White Fang: Part 4

by Jack London
Half dog, half wolf, White Fang struggles to survive in the wilderness — and to navigate the complicated world of humans. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
15 words 453 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. aloof
    distant, cold, or detached in manner
    He did not mingle with it, but remained aloof, always himself, and was even feared by it.
  2. parsimony
    extreme stinginess
    Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature had spread his features with a lavish hand.
  3. drudgery
    hard, monotonous, routine work
    He did the cooking for the other men in the fort, the dish-washing and the drudgery.
  4. tutelage
    attention and management implying responsibility for safety
    Under the tutelage of the mad god, White Fang became a fiend.
  5. superfluous
    more than is needed, desired, or required
    From his mother he had inherited the heavier proportions of the dog, so that he weighed, without any fat and without an ounce of superfluous flesh, over ninety pounds.
  6. ponderous
    having great mass and weight and unwieldiness
    He was too ponderous and slow.
  7. inexorable
    impossible to prevent, resist, or stop
    It was like Fate itself, and as inexorable.
  8. rejoinder
    a quick reply to a question or remark
    “You’ve forfeited your rights to own that dog,” was the rejoinder.
  9. belie
    be in contradiction with
    He had a feeling of security that was belied by all his experience with men.
  10. overt
    open and observable; not secret or hidden
    White Fang pricked his ears and investigated it suspiciously, managing to look at the same time both at the meat and the god, alert for any overt act, his body tense and ready to spring away at the first sign of hostility.
  11. languish
    become feeble
    He had gone to the roots of White Fang’s nature, and with kindness touched to life potencies that had languished and well-nigh perished.
  12. fealty
    the loyalty that one owes to a country, sovereign, or lord
    In acknowledgment of fealty, he proceeded to take upon himself the guardianship of his master’s property.
  13. burgeon
    grow and flourish
    There was a burgeoning within him of strange feelings and unwonted impulses.
  14. reticence
    the trait of being uncommunicative
    Too long had he cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness.
  15. vicariously
    indirectly, as, by, or through a substitute
    Matt did that, it was his business; yet White Fang divined that it was his master’s food he ate and that it was his master who thus fed him vicariously.
Created on Mon Dec 16 16:36:01 EST 2019 (updated Tue Jun 24 10:54:09 EDT 2025)

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.