Stories of Ourselves: "Secrets" by Bernard MacLaverty

While his aunt is dying, a young man remembers how he was caught reading her secret letters when he was a boy.

Here are links to our lists for the short stories in Stories of Ourselves:
The Hollow of the Three Hills, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Signalman, The Happy Prince, The Yellow Wall Paper, The Son’s Veto, The Open Boat, The Moving Finger, The Door in the Wall, Sredni Vashtar, How It Happened, Her First Ball, The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection, The Fly in the Ointment, The Custody of the Pumpkin, An Englishman’s Home, The Phoenix, There Will Come Soft Rains, The Prison, The Destructors, Meteor, Billenium, The Lemon Orchard, The People Before, The Enemy, Five-Twenty, A Horse and Two Goats, Report on the Threatened City, The Rain Horse, Ming’s Biggest Prey, The Village Saint, Secrets, The Stoat, Games at Twilight, The Taste of Watermelon, Journey (Patricia Grace), The Bath, My Greatest Ambition, To Da-duh, in Memoriam, Of White Hairs and Cricket, Elephant, Sandpiper, Journey (Shirley Geok-Lin Um), The Third and Final Continent, Tyres, At Hiruharama, Real Time, On Her Knees, The Contest
25 words 55 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. threshold
    the entrance for passing through a room or building
    His knees were on the wooden threshold and he edged them forward onto the carpet.
  2. guttural
    relating to or articulated in the throat
    The noise, deep and guttural, that his aunt was making became intolerable to him.
  3. dignity
    the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect
    She had lost all the dignity he knew her to have.
  4. iris
    a plant with bright flowers composed of three petals
    On the table was a cut-glass vase of irises, dying because she had been in bed for over a week.
  5. cameo
    engraving or carving in low relief on a stone
    She wore no jewellery except a cameo ring on the third finger of her right hand and, around her neck, a gold locket on a chain.
  6. indistinct
    not clearly defined or easy to perceive or understand
    The white classical profile on the ring was almost worn through and had become translucent and indistinct.
  7. extract
    a passage selected from a larger work
    In the beginning fairy tales, then as he got older extracts from famous novels, Lorna Doone, Persuasion, Wuthering Heights and her favourite extract, because she read it so often, Pip’s meeting with Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.
  8. brooch
    a decorative pin
    He loved hearing her tell of how her grandmother had given it to her as a brooch and she had had a ring made from it.
  9. inquisitive
    given to questioning
    ‘Don’t be so inquisitive,’ she’d say.
  10. nib
    the writing point of a pen
    She wiped the nib on blotting paper and looked up at him over her reading glasses.
  11. alcove
    a small recess opening off a large room or garden
    She got up from the table and went to the tall walnut bureau-bookcase standing in the alcove.
  12. procession
    the action of a group moving ahead in regular formation
    He sat on the arm of the chair looking through the picture post-cards – torchlight processions at Lourdes, brown photographs of town centres, dull black and whites of beaches backed by faded hotels.
  13. flourish
    move or swing back and forth
    His flourishing signature appeared again and again.
  14. bureau
    furniture with drawers for keeping clothes
    She came over to the bureau and helped tidy the photographs away.
  15. brittle
    having little elasticity
    The elastic band was thick and old, brittle almost and when he took it off its track remained on the wad of letters.
  16. frail
    easily broken or damaged or destroyed
    He carefully opened one and took out the letter and unfolded it, frail, khaki-coloured.
  17. censor
    subject to deletion on political or moral grounds
    I have spent what seems like all day censoring letters (there is a howitzer about 100 yds away firing every 2 minutes).
  18. heartrending
    causing or marked by grief or anguish
    The letters are heartrending in their attempt to express what they cannot.
  19. nape
    the back side of the neck
    Your long dark hair – I always imagine you wearing the blouse with the tiny roses, the white one that opened down the back – your eyes that said so much without words, the way you lowered your head when I said anything that embarrassed you, and the clean nape of your neck.
  20. slate
    fine-grained metamorphic rock that can be split into layers
    You can distinguish them from the living because their faces are the colour of slate.
  21. sheer
    complete and without restriction
    The only emotion I have experienced lately is one of anger. Sheer white trembling anger.
  22. shrapnel
    shell containing lead pellets that explodes in flight
    A piece of shrapnel had pierced his neck as we were moving under fire.
  23. carnage
    the savage and excessive killing of many people
    In some strange way Christ has spoken to me through the carnage...
  24. frantically
    in an uncontrolled manner
    Suddenly the boy heard the creak of the stair and he frantically tried to slip the letter back into its envelope but it crumpled and would not fit.
  25. stratum
    one of several parallel layers of material
    They built into strata, glowing red and black.
Created on Tue Mar 13 14:25:02 EDT 2018 (updated Fri Mar 23 15:40:02 EDT 2018)

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.