My Life with the Chimpanzees: Chapter 4

by Jane Goodall
In this memoir, primatologist Jane Goodall recounts her childhood love of animals and her work with chimpanzees in Africa.

Here are links to our lists for the memoir: Chapters 1–3, Chapter 4, Chapters 5–7, Chapters 8–11
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. apartheid
    a social policy of racial segregation
    The South African towns of Cape Town and Durban were very beautiful. But I hated the practice of apartheid—the legal separation of blacks and whites.
  2. port
    where people and merchandise can enter or leave a country
    Twenty-one days after leaving London we steamed into Mombasa, the coastal port of Kenya.
  3. fringe
    adorn with a decorative border
    His beautiful dark eyes were fringed with long lashes.
  4. canter
    go at a smooth three-beat gait, of horses
    Finally he turned and cantered away.
  5. anthropologist
    a social scientist specializing in the study of humanity
    Leakey was an anthropologist and paleontologist who was interested in animals and Early Man.
  6. paleontologist
    a specialist in fossil organisms and related remains
    Leakey was an anthropologist and paleontologist who was interested in animals and Early Man.
  7. strew
    be dispersed over
    So I made an appointment and went to see him in his big, untidy office, strewn with papers, fossil bones, teeth, stone tools, and all kinds of other things—including a big cage in which lived a minute mouse with her six babies.
  8. missionary
    someone sent to a foreign country to spread a religion
    He knew perhaps more than any white man about the Kikuyu, too, since his missionary father had allowed him to grow up almost as part of the tribe.
  9. accordance
    concurrence or agreement of opinion
    When he was two days old he was set outside the house in his crib, and in accordance with Kikuyu custom, all the elders of the tribe walked past to give him their blessing.
  10. initiation
    a formal entry into an organization or position or office
    Later, as an adolescent, he went through the initiation rights with the other Kikuyu boys with whom he had grown up.
  11. expedition
    a journey organized for a particular purpose
    Before I started to work in the museum, Louis and his wife Mary took Gillian, another girl who worked at the museum, and me on an expedition.
  12. bygone
    well in the past; former
    They already knew a great deal about the prehistoric creatures that roamed the Serengeti in bygone years.
  13. squabble
    argue over petty things
    And later, as I lay on my little cot, I heard a strange, high-pitched sound that I later learned was the “giggling” of hyenas squabbling over some prey.
  14. implement
    a piece of equipment or a tool used for a specific purpose
    We got on well together, sweating away as we swung the heavy implements.
  15. relic
    an antiquity that has survived from the distant past
    Once we found a bone, we used dental picks (the same kind dentists use in your mouth) to carefully free the precious relic from its resting place.
  16. crude
    belonging to an early stage of technical development
    I myself had found ancient stone tools, very crude and primitive, that had probably been used as hammers.
  17. primitive
    belonging to an early stage of technical development
    I myself had found ancient stone tools, very crude and primitive, that had probably been used as hammers.
  18. remote
    inaccessible and sparsely populated
    It was so wild and so remote when I was there.
  19. undergrowth
    the brush beneath taller trees in a wood or forest
    She, however, wanted to hide away from the lion in the thick undergrowth at the bottom of the gorge.
  20. consolation
    the comfort you feel when soothed in times of disappointment
    My only consolation was that I could continue to work for Louis and to learn about animals.
  21. gourd
    container made from the dried shell of a large, round fruit
    In the daytime he was mostly asleep in a large gourd on top of a cupboard in Louis’s office.
  22. conventional
    conforming with accepted standards
    There were some more conventional pets, too: Tana, a beautiful white and lemon cocker spaniel who was given to me, and Hobo, a springer spaniel I looked after for a friend.
  23. lore
    knowledge gained through tradition or anecdote
    Louis, skilled in bush lore, followed the leopard’s tracks and the trail of dried blood, until we found the body of the huge dog.
  24. vain
    unproductive of success
    The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I vainly looked among the branches and into the tangled undergrowth all around.
  25. defiantly
    in a rebellious manner
    He was so beautiful, so terrified, so defiantly brave as he spat and snarled at his human captors through the bars.
Created on Tue Aug 27 10:36:50 EDT 2019 (updated Tue Aug 27 10:40:35 EDT 2019)

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