Unit 5: Vocabulary from Readings 5

This list covers "Birches," "The Death of the Hired Man," "Chicago," "America," "My City," and "Go Down, Death."
17 words 5 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. bracken
    large coarse fern often several feet high
    They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
    And they seem not to break
  2. subdue
    make subordinate, dependent, or subservient
    One by one he subdued his father’s trees
    By riding them down over and over again
    Until he took the stiffness out of them,
    And not one but hung limp, not one was left
    For him to conquer.
  3. poise
    a state of being balanced in a stable equilibrium
    He always kept his poise
    To the top branches, climbing carefully
    With the same pains you use to fill a cup
    Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
  4. lash
    strike as if by whipping
    It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
    And life is too much like a pathless wood
    Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
    Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
    From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
  5. grudge
    accept or admit unwillingly
    Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man
    Some humble way to save his self-respect.
  6. assurance
    freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities
    Harold’s young college-boy’s assurance piqued him.
  7. pique
    cause to feel resentment or indignation
    Harold’s young college-boy’s assurance piqued him.
  8. abide
    put up with something or somebody unpleasant
    Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—
    But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.
  9. husky
    muscular and heavily built
    Hog Butcher for the World,
    Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
    Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
    Stormy, husky, brawling,
    City of the Big Shoulders
  10. wanton
    not restrained or controlled
    And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of
    women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
  11. ignorant
    unaware because of a lack of relevant information
    Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
    Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle
  12. vigor
    active strength of body or mind
    Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
    Giving me strength erect against her hate.
  13. malice
    the quality of threatening evil
    Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
    I stand within her walls with not a shred
    Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
  14. unerring
    always accurate or correct
    Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
    And see her might and granite wonders there,
    Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
    Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
  15. subtle
    difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze
    But, ah! Manhattan’s sights and sounds, her smells,
    Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes
    From being of her a part, her subtle spells
  16. unutterable
    defying expression or description
    O God! the stark, unutterable pity,
    To be dead, and never again behold my city!
  17. furrow
    a slight depression in the smoothness of a surface
    And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
    And he smoothed the furrows from her face
Created on Wed Mar 03 09:37:01 EST 2021 (updated Fri Mar 12 12:13:47 EST 2021)

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