slow. She was tentative. She didn't go after the ball. When it came to her she kicked it away. It made her team confused and listless. They were used to building on her intensity.
  4. garish
    tastelessly showy
    Her eyes fixed on Ricki Lake, she systematically chewed through eight packages of garish gummy dinosaurs, tossing eight silvery wrappers on the floor.
  5. aneurysm
    an abnormal bulge caused by weakening of an artery wall
    Tibby felt the pain invading her chest again. Her heart was not right. Pain exploded in her temple. She was having a heart attack and a brain aneurysm at the same time.
  6. cauterize
    burn, sear, or freeze using a hot iron or electric current
    "Carmen, I'm...sorry. I wish I’d warned you. That was my mistake. I really am sorry." He finished with a note of finality. He was closing it off again. Cauterizing the wound before there could be any more bleeding.
  7. testament
    strong evidence for something
    Carmen waded through the piles and sat on Tibby's bed. It was testament to her concern, because Carmen hated any mess she herself hadn't made.
  8. ravenous
    extremely hungry
    It was the only place in the room where they wouldn’t be swallowed by ravenous mess.
  9. arrhythmic
    lacking a steady beat or accent
    She leaped out of bed, scared, her arrhythmic heart racing.
  10. vestibule
    a large entrance or reception room or area
    The door was partially open. She slipped inside. She stalled in the little vestibule.
  11. gingerly
    in a manner marked by extreme care or delicacy
    When her own eyelids started to droop, she lay back gingerly, resting her head on the pillow next to Bailey’s.
  12. liturgy
    a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship
    Both Lena and Effie joined their grandparents in the small, plain, lovely church for the liturgy.
  13. baklava
    dessert made of flaky pastry, nuts, and honey
    Grandma was on the dessert committee, so she and Effie made dozens of trays of baklava with every conceivable kind of nut in the filling for the delicate pastries.
  14. boisterous
    marked by exuberance and high spirits
    Down on the sidewalk and in the little plaza a few yards down from Kostos's house, the celebration became more boisterous after sunset.
  15. expansive
    friendly and open and willing to talk
    The men drank loads of ouzo and got very expansive once the music began.
  16. dinky
    small and insignificant
    Dinky, small-town fireworks erupted from the plaza.
  17. poignant
    keenly distressing to the mind or feelings
    It was just a poignant fact of island life that whole generations left to set up real lives in other places.
  18. fitful
    intermittently stopping and starting
    She stayed in bed hours after she woke, because she couldn’t figure out what to do with herself. She was fitful, both energized and apathetic.
  19. blatantly
    in a completely obvious manner
    Lena knew this was all true. Effie had hit the mark so blatantly, Lena didn’t even bother refuting it.
  20. belie
    be in contradiction with
    “But, Ef,” she said, her voice belying her raw agony, “what if he doesn’t like me back?”
  21. bile
    a digestive juice secreted by the liver
    Paul was his best man, she realized. She waited to feel the bile leak through her, but it didn't.
  22. parquet
    a floor made of a patterned wood inlay
    Carmen stood, deciding not to worry that she didn't really know how to waltz. She put her arm through his. On the parquet platform he began whirling her in time with the music.
  23. ecstatic
    feeling great rapture or delight
    If she had been her regular self she might have been ecstatic that he was touching her, though mortified that he was touching her filthy hair.
  24. subside
    wear off or die down
    When the tears finally subsided, she looked up. “Why don’t we get a cup of joe and you tell me what’s up,” he offered.
  25. meager
    deficient in amount or quality or extent
    She would give the Pants what meager gifts she had, but courage was the thing she would take.
  26. profusely
    in very large amounts or quantities; extremely
    Lena's hands were sweating so profusely she was afraid they might smear her painting.
  27. hallmark
    a distinctive characteristic or attribute
    She tried drying them on the Pants and switching hands, but wet handprints on your pants weren’t exactly the hallmark of a cool customer.
  28. sweeping
    broad in scope or content
    Maybe happiness didn’t have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures.
  29. allot
    administer or bestow, as in small portions
    Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.
  30. juncture
    a particular point in a process or activity
    In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she’d scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launch time.
  31. frivolous
    not serious in content, attitude, or behavior
    Effie knew Bridget well enough to know that there came low times when worrying about her wasn’t frivolous.
  32. tributary
    a branch that flows into the main stream
    Like salmon swimming back to the tiny tributary where they were spawned, we returned to Gilda’s as the honorary birthplace of the Septembers and now of the Sisterhood.
  33. stimulus
    any information or event that acts to arouse action
    For three months we’d had complete togetherness and not much outside stimuli.
  34. deference
    a courteous expression of esteem or regard
    Usually the centerpiece was the cake, but tonight it was pushed off to the side in deference to the Pants.
  35. gamely
    in a plucky or sporting manner
    Tibby gamely wore the sombrero from Mexico and the T-shirt Lena had painted for her showing the harbor at Ammoudi.
Created on Tue Oct 19 21:05:31 EDT 2021 (updated Tue Oct 26 17:16:07 EDT 2021)

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