The Lightning Thief: Chapters 1–4

by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson's normal life is turned upside down when gods from Greek mythology accuse him of stealing a supernatural weapon. Percy must find the real thief — and figure out his connection to the gods.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–8, Chapters 9–12, Chapters 13–17, Chapters 18–22

Here are links to our lists for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus series.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. wispy
    thin and weak
    He must’ve been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin.
  2. stele
    an ancient upright stone slab bearing markings
    He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides.
  3. disgorge
    eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth
    Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan’s stomach.
  4. scythe
    an edge tool for cutting grass
    The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld.
  5. dyslexia
    impaired ability to learn to read
    But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C– in my life.
  6. philosophical
    relating to the investigation of existence and knowledge
    Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, “Can I have your apple?”
  7. materialize
    come into being; become reality
    Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.
  8. frieze
    an ornament consisting of a horizontal sculptured band
    Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods.
  9. pulverize
    destroy completely
    Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it.
  10. solstice
    when the sun is at its greatest distance from the equator
    “My nerves haven’t been right since the winter solstice.”
  11. hallucination
    illusory perception
    I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword.
  12. cloven
    (used of hooves) split, divided
    Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.
  13. satyr
    one of a class of woodland deities
    There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!
  14. chassis
    the skeleton of a motor vehicle
    He picked up Gabe’s Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road.
  15. disintegrate
    break into parts or components or lose cohesion or unity
    He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.
Created on Sun Jan 26 15:39:04 EST 2014 (updated Wed Jun 11 17:46:33 EDT 2025)

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