Unbroken: Part III

by Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Hillenbrand recounts the tumultuous and amazingly true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who, after surviving 40 days adrift at sea, became a prisoner of war in Japan during World War II.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. lucid
    capable of thinking in a clear and consistent manner
    He could see that Louie had a nasty cut on his finger, near his USC ring, but was otherwise unhurt and lucid.
  2. bereft
    lacking or deprived of something
    Bereft of water, the cells begin to fail.
  3. apprehensive
    mentally upset over possible misfortune or danger
    On its end hung a slender pilot fish, about ten inches long. As Louie pulled it apart, everyone felt apprehensive. None of them had eaten raw fish before.
  4. specter
    a ghostly appearing figure
    One lieutenant had been visited by a specter who had tried to lure him to the bottom of the ocean.
  5. sustenance
    a source of food or nourishment
    Louie was more concerned about sanity than he was about sustenance.
  6. atrophy
    undergo weakening or degeneration as through lack of use
    He kept thinking of a college physiology class he had taken, in which the instructor had taught them to think of the mind as a muscle that would atrophy if left idle.
  7. incremental
    increasing gradually by regular degrees or additions
    Each day, Louie noticed incremental differences in his weight, and the weight of his raftmates, from the day before: the pants looser, the faces narrower.
  8. intermittently
    in a manner of stopping and starting at irregular intervals
    Rains came intermittently, leaving the men sucking up every drop that fell into their rain catchers.
  9. strafe
    attack from above with machine guns or cannon fire
    They couldn’t believe that the airmen, mistaking them for Japanese, would strafe unarmed castaways.
  10. extrapolate
    gain knowledge of by generalizing
    Extrapolating from these figures, they made educated guesses of when they’d reach the islands.
  11. prognostication
    a statement made about the future
    Mac didn’t join in on the prognostication.
  12. catatonic
    characterized by unresponsiveness or lack of movement
    Mac was virtually catatonic.
  13. leviathan
    a massive sea creature
    Swelling up from under the water came a leviathan: a vast white mouth, a broad back parting the surface, and a long dorsal fin, ghostly in the moonlight.
  14. unfettered
    not bound or restrained, as by shackles and chains
    In his head, he could roam anywhere, and he found that his mind was quick and clear, his imagination unfettered and supple.
  15. squalid
    foul and run-down and repulsive
    He was down the hall in a squalid hole like Louie’s.
Created on Mon May 12 21:45:02 EDT 2014 (updated Mon Jul 07 12:58:19 EDT 2025)

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