The Lightning Thief: Chapters 13–17

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. accost
    approach and speak to someone aggressively or insistently
    Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of his mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where he accosted several elderly female passengers.
  2. chimera
    a mythical creature formed from the parts of other animals
    The Chimera was now so tall its back rubbed against the roof. It had the head of a lion with a blood-caked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind.
  3. rabid
    infected by an acute viral disease of the nervous system
    The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized dog tag was now easy to read: CHIMERA—RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS—IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS—EXT. 954.
  4. plummet
    drop sharply
    My clothes on fire, poison coursing through my veins, I plummeted toward the river.
  5. trundle
    move along on or as if on wheels or a wheeled vehicle
    The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.
  6. temperamental
    subject to sharply varying moods
    “He’s still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental.”
  7. defunct
    no longer in force or use; inactive
    Soon, all three of us were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park.
  8. subside
    sink to a lower level or form a depression
    The water was subsiding.
  9. metamorphosis
    striking change in appearance or character or circumstances
    She was turned into a shower of gold, right? That’s metamorphosis. Not death.
  10. dais
    a platform raised above the surrounding level
    The empty, horrid throne was made from human bones fused together. Standing at the foot of the dais was my mother, frozen in shimmering golden light, her arms outstretched.
  11. vagrant
    a wanderer with no established residence or means of support
    It was a hundred and ten degrees, easy, and we must’ve looked like deep-fried vagrants, but everybody was too interested in the wild animals to pay us much attention.
  12. shoal
    a stretch of shallow water
    I walked down into the shoals. I shouldn’t have been able to see through the murk, but somehow I could tell where everything was. I could sense the rolling texture of the bottom. I could make out sand-dollar colonies dotting the sandbars. I could even see the currents, warm and cold streams swirling together.
  13. tentatively
    in a hesitant manner
    But the thing wasn’t attacking. It was nuzzling me. Heeling like a dog. Tentatively, I touched its dorsal fin.
  14. qualm
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    I had no qualms about what I was about to do. If Crusty were human, I couldn’t hurt him anyway. If he was a monster, he deserved to turn into dust for a while.
  15. compendium
    a concise but comprehensive summary of a larger work
    There was an advertisement for Hermes Delivery Service, and another for the All-New Compendium of L.A. Area Monsters—“The only Monstrous Yellow Pages you’ll ever need!”
Created on Sun Jan 26 16:33:39 EST 2014 (updated Thu Jun 12 15:23:29 EDT 2025)

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