The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Chapters 16–24

by L. Frank Baum
During a cyclone, Dorothy Gale and her dog are transported from Kansas to a strange land where she seeks a wizard to help them get home. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–10, Chapters 11–15, Chapters 16–24

For more of our lists about the adventures in Oz, click your mouse once here.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. engaged
    having one's attention or mind or energy consumed
    The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the window, engaged in deep thought.
  2. thoroughly
    completely and absolutely
    Then he entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed with a great many pins and needles. Having shaken them together thoroughly, he filled the top of the Scarecrow’s head with the mixture and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place.
  3. fulfillment
    a feeling of satisfaction at having achieved your desires
    The Scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his greatest wish, and having thanked Oz warmly he went back to his friends.
  4. mourn
    feel sadness
    “Truly I should be ungrateful if I failed to mourn for the man who gave me my lovely heart. I should like to cry a little because Oz is gone, if you will kindly wipe away my tears, so that I shall not rust.”
  5. summon
    call in an official matter, such as to attend court
    So the soldier was summoned and entered the Throne Room timidly, for while Oz was alive he never was allowed to come farther than the door.
  6. steeple
    a tall tower that forms the superstructure of a building
    All they could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and high up above everything the spires and dome of the Palace of Oz.
  7. headlong
    with the upper or anterior part of the body foremost
    So he walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under the first branches they bent down and twined around him, and the next minute he was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his fellow travelers.
  8. prim
    exaggeratedly proper
    “My lady fair,
    Why do you stare
    At poor old Mr. Joker?
    You’re quite as stiff
    And prim as if
    You’d eaten up a poker!”
  9. brittle
    not annealed and consequently easily cracked or fractured
    "That was too bad," said Dorothy, "but really I think we were lucky in not doing these little people more harm than breaking a cow's leg and a church. They are all so brittle!"
    Another definition of "brittle" is "lacking warmth and generosity of spirit"—this could describe the emotional nature of the china animals and people; because they are so physically brittle, they are more likely to run away than welcome strangers into their country.
  10. rank
    growing profusely
    After climbing down from the china wall the travelers found themselves in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with tall, rank grass. It was difficult to walk without falling into muddy holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight.
  11. assemblage
    a group of persons together in one place
    As he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the great assemblage hushed as if by magic.
  12. foe
    a personal enemy
    The great spider was lying asleep when the Lion found him, and it looked so ugly that its foe turned up his nose in disgust.
  13. boisterous
    noisy and lacking in restraint or discipline
    A chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and Dorothy saw hundreds of the armless Hammer-Heads upon the hillside, one behind every rock.
  14. presentable
    fit to be seen
    When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies.
  15. deprive
    keep from having, keeping, or obtaining
    "By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City," said Glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler."
Created on Fri Jul 07 12:16:38 EDT 2023 (updated Wed Aug 06 14:28:44 EDT 2025)

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