Winterhouse: Part Four

by Ben Guterson
In this first book of the Winterhouse trilogy, eleven-year-old orphan Elizabeth Somers is sent by her aunt and uncle to a hotel in the snowy mountains, where she discovers magical mysteries and adventures with the other guests and owner.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
40 words 10 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. consistently
    in a systematic or steady manner
    And in her own room late after dinner each night, when the hotel quieted, she practiced summoning the feeling and was consistently able to move one of her books, a solid volume of The Wind in the Willows, ever so slightly.
  2. confinement
    the act of keeping something within specified bounds
    On the third morning of their confinement, Elizabeth sat with Freddy in his workshop as he put the final touches on his WonderLog.
  3. idly
    in a lazy, casual, or aimless way
    As they talked about the upcoming New Year’s Eve party and even—yet again—about the Hiemses and what the connection might be between them and the crimson light and the bridge, Elizabeth worked idly on a coded message.
  4. register
    enter into someone's consciousness
    She had been certain the crate was somewhere in the apartment, but seeing it like this was so disorienting it took a moment for the sight to register with her.
  5. expend
    use up or consume fully
    She found it necessary to expend nearly all her powers during a critical moment of confrontation, and it has left her just shy of her ultimate end.
  6. facility
    skillful performance or ability without difficulty
    Through her facility with the Dredforth Method, however, she liberated her spirit body from her physical body at the last moment in order to preserve them both.
  7. entail
    impose, involve, or imply as a necessary result
    At some future point, if you yourself keep your powers strong, you will learn when and how to assist your mother, which most likely will entail the aid of a member of the Falls family, knowingly or unknowingly.
  8. concoct
    devise or invent
    She concocted a story for Norbridge about seeing the Hiemses taking a puppy into their room—against hotel regulations—and pleaded with him to retrieve the poor thing right away.
  9. flit
    move along rapidly and lightly; skim or dart
    Elizabeth had an awful night, kept dreaming of crimson lights out in the frosty darkness beyond the hotel’s walls or even flitting by in the corridor outside her room.
  10. levitate
    be suspended in the air, as if in defiance of gravity
    Norbridge was looking at her as if she’d told him she was going to levitate and he was waiting for it to happen.
  11. dire
    causing fear or dread or terror
    She felt certain the Hiemses were putting their plan into place and that Norbridge simply didn’t understand how dire things were.
  12. futile
    producing no result or effect
    She examined her notebook as she stood before the portrait, looked at all the words she and Freddy had tested out as the possible keyword and all the ones starting with “AR” she had tried herself. It seemed futile.
  13. fitful
    intermittently stopping and starting
    Elizabeth gazed out into the night; she felt the warmth and silence of Norbridge’s room and gave a yawn as she remembered just how fitful her sleep had been the night before.
  14. lurch
    move suddenly or as if unable to control one's movements
    The tremor swelled and her head began to buzz and then, just as the feeling moved through her, the plate lurched to one side, tipped over the edge of the table, and fell to the floor with a crash.
  15. intone
    speak carefully, as with rising and falling pitch
    If in your hands you hold The Book
    It’s up to you then—saint or crook?
    If it’s the last, be cruel, be mad
    And utter this: “I choose the bad”
    But if the first, calm if you would
    Intone just this: “I choose the good”
  16. regal
    belonging to or befitting a supreme ruler
    Maria, with her dark hair and gentle green eyes, wore a white dress and looked as regal as a queen.
  17. acrid
    strong and sharp, as a taste or smell
    An awful smell—the acrid bite of a just-lit matchstick combined with a deeper odor of something rotten beneath—filled the air, and Elizabeth scrunched her nose in disgust.
  18. uncanny
    surpassing the ordinary or normal
    The strangeness of it—that the old woman had actually skimmed forward in a flash—sent a shock through Elizabeth’s body as though she’d been hit with slivers of broken glass; it was so uncanny and unexpected that Elizabeth felt paralyzed.
  19. leer
    a suggestive or sneering look or grin
    She gave a weird leer of pleasure, jutted her face in Elizabeth’s direction, and bugged her eyes out.
  20. lull
    make calm or still
    Something in the back of Elizabeth’s mind was whispering to her, was telling her not to keep looking into Gracella’s eyes; but she stood fixed in place as the old woman continued saying the words in a lulling, quiet chant.
  21. inexplicable
    incapable of being explained or accounted for
    She looked bigger somehow, as though she’d grown several inches or, in some inexplicable way, expanded her body; her crown of silver hair and her pale skin and the weird symbols on her black vest made her look foreboding and spectral.
  22. foreboding
    ominously prophetic
    She looked bigger somehow, as though she’d grown several inches or, in some inexplicable way, expanded her body; her crown of silver hair and her pale skin and the weird symbols on her black vest made her look foreboding and spectral.
  23. spectral
    resembling or characteristic of a phantom
    She looked bigger somehow, as though she’d grown several inches or, in some inexplicable way, expanded her body; her crown of silver hair and her pale skin and the weird symbols on her black vest made her look foreboding and spectral.
  24. slight
    pay no attention to; disrespect
    “And as he lies there, he can think about all the years he slighted me!”
  25. resourceful
    adroit or imaginative
    “It’s almost a shame you have to die,” Gracella said. “You seem like such a resourceful girl.”
  26. loathing
    hate coupled with disgust
    Gracella stared at her with bottomless loathing.
  27. poised
    marked by balance or equilibrium and readiness for action
    Gracella lifted her hands and seemed poised to strike Elizabeth.
  28. inclination
    a characteristic likelihood of or natural disposition
    And you have an inclination to practice deception, as well.
  29. awry
    away from the correct or expected course
    For several awful seconds, she felt that something had gone awry, that she had done the one wrong thing and now all was truly and totally lost.
  30. splay
    widen or spread apart
    She looked vastly different: The white of her face had drained to a sickly gray, the bun of her hair had gone slack so that her silver strands splayed in a wild tangle, and she seemed to have shrunk into herself.
  31. frail
    physically weak
    He was sitting up and rubbing a shoulder to revive himself. His voice was frail.
  32. tentative
    hesitant or lacking confidence; unsettled in mind or opinion
    Elizabeth took two tentative steps in her direction.
  33. unassuming
    not arrogant
    It was so unassuming, with such a dull cover.
  34. inert
    unable to move or resist motion
    She’d spoken a few magical words while holding it, and now it felt inert, merely a simple book.
  35. contemplate
    consider as a possibility
    The thought that they might be connected to Riley Granger—were, perhaps, even related to him—was something she had been contemplating ever since she uncovered the secret of Marcus’s signature on the card he’d given her.
  36. deferential
    showing courteous regard for people's feelings
    “You’ve hardly answered her question,” Leona said. “There’s a difference between knowing something and just having a funny feeling.”
    “Miss Springer is unwilling to be deferential, even on a night like this,” Norbridge said, and they all began to laugh.
  37. conjure
    summon into action or bring into existence
    Elizabeth felt thrilled throughout, as though she’d discovered her mother’s diary or stumbled upon some old home movies and was finally conjuring her mother to life in some degree.
  38. statute
    an act passed by a legislative body
    There are rules about these sorts of things. Statutes and regulations and so on.
  39. astray
    away from the right path or direction
    There will always be forces trying to distract you or lead you astray. Fight against them.
  40. vigilant
    carefully observant or attentive
    The moment we start feeling better than other people because of our capabilities is the moment we start to lose ourselves. So be vigilant, and be strong, and be good.
Created on Tue Apr 11 16:14:53 EDT 2023 (updated Tue Apr 25 11:01:38 EDT 2023)

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