An Emotion of Great Delight: Chapters 5–8

by Tahereh Mafi
With America still reeling from 9/11, seventeen-year-old Shadi struggles with her emotions, as she's surrounded by hatred for her Muslim community and grief from her family falling apart.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–4, Chapters 5–8, Chapters 9–12, Chapters 13–17, Chapters 18–23
40 words 11 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. proxy
    a person authorized to act for another
    Adults were always seeking me out—why? why?—to ask me direct and specific questions about international relations as if I were some kind of proxy for my parents, for their home country, for some larger answer to a desperate question.
  2. seasoned
    rendered competent through trial and experience
    As if my seventeen-year-old body were old enough to understand the complexities of any of this, as if I were a seasoned politician whose tenuous connection to a Middle Eastern country I rarely visited would suddenly make me an expert in politics.
  3. tenuous
    weak or unstable
    As if my seventeen-year-old body were old enough to understand the complexities of any of this, as if I were a seasoned politician whose tenuous connection to a Middle Eastern country I rarely visited would suddenly make me an expert in politics.
  4. abrade
    wear away
    I’d spun the spark wheel enough times that it had abraded the pad of my thumb.
  5. condone
    excuse, overlook, or make allowances for
    There was nothing in Islam that condoned the taking of innocent lives. And yet there it was, every day, every day, the conflation: Muslim terrorist. Islamic terrorist.
  6. latent
    potentially existing but not presently evident or realized
    I saw the latent danger in the storytelling, the caricature we were becoming, two billion Muslims quickly solidifying into a faceless, terrifying mass.
  7. caricature
    a representation of a person exaggerated for comic effect
    I saw the latent danger in the storytelling, the caricature we were becoming, two billion Muslims quickly solidifying into a faceless, terrifying mass.
  8. materialize
    come into being; become reality
    The piece was about the recklessness of our airstrikes on Afghan villages, about how our military intelligence appeared questionable; hundreds of innocent Afghans were killed in the search for Al Qaeda members who never materialized.
  9. mortification
    strong feelings of embarrassment
    “Astaghfirullah. This is shameful.”
    Mortification was a powerful chemical.
  10. shaft
    a column of light
    We were now positioned under the same shaft of light, his face so close to mine it scared me.
  11. saturated
    unable to dissolve still more of a substance
    My memories of them both were so saturated in emotion I could hardly breathe around the thoughts, and barreling face-first into my past wasn’t helping matters in my chest.
  12. insular
    narrowly restricted in outlook or scope
    Ali was, among other things, the kind of handsome that transcended the insular social circles frequented by most members of Middle Eastern communities.
  13. stark
    complete or extreme
    He looked away again and the harsh lamplight rewarded him, casting his features in stark, beautiful lines.
  14. brazen
    not held back by conventional ideas of behavior
    He met my eyes with brazen defiance, almost daring me to look away.
  15. swath
    a path or strip (also figurative)
    They thought I was beautiful because I had green eyes and white skin and because a huge swath of Middle Eastern people were racist.
  16. blithely
    in a joyous, carefree, or unconcerned manner
    They were blithely unaware of the fact; had no idea that their unabashed preference for European features was shameful.
  17. frisson
    an almost pleasurable sensation of fright
    Still, I couldn’t deny the frisson of feeling that moved through me at the thought of the alternative: that the sweatshirt belonged to someone else, to someone I knew, to someone strictly off-limits to me.
  18. ordeal
    a severe or trying experience
    I often felt like I was walking on eggshells around Zahra, never certain what I might do to upset her, never certain what kind of emotional turbulence she might introduce to my day. It made everything feel like an ordeal.
  19. compensate
    adjust for
    A few heads turned for the second time, passersby always surprised to hear a girl in hijab swearing loudly in the hall.
    I lowered my voice a few octaves in an effort to compensate.
  20. livid
    furiously angry
    Zahra was still livid, her jaw tensed as she stared at me. But she’d at least stopped yelling, which gave me hope.
  21. turmoil
    violent agitation
    Muslim communities were in turmoil. Women were taking off their scarves, guys changing their names. People were freaked out. Our mosques were bugged, set on fire.
  22. grassroots
    of or involving the common people rather than those in power
    People were making names for themselves, even the most useless teenagers blooming into activists and advocates for change. Heretofore nobodies rallied for grassroots organizations, organized peace talks.
  23. decrepit
    worn and broken down by hard use
    People were particularly vicious to the older women, said they were all uglier sans scarves, decrepit.
  24. iteration
    the act or process of doing or saying again
    Somehow I’d multiplied, one iteration sitting in the passenger seat, the other running alongside the car, peering in the window.
  25. pallor
    an unnatural lack of color in the skin
    I was always pale, but today my pallor was deathly.
  26. gaunt
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    I was always pale, but today my pallor was deathly. I looked gaunt.
  27. in earnest
    in a serious manner
    I became aware of my eyes in earnest last year, about the time my mother started locking herself in her closet.
  28. imbue
    give qualities or abilities to; endow
    My sadness had made me noteworthy. Beautiful. Had imbued in me a kind of dignity, a weight I could not uncarry.
  29. demure
    suggestive of modesty or reserve
    I knew this because I heard it all the time, heard it from old ladies at the mosque who praised me for my still lips, my folded hands, my reluctance to smile. They’d declared me demure, a good Muslim girl with fair skin, light eyes.
  30. clerical
    of or relating to clerks
    This was a clerical error, a mistake made by God or maybe this guy, the one wearing blue scrubs and a Dora the Explorer lanyard, the one squinting at his computer screen in search of my mother’s room number.
  31. billow
    rise and move, as in waves
    “Where the hell have you been?” Shayda said, marching up to me, her long, dark blue scarf billowing around her.
  32. petty
    preoccupied with unimportant matters in a spiteful way
    My mom hated it when my sister and I fought, so I rarely rose to the bait these days, but cutting out the petty fights had left us with little else.
  33. appendage
    an external body part that projects from the body
    She was suddenly more than my stupid sister—she was the sister I loved, the sister for whom I would cut off an appendage, take a bullet.
  34. haram
    forbidden by Islamic law
    “That’s disgusting. And haram.”
  35. samovar
    a metal urn with a spigot at the base
    I turned down the heat. Poured the hot water from the kettle into the waiting belly of a porcelain teapot, brewing the leaves within. I wrapped the whole thing in a hand towel, set it aside, let it steep. We didn’t have a proper samovar, so this would have to suffice.
  36. lithe
    moving and bending with ease
    She was a beautiful woman, lithe with big, dark eyes.
  37. blanch
    turn pale, as if in fear
    “What?” I blanched. I nearly dropped my cup. “But I thought they said his situation was critical. I thought—”
  38. slanderous
    harmful and often untrue; tending to discredit or malign
    “That’s a slanderous thing to say about a person.”
    “And yet, she doesn’t deny it’s true.”
  39. trill
    a note that alternates with another note a semitone above it
    I reached for the handle just as my mother laughed, the soft trill wrenching apart my heart.
  40. imposing
    impressive in appearance
    He was tall, even imposing, his skin a golden brown without blemish, the lines of his face sharp, beautiful.
Created on Fri Feb 23 10:12:59 EST 2024 (updated Sat Feb 24 10:16:21 EST 2024)

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.