Treasure Island: Part I

by Robert Louis Stevenson
In this tale of pirates and plunder, Jim Hawkins sets out for Skeleton Island to find buried treasure. Read the full text here.

Here are links to all of our lists for the novel: Part I, Parts II–III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. connoisseur
    an expert able to appreciate a field
    This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.
  2. rebuff
    an instance of driving away or warding off
    If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through his nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and stared my poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened his early and unhappy death.
  3. ruffian
    a cruel and brutal fellow
    "Were you addressing me, sir?" says the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir," replies the doctor, "that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!"
  4. indignation
    a feeling of righteous anger
    I remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I heard of him as he turned the big rock was a loud snort of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey.
  5. gallows
    an instrument from which a person is executed by hanging
    It was tattooed in several places. "Here's luck," "A fair wind," and "Billy Bones, his fancy," were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm; and up near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from it—done, as I thought, with great spirit.
  6. lancet
    a surgical knife with a pointed double-edged blade
    "Well, then," said he, "you hold the basin," and with that he took his lancet and opened a vein.
  7. magistrate
    a lay judge or civil authority who administers the law
    Well, then, you get on a horse and go to—well, yes, I will!—to that eternal doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all hands—magistrates and sich—and he'll lay 'em aboard at the 'Admiral Benbow'—all old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left.
  8. apoplexy
    a loss of consciousness from the lack of oxygen in the brain
    The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy.
    Although the captain was already weakened by too much rum and a previous stroke, the "thundering apoplexy" that causes his death was triggered by his knowledge that he had been given the black spot and would be killed in six hours; so in a way, the captain died from a fear of death.
  9. repugnance
    intense aversion
    Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his own gully, we found the key.
  10. formidable
    inspiring fear or dread
    Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on the road with the formidable beggar.
    Another definition of "formidable" is "extremely impressive in strength or excellence"—this does not fit the example sentence, because the adjective is referring to a blind beggar who is inspiring fear through his curses and commands. However, the narrator Jim and the author Stevenson could've intended some irony, especially since both know what happens to the beggar later in the chapter.
  11. reiterate
    say, state, or perform again
    "Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!" reiterated Pew, striking with his stick upon the road.
  12. buccaneer
    someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea
    I had thought it to be the blind man's trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault; but I now found that it was a signal from the hillside toward the hamlet, and, from its effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger.
  13. skulk
    avoid responsibilities and duties
    You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there skulking.
  14. miscreant
    a person without moral scruples
    These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp.
  15. hummock
    a small natural mound
    The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it.
Created on Fri Mar 01 14:09:47 EST 2013 (updated Wed Aug 06 15:14:04 EDT 2025)

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