Still Life with Tornado: List 3

by A.S. King
Sixteen-year old Sarah is thrown into an existential crisis as she struggles to regain her artistic abilities while struggling with her parents' toxic relationship in the urban ruins of Philadelphia.

This list covers "Sweet Sixteen"–"All Before It."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3
35 words 15 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. dawdle
    waste time
    I decide not to dawdle.
  2. delinquent
    a young offender
    “Mostly at-risk kids. Kids who are messed up.”
    “Like delinquents or what?”
  3. gamut
    a complete extent or range
    “All of that. And runaways and kids in the system and orphans and kids who are just bored and don’t have much to do. The whole gamut.”
  4. elated
    full of high-spirited delight
    I’m elated to see her.
  5. contract
    be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness
    So far, none of us had contracted Montezuma’s Revenge and Mom trusted the fruit even though the guidebooks say to avoid the produce due to it being washed with tap water.
  6. undermine
    weaken or impair, especially gradually
    Dad said Mom was undermining his authority.
  7. reap
    get or derive
    I finally got my mother back—just a tiny bit—by having an existential crisis, and now ten-year-old Sarah is going to reap the benefits of my hard work.
  8. surly
    unfriendly and inclined toward anger or irritation
    Chet could get too drunk and be surly.
  9. clinical
    relating to or based on direct observation of patients
    He asked how my clinical rotation was going.
  10. geriatric
    relating to medical care of the elderly
    I was working in geriatrics that month. I said that the old men flirted with me.
  11. awol
    absent without leave
    Ten-year-old Sarah and my mother are at a movie. Dad is AWOL.
  12. pervasive
    spreading or spread throughout
    Dad was—and I knew it that day for sure—the pervasive seaweed in our family’s ocean.
  13. steep
    let sit in a liquid to extract a flavor or to cleanse
    She ran the water hot for a while to let the tea steep into the bath.
  14. dubious
    open to doubt or suspicion
    She looks at me with a very dubious face.
  15. tousle
    disarrange or rumple; dishevel
    I look her up and down, and she smiles and tousles my hair with her hand.
  16. sufficient
    of a quantity that can fulfill a need or requirement
    It was lunchtime and I’d been sufficiently steeped in my tea bath and Mom put aloe vera on me and helped me put on the most comfortable shirt I packed—a loose-fitting thing with tiny straps.
  17. gaudy
    marked by conspicuous display
    The gaudy clock on the wall chimes gaudily.
  18. contemplate
    consider as a possibility
    I contemplate telling him that I am Umbrella, but I decide against it.
  19. omit
    prevent from being included or considered or accepted
    Maybe I was trained to be omitted over and over and over again. Exclusion: not at all original.
  20. rile
    disturb, especially by minor irritations
    He’s all riled up and he stands and looks at the sidewalk like he’s trying to figure out a plan.
  21. tedious
    so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
    He’s in some sort of trance and I remember that trance. I remember weaving the headpiece that way. It was tedious work. Tiny, thin strands of wire in and out and in and out of the spokes.
  22. competent
    properly or sufficiently qualified, capable, or efficient
    I don’t know if this means I could also be a competent architect.
  23. goad
    provoke as by constant criticism
    I was crying because I’d goaded Bruce the way he’d been goaded his whole life.
  24. fester
    decay with an offensive smell
    “I’m angry because no one ever told me any of this before and you all thought I could grow up here and not know something was wrong. I feel like I’ve been festering in rotten water for sixteen years.”
  25. tinny
    thin, metallic, and displeasing in sound
    She takes her headphones off and the music still blares from them—a tinny sound of something larger.
  26. permeate
    spread or diffuse through
    From here, Bruce’s voice has the male bass that Dad’s has. It permeates the walls and the floorboards and I wonder when Dad will notice that there is another man in the house.
  27. dignitary
    an important or influential person
    Three years ago we had a global market meeting. There were people from all over the world. Dignitaries, diplomats, presidents, ex-presidents, et cetera.
  28. prolific
    intellectually productive
    The poster next to the display said that Posada lived from 1852 to 1913 and was well-known for his representations of Mexican life and people. It said he was prolific.
  29. morbid
    suggesting the horror of death and decay
    The pictures on the cube game were all skeletons. Dancing skeletons. A skeleton playing a small Mexican guitar. Skeletons at war. Skeletons in love.
    Mom said no at first. “Too morbid,” she said.
  30. unintelligible
    not clearly understood or expressed
    Dad yells at Bruce for a minute—mostly unintelligible stuff—and then the cops bring it back to the present.
  31. liable
    held legally responsible
    If he does something dumb to himself tonight, you two are liable same as I am as an RN.
  32. derelict
    worn and broken down by hard use
    “It’s derelict,” he says. “And dangerous.”
    “I feel at home here. Ruins. Lies. And look,” I say, running to the end of the hallway where there’s a two-story-high spray-painted windmill.
  33. surreal
    characterized by fantastic and incongruous imagery
    There was always ruin in my work. Whether it was color or feeling, or something surreal like an animal with no head.
  34. cistern
    a tank that holds the water used to flush a toilet
    Once he was gone there were no bottles hidden in the garage or the toilet cisterns.
  35. fallacy
    a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning
    Thick skin is a fallacy. The skin is an organ. It isn’t just about pimples and freckles and sunburn and wrinkles. All skin is thick skin.
Created on Thu Sep 15 09:57:07 EDT 2022 (updated Tue Oct 18 11:13:24 EDT 2022)

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.