Call It Courage: Chapter 5

by Armstrong Sperry
With a name that translates into Stout Heart, fifteen-year-old Mafatu, the son of the Great Chief of the Polynesian island of Hikueru, is determined to conquer his fear of the sea.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5
30 words 42 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. muted
    softened in tone
    Tree-ferns, ghostly in the half-light, rustled about him as he passed, their muted hush seeming to say: “Not yet, Mafatu, not yet.”
  2. reverberate
    ring or echo with sound
    The measured booming grew louder with every inch that he advanced. Now it pounded in his ears, reverberated through his body, thrummed his nerves.
  3. testament
    strong evidence for something
    Somewhere below in darkness, black hands drew forth from hollowed logs a rhythm that was a summation of life, a testament of death.
  4. barbed
    having or covered with protective points, spines, or thorns
    Mafatu saw that the savages were armed with ironwood war clubs—clubs studded with sharks’ teeth or barbed with the sting-ray’s spike.
  5. guttural
    relating to or articulated in the throat
    A guttural shout ripped the darkness.
  6. fleet
    moving very fast
    On the boy dashed, fleet as an animal.
  7. sprawl
    sit or lie with one's limbs spread out
    Once he tripped and sprawled headlong.
  8. zephyr
    a slight wind
    Mafatu’s canoe, so slim and light, sped like a zephyr across the lagoon.
  9. torrent
    a violently fast stream of water or other liquid
    Then he was caught in the rip-tide. The outrigger dashed through the passage, a chip on a torrent.
  10. artful
    marked by skill or cunning in achieving a desired end
    The little canoe, so artfully built, ran with swell and favoring wind, laying knots behind her.
  11. profane
    violate the sacred character of a place or language
    Their motu tabu had been profaned by a stranger.
  12. imperceptibly
    in a manner that is difficult to discern
    The wind dropped. Imperceptibly at first. Sensing it, Mafatu whistled desperately for Maui.
  13. brandish
    exhibit aggressively
    Some of them leaped to their feet, brandished their clubs, shouted at the boy across the water.
  14. impetus
    a force that makes something happen
    Then the wind freshened. Just a puff, but enough. Under its impetus the little canoe skimmed ahead while the boy’s heart gave an upward surge of thanks.
  15. wile
    the use of tricks to deceive someone
    The boy was employing every art and wile of sailing that he knew.
  16. diminish
    decrease in size, extent, or range
    In that moment he was aware that the chanting of his pursuers had become fainter, steadily diminishing.
  17. intently
    with strained or eager attention
    He listened intently.
  18. wax
    increase in phase
    The boy quenched his thirst, ate a scrap of poi, fought against sleep as the night waxed and waned.
  19. expanse
    a wide and open space or area, as of land, sea, or sky
    There was no sign of the canoes upon the broad expanse of the sea.
  20. headway
    forward movement
    As the long hours passed, it seemed as if he were making no headway at all, even though the canoe still cut smartly through the water. There was a drift and pull that appeared to make a forward gain impossible.
  21. implacable
    incapable of being appeased or pacified
    Was it Moana, the implacable one, trying to prevent Mafatu from returning to his homeland?
  22. sinew
    a band of tissue connecting a muscle to its bony attachment
    He was tired now in every nerve and sinew, tired in the marrow of his bones, tired of struggle.
  23. conflagration
    a very intense and uncontrolled fire
    The sun sank in a conflagration like the death of a world.
  24. respite
    a relief from harm or discomfort
    He was to learn in the hours to come that all days, all time, would be like that: hours of blasting heat, of shattering sunlight; nights of fitful respite and uneasy sleep.
  25. monotony
    the quality of wearisome constancy and lack of variety
    Storm, anything would have been a welcome relief to this blasting monotony, to this limitless circle of sea.
  26. benign
    not dangerous to health; not recurrent or progressive
    The sea was sparkling and benign.
  27. sluggish
    moving slowly
    Masses of seaweed, heavy with the eggs of fishes, floated on the sluggish tide, seeming to clutch at the canoe, to hold it back from its destination.
  28. iridescence
    the visual property of having lustrous, varying colors
    Hikueru, the Cloud of Islands—did they really exist? Were they not, like the chambered nautilus, only an iridescence dreamed by the sea?
  29. daft
    foolish or mentally irregular
    Had the sun stricken him daft? Had he been touched by moon-madness?
  30. defiance
    an act boldly resisting authority or an opposing force
    He sprang to his feet, flung back his head, spread wide his arms in defiance. “Do you hear me, Moana? I am not afraid of you! Destroy me—but I laugh at you. Do you hear? I laugh!”
Created on Tue May 09 10:59:47 EDT 2023 (updated Wed May 10 11:59:24 EDT 2023)

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.