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Selected Short Stories of Ray Bradbury: The Black Ferris

Step right up to this list words from "The Black Ferris," and let Ray Bradbury take you on a ride that will make time fly.

Here are links to our lists for short stories by the award-winning author: A Sound of Thunder, All Summer in a Day, August 2026, Marionettes, Inc., The Black Ferris, The Drummer Boy of Shiloh, The Flying Machine, The Pedestrian, The Veldt
30 words 184 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. carnival
    a traveling show featuring rides and games
    The carnival had come to town like an October wind, like a dark bat flying over the cold lake, bones rattling in the night, mourning, sighing, whispering up the tents in the dark rain.
  2. booth
    a small shop at a fair; for selling goods or entertainment
    The carnival lay by the sounding lake with nobody buying tickets from the flaky black booths, nobody hoping to get the salted hams from the whining roulette wheels, and none of the thin-fat freaks on the big platforms.
  3. ghastly
    shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    At eight o'clock perhaps, ghastly lights would flash on, voices would shout, music would go out over the lake.
  4. immense
    unusually great in size or amount or extent or scope
    The black Ferris wheel rose like an immense light-bulbed constellation against the cloudy sky, silent.
  5. ominous
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    The hunchback blindly, fumbling, locked Mr. Cooger into a black seat and sent him whirling up into the ominous twilight sky.
  6. despondent
    without or almost without hope
    Outside, it began to rain, despondently, irrevocably, forever and ever.
  7. cloak
    cover as if with clothing
    "Sh!" said Hank, cloaked in wet mystery.
  8. frank
    characterized by directness in manner or speech
    "I'm scared," said Peter, frankly wailing. "I'm cold and hungry and I don't know what this's all about."
  9. orphan
    a child who has lost both parents
    "Don't you see, three weeks ago the carnival came. And about the same time this little ole orphan shows up at Mrs. Foley's. And Mrs. Foley's son died a long time ago one night one winter, and she's never been the same, so here's this little ole orphan boy who butters her all around."
  10. warn
    notify of danger, potential harm, or risk
    "We got to warn you about something, it's about that boy come to live with you, that orphan?"
  11. menacing
    threatening evil or danger
    Standing there in the pink light, his hand made into a menacing fist, was the little orphan boy.
  12. suspicious
    openly distrustful and unwilling to confide
    That way nobody'll get suspicious of him.
  13. disguise
    make unrecognizable
    And he'll be walking around, all disguised as the carnival man.
  14. mourn
    feel sadness
    Peter arrived at Mrs. Foley's house at about nine-thirty, sneezing, lost in a vast raincoat and mariner's cap. He stood like a small water hydrant on the street, mourning softly over his fate.
  15. emerge
    come out of
    In about ten minutes a small figure emerged from the house, bearing a large paper sack filled with some enormous loot or other.
  16. swift
    moving very fast
    They gave chase through the chestnut trees, but the orphan boy was swift, up the hill, through the night streets of town, down past the rail yards, past the factories, to the midway of the deserted carnival.
  17. mock
    treat with contempt
    "Yah!" mocked the orphan boy, darting away, no more than a shadow ahead, now.
  18. nebula
    an immense cloud of gas and dust in interstellar space
    The Ferris wheel was going up and up into the sky, a big nebula of stars caught on the dark earth and turning forward and forward, instead of backward, and there sat Joseph Pikes in a green painted bucket-seat, laughing up and around and down and up and around and down at little old Hank standing there
  19. deserted
    forsaken by owner or inhabitants
    The midway was deserted because of the rain.
  20. bleak
    unpleasantly cold and damp
    And Joseph Pikes rode up into the cloudy sky and came down and each time he went around he was a year older, his laughing changed, grew deep, his face changed, the bones of it, the mean eyes of it, the wild hair of it, sitting there is the green bucket seat whirling, whirling swiftly, laughing into the bleak heavens where now and again a last split of lightning showed itself.
  21. brake
    a restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle
    When he put his hand on the brake, Hank ran in and slammed the tent spike against the fingers, mashing them.
  22. whirl
    the act of rotating rapidly
    "Stop, stop the wheel!" cried Joseph Pikes-Mr. Cooger flung up in a stormy cold sky in the bubbled constellation of whirl and rush and wind.
  23. panic
    an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
    "Stop, stop the wheel!" cried Mr. Cooger, a man, a different man and voice this time, coming around in panic, going up into the roaring hissing sky of the Ferris wheel.
  24. mechanism
    device consisting of a piece of machinery
    He started in on the brake mechanism, hitting it, jamming it, putting hunks of metal in it, tying it with rope, now and again hitting at the crawling weeping dwarf.
  25. ablaze
    lighted with red light as if with flames
    Now the carnival was ablaze with sudden light.
  26. oath
    profane or obscene expression usually of surprise or anger
    Hank felt himself jerked into the air with oaths and beatings rained on him.
  27. leer
    look suggestively or obliquely
    Terrible faces leered and gaped at him.
  28. whine
    move with a high-pitched, screeching noise
    The Ferris wheel stood whining and stretching in the wind.
  29. occupant
    someone who lives at a particular place for a long period
    The policeman turned and the carnival people turned and the fisherman turned and they all looked at the occupant in the black painted seat at the bottom of the ride.
  30. croon
    sing softly
    The wind touched and moved the black wooden seat in a gentle rocking rhythm, crooning over the occupant in the dim carnival light.
Created on Fri May 12 17:29:42 EDT 2017 (updated Tue Apr 09 14:28:55 EDT 2019)

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