The Scarlet Letter: Chapters 20–24

by Nathaniel Hawthorne
After having a child out of wedlock, Hester Prynne is shunned by her Puritan community and forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing—but Hester is not the only one who has transgressed. This classic novel explores guilt, sin, and hypocrisy.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: The Custom-House, Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–8, Chapters 9–13, Chapters 14–19, Chapters 20–24

Here are links to our lists for other works by Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, The House of the Seven Gables, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Feathertop, Rappaccini's Daughter, The Minister's Black Veil, Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. duplicity
    the act of deceiving or acting in bad faith
    In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and himself had sketched for their departure.
  2. obeisance
    dutiful or submissive behavior
    Never was there a more beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom may comport with the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a lower social rank, and inferior order of endowment, towards a higher.
  3. transitory
    lasting a very short time
    It was a maiden newly-won — and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale's own sermon, on the Sabbath after his vigil — to barter the transitory pleasures of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume brighter substance as life grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with final glory.
  4. gratuitous
    without cause
    Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke to tempt, even while they frightened him.
  5. mien
    a person's appearance, manner, or demeanor
    It might be, on this one day, that there was an expression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to be detected now; unless some preternaturally gifted observer should have first read the heart, and have afterwards sought a corresponding development in the countenance and mien.
  6. effervescence
    irrepressible liveliness and good spirit
    This effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement, rather than walk by her mother's side.
  7. jocularity
    a feeling of facetious merriment
    All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which give law its vitality.
  8. scruple
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    They transgressed, without fear or scruple, the rules of behavior that were binding on all others; smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing, at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitæ from pocket-flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them.
  9. depredation
    an act of plundering and pillaging and marauding
    There could be little doubt, for instance, that this very ship's crew, though no unfavourable specimens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it, of depredations on the Spanish commerce, such as would have perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice.
  10. probity
    complete and confirmed integrity
    The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling and become at once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic or casually associate.
  11. animadversion
    harsh criticism or disapproval
    Thus the Puritan elders in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamour and rude deportment of these jolly seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion when so reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter the market-place in close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel.
  12. consternation
    sudden shock or dismay that causes confusion
    "They know each other well, indeed," replied Hester, with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost consternation.
  13. surmise
    imagine to be the case or true or probable
    What imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both!
  14. nugatory
    of no real value
    According to these highly-respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying — conscious, also, that the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels — had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own righteousness.
  15. bequeath
    leave or give, especially by will after one's death
    At old Roger Chillingworth's decease, (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr. Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in England to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne.
Created on Tue Mar 05 16:22:23 EST 2013 (updated Thu Jul 03 11:57:45 EDT 2025)

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