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Unit 6: Selection Vocabulary 4

This list covers "The Four Foods," "Gaman," "Demeter’s Prayer to Hades," and "The Color of an Awkward Conversation."
17 words 2 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. imposing
    befitting an important, distinguished, or powerful person
    My father is an imposing man. Small, with dark, sad eyes and gums that bleed when he brushes them in the morning. I ask my mother why he scares me so much.
  2. figuratively
    in a non-literal sense
    “But figuratively, the Old World—” That evening, my mother scolds me over the phone. “There is no figuratively,” she says. “Why do you always have to blab about what you don’t know?”
  3. agitated
    troubled emotionally and usually deeply
    I imagine my father sitting at his typewriter, whacking at the keys with agitated fingers.
  4. compartment
    a partitioned section within a larger enclosed area
    She places a plastic tray wrapped in aluminum foil on my father’s lap, then disappears behind the curtain. I sit at the edge of my father’s bed and remove the foil. Together we study the four compartments: chicken, broccoli, pears, water.
  5. ripe
    fully developed or matured and ready to be eaten or used
    how the orchards would swell with fruit,
    how the trees would strain, then give way

    under their ripe weight.
  6. intervene
    get involved, so as to alter or hinder an action
    Someone
    would intervene, would make of our absence

    a profit.
  7. anticipate
    realize beforehand
    But what we don't anticipate
    is how the dust of the desert will clot our throats
  8. demonstrate
    provide evidence for
    And how our children will read this silence

    as shame. However much we tried, we thought,
    to demonstrate grace.
  9. grace
    a sense of propriety and consideration for others
    And how our children will read this silence

    as shame. However much we tried, we thought,
    to demonstrate grace.
  10. understand
    know and comprehend the nature or meaning of
    This alone is what I wish for you: knowledge.
    To understand each desire has an edge,
    to know we are responsible for the lives
    we change.
  11. faith
    a strong belief in a divine power or powers
    No faith comes without cost,
    no one believes without dying.
  12. mortal
    a human being
    There are no curses—only mirrors
    held up to the souls of gods and mortals.
  13. baffling
    hard to comprehend, solve, or believe
    And so, although I grew up reading books about the baffling places where black people were treated badly for being black, race remained an exotic abstraction: It was Kunta Kinte.
  14. similar
    having the same or nearly the same characteristics
    I was angry that his behavior left Stephen bewildered, and for a long time I half-expected something similar to happen in other homes that displayed American flags.
  15. affluent
    having an abundant supply of money or possessions of value
    “Ignorant” suggested that an affluent, educated American living in a Philadelphia suburb in 1999 did not realize that black people are human beings.
  16. benign
    not dangerous to health; not recurrent or progressive
    They believe that black people still encounter unpleasantness related to blackness but in benign forms and from unhappy people or crazy people or people with good intentions that are bungled in execution.
  17. manifest
    reveal its presence or make an appearance
    Although the way that blackness manifests itself in America has changed since 1965, the way that it is talked about has not.
Created on Tue Dec 08 14:16:08 EST 2020 (updated Thu Dec 10 13:22:40 EST 2020)

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