The Girl Who Drank the Moon: Chapters 4-11

by Kelly Barnhill
In this Newbery Award-winning novel, baby Luna is abandoned by her village and raised by the witch Xan. As Luna tries to manage her growing magical powers, she learns about her true origins and joins forces with others to fight the corrupt Council of Elders.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1-3, Chapters 4-11, Chapters 12-18, Chapters 19-31, Chapters 32-48
40 words 445 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. atrocious
    exceptionally bad or displeasing
    His voice was loud, warbled, and atrociously off-key.
  2. procure
    get by special effort
    ...a new goat had been procured (Glerk had no idea how), and Xan had separate milk jugs for drinking and cheese making and butter churning; and, quite suddenly, the floor became thoroughly strewn with toys.
  3. strew
    spread by scattering
    ...a new goat had been procured (Glerk had no idea how), and Xan had separate milk jugs for drinking and cheese making and butter churning; and, quite suddenly, the floor became thoroughly strewn with toys.
  4. ruse
    a deceptive maneuver, especially to avoid capture
    She is being adorable as some sort of hideous ruse, to spite me.
  5. evasive
    deliberately vague or ambiguous
    “The child will grow as children do, I expect,” Glerk said evasively.
  6. divot
    the cavity cut from the ground by a golf club head
    She examined each wart, each divot, each slimy lump on his large, flat face, a look of wonder in her eyes.
  7. berate
    censure severely or angrily
    They berated him when they ran into him on the street.
  8. sumptuous
    rich and superior in quality
    Or when they sat in his mother’s dining room for yet another sumptuous (though uncomfortable) supper.
  9. admonish
    scold or reprimand; take to task
    They admonished him when he followed in their wake during surprise inspections.
  10. seethe
    be in an agitated emotional state
    And she would seethe and grumble until Antain’s youngest brother, Wyn, began to cry.
  11. don
    put on clothes
    The next morning, Antain donned his freshly laundered robe and headed into the Council Hall well before dawn.
  12. scrawl
    write carelessly
    Every day, his first task of the morning was to read through the citizen complaints and requests that had been scrawled with bits of chalk on the large slate wall, and deem which ones were worth attention and which should simply be washed down and erased.
  13. imperious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    ...then he was to stand in the room as the servants arrived, giving each one an imperious expression as they entered the building, before hanging up his robes in the closet and going to school.
  14. tenacious
    stubbornly unyielding
    Fog clung to the city walls and cobbled streets like tenacious moss.
  15. whorl
    a round shape formed by a series of concentric circles
    He let his eyes drift toward the Tower—its black, devilishly complicated stonework mimicking the whorls of galaxies and the trajectories of stars; its small, round windows winking outward like eyes.
  16. convalesce
    get over an illness or shock
    For five years now she had convalesced in confinement, but she still had not healed.
  17. livid
    discolored by coagulation of blood beneath the skin
    In Antain’s mind’s eye, he could see that wild face, those black eyes, that birthmark on her forehead—livid and red.
  18. fawning
    attempting to win favor by flattery
    His teacher insisted on calling him “Elder Antain” in a breathy fawning voice, even though he wasn’t an elder yet, and gave him top marks no matter what kind of work he did.
  19. prattle
    speak about unimportant matters rapidly and incessantly
    People of your stature have tutors, and why you have refused such a basic thing is beyond comprehension. Your mother prattles on about it endlessly.
  20. grovel
    show submission or fear
    I do hope you are able to make at least one person grovel today.
  21. misgiving
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    It would put to rest so many misgivings among the other Elders.
  22. pliant
    capable of being influenced or formed
    They grumbled as they retrieved the child from its pliant parents.
  23. tendril
    slender structure by which some plants attach to an object
    Oh, Antain my boy, my boy, oh Antain my boy! Gherland thought as they walked, tendrils of worry curling around his heart, cinching into a hard, tight knot.
  24. lurid
    shining with an unnatural red glow
    She sat with the girl, blowing bubbles—lovely, lurid, mostly magical things, with pretty colors swirling on their surfaces.
  25. undulation
    wavelike motion
    He could feel the pulse and undulation of those great waves of magic, surging inside the child, never finding their way to shore.
  26. goad
    urge with or as if with a prod
    Every day she goaded Fyrian into making atrocious choices or she played tricks on the poor dragon, making him cry.
  27. wayward
    resistant to guidance or discipline
    Xan tore down the road, her old bones groaning, undoing spell after spell, before she caught up to the wayward girl.
  28. brandish
    move or swing back and forth
    “Nap time,” the Witch said, brandishing both palms, and Luna collapsed onto the ground.
  29. shirk
    avoid one's assigned duties
    Off with you, and don’t let me catch you shirking on your chores.
  30. akimbo
    bent outward with the joint away from the body
    And a tree stump became a very large, very pink, and very perplexed-looking bird, who sat sprawled on the ground, wings akimbo, as if shocked by its own existence.
  31. skitter
    move or skip quickly across a surface
    Spell after spell erupted from Luna’s fingers and toes, from her ears and eyes. Her magic skittered and pulsed. It was all Xan could do to keep up.
  32. iridescent
    varying in color when seen in different lights
    As Luna ran, each footstep blossomed with iridescent flowers.
  33. prow
    the front part of a vessel
    Fyrian settled himself at the prow.
  34. amiss
    in an improper or mistaken manner
    He didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss.
  35. galumph
    move around heavily and clumsily
    Leaving Fyrian at the crater’s edge, he galumphed down to his beloved swamp.
  36. stasis
    inactivity resulting from a balance between opposing forces
    “She is in stasis. And the cocoon holds her magic inside.”
  37. sentinel
    a person employed to keep watch for some anticipated event
    They had surrounded the central, older Tower like sentinels, and the castle had wrapped around the whole of it like a snake eating its tail.
  38. lattice
    framework consisting of an ornamental wood or metal design
    Xan spent well over half a day just trying to find it, and once she did, it was a full hour of hard labor just to dislodge the lattice of persistent ivy.
  39. confound
    be confusing or perplexing to
    And after all these years, Xan remembered how annoying she had found it then.
    “Confound that man,” she said.
  40. tome
    a large and scholarly book
    The scholar,
    when bereft of scroll,
    of quill,
    of heavy tome,
    Falls.
Created on Mon Feb 26 17:33:25 EST 2018 (updated Fri Mar 09 11:07:49 EST 2018)

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