Krik? Krak!: Night Women

by Edwidge Danticat
In this short story collection, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat explores everyday life in Haiti.

Here are links to our lists for the stories in the collection: Children of the Sea, Nineteen Thirty-Seven, A Wall of Fire Rising, Night Women, Between the Pool and the Gardenias, The Missing Peace, Seeing Things Simply, New York Day Women, Caroline's Wedding, Epilogue: Women Like Us, In the Old Days
15 words 34 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. furrow
    a slight depression in the smoothness of a surface
    I watch as he digs furrows in the pillow with his head.
  2. suitor
    a man who courts a woman
    He wraps my long blood-red scarf around his neck, the one I wear myself during the day to tempt my suitors.
  3. amber
    of a medium to dark brownish yellow color
    I am stuck between the day and night in a golden amber bronze.
  4. matted
    tangled in a dense mass
    I want to wear my matted tresses in braids as soon as I learn to do my whole head without numbing my arms.
  5. crest
    the top line of a hill, mountain, or wave
    There is a place in Ville Rose where ghost women ride the crests of waves while brushing the stars out of their hair.
  6. woo
    make amorous advances towards
    There they woo strollers and leave the stars on the path for them.
  7. toil
    productive work, especially physical work done for wages
    These women, they destroy their toil so that they will always have more to do.
  8. cleft
    a split or indentation in something
    When my smallest finger caresses the narrow cleft beneath his nose, sometimes his tongue slips out of his mouth and he licks my fingernail.
  9. painstaking
    characterized by extreme care and great effort
    I know that sometimes he wonders why I take such painstaking care.
  10. tread
    put down, place, or press the foot
    We put on his ruffled Sunday suit and I tell him that we are expecting a sweet angel and where angels tread, the hosts must be as beautiful as floating hibiscus.
  11. madrigal
    an unaccompanied partsong for several voices
    I hear him humming a song. One of the madrigals they still teach children on very hot afternoons in public schools.
  12. rouge
    makeup consisting of powder applied to the cheeks
    I apply another layer of the Egyptian rouge to my cheeks.
  13. court
    make amorous advances towards
    He arrives bearing flowers as though he’s come to court me.
  14. accordion
    a portable box-shaped free-reed instrument
    On Mondays and Thursdays, it is an accordion player named Alexandre.
  15. fabrication
    a deliberately false or improbable account
    Should my son wake up, I have prepared my fabrication.
Created on Mon Sep 10 13:07:44 EDT 2018 (updated Tue Sep 11 14:49:48 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.