The Color Purple: List 3

by Alice Walker
In letters to God and each other, two sisters, Celie and Nettie, share the details of their trouble-filled lives in the American South and Africa.

This list covers pages 141–173 in the 1982 edition published by Harcourt.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
15 words 263 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. pidgin
    a simplified language allowing communication between groups
    He speaks a little English, what they call pidgin English. It is very different from the way we speak English, but somehow familiar.
  2. alight
    come down
    When we reached the shore they didn’t bother to help us alight from the boat and actually set some of our supplies right down in the water.
  3. browbeat
    discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner
    As soon as they had browbeat poor Samuel out of a tip that Joseph said was too big, they were off hallooing another group of people who were waiting at the edge of the water to be taken to the ship.
  4. millet
    a grain-like food that grows in grassy stalks
    They plant cassava fields that yield huge crops. They plant groundnuts that do the same. They plant yam and cotton and millet.
  5. conscientious
    characterized by extreme care and great effort
    The women of the village take turns cooking for us, and some are cleaner and more conscientious than others.
  6. haunch
    the upper thigh and back of the hip in human beings
    And watching them, some on their stools and some squatted down on their haunches, all chewing cola nuts and making patterns in the dirt, I feel a great surge of love for them.
  7. aptitude
    inherent ability
    Adam has a special aptitude for figures and it worries Samuel that soon he will have nothing more to teach him in this field, having exhausted his own knowledge.
  8. concoct
    prepare or cook by mixing ingredients
    He fell ill with malaria and nothing the healer concocted saved him.
  9. industrious
    characterized by hard work and perseverance
    She is the most industrious of all Tashi’s father’s widows, and her fields are praised for their cleanliness, productivity and general attractiveness.
  10. ostracism
    the act of excluding someone from society by general consent
    Their lives always center around work and their children and other women (since a woman cannot really have a man for a friend without the worst kind of ostracism and gossip).
  11. intervention
    the act of getting involved
    Thank God (and sometimes Samuel’s intervention) this has not happened since we’ve been here.
  12. tarmac
    a paving material
    And, in fact, the roadbuilders talked much of how quickly the Olinka will now be able to get to the coast. With a tarmac road it is only a three-day journey.
  13. covet
    wish, long, or crave for
    Of course no one in Olinka owns a bicycle, but one of the roadbuilders has one, and all the Olinka men covet it and talk of someday soon purchasing their own.
  14. deviate
    turn aside; turn away from
    The roadbuilders didn’t deviate an inch from the plan the headman was following. Every hut that lay in the proposed roadpath was leveled.
  15. reparation
    something done or paid in expiation of a wrong
    Immediately after understanding the roadbuilders’ intentions, the chief set off toward the coast, seeking explanations and reparations.
Created on Mon Dec 12 11:13:02 EST 2016 (updated Tue Jul 29 12:15:12 EDT 2025)

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