Things Fall Apart: Chapters 1–3

by Chinua Achebe
Centered around Okonkwo, an Igbo leader who is banished from his community, this novel explores the tension between white missionaries and tribal culture in Nigeria.

Here are links to all our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–8, Chapters 9–13, Chapters 14–19, Chapters 20–25
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. improvident
    not supplying something useful for the future
    In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.
  2. impending
    close in time; about to occur
    When they had eaten they talked about many things: about the heavy rains which were drowning the yams, about the next ancestral feast and about the impending war with the village of Mbaino.
  3. plaintive
    expressing sorrow
    He could hear in his mind's ear the blood-stirring and intricate rhythms of the ekwe and the udu and the ogene, and he could hear his own flute weaving in and out of them, decorating them with a colorful and plaintive tune.
  4. amiss
    not functioning properly
    Okonkwo wondered what was amiss, for he knew certainly that something was amiss.
  5. discern
    perceive, recognize, or detect
    He had discerned a clear overtone of tragedy in the crier's voice, and even now he could still hear it as it grew dimmer and dimmer in the distance.
  6. ultimatum
    a final peremptory demand
    An ultimatum was immediately dispatched to Mbaino asking them to choose between war on the one hand, and on the other the offer of a young man and a virgin as compensation.
  7. foolhardy
    marked by defiant disregard for danger or consequences
    And if anybody was so foolhardy as to pass by the shrine after dusk he was sure to see the old woman hopping about.
  8. imperious
    having or showing arrogant superiority
    And so when Okonkwo of Umuofia arrived at Mbaino as the proud and imperious emissary of war, he was treated with great honor and respect, and two days later he returned home with a lad of fifteen and a young virgin.
  9. emissary
    someone sent to represent another's interests
    And so when Okonkwo of Umuofia arrived at Mbaino as the proud and imperious emissary of war, he was treated with great honor and respect, and two days later he returned home with a lad of fifteen and a young virgin.
  10. interim
    the time between one event, process, or period and another
    As for the boy, he belonged to the clan as a whole, and there was no hurry to decide his fate. Okonkwo was, therefore, asked on behalf of the clan to look after him in the interim.
  11. capricious
    changeable
    But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw.
  12. incipient
    only partly in existence; imperfectly formed
    Okonkwo's first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness.
  13. abomination
    an action that arouses disgust or abhorrence
    He died of the swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess.
  14. contemptible
    deserving of scorn or disrespect
    And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father's contemptible life and shameful death.
  15. luxuriant
    produced or growing in extreme abundance
    The yams put on luxuriant green leaves, but every farmer knew that without sunshine the tubers would not grow.
Created on Fri Mar 22 16:15:58 EDT 2013 (updated Tue Jul 01 12:32:24 EDT 2025)

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