Funeral Songs for Dying Girls: List 2

by Cherie Dimaline
Living in the Toronto cemetery where her father works and her mother is buried, sixteen-year-old Winifred Blight often wanders around the graves at night, which leads to the belief that they would be a good moneymaking addition to a haunted ghost tour.

This list covers "Guild Wars"–"The Shape of a Face."

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
40 words 9 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. morose
    showing a brooding ill humor
    It wasn’t always like this—just me and my dad and the random cemetery staff members who made up a kind of morose extended family.
  2. dismal
    causing dejection
    I should’ve been okay with the solitude. And at first, I could convince myself for short periods of time that I was. I did this when it got too dismal.
  3. viaduct
    a segmented, elevated bridge carrying a road over a valley
    I live at Winterson Cemetery in historic Cabbagetown, home to the Riverdale Zoo and the Bloor Viaduct, better known as the Suicide Bridge.
  4. wispy
    thin and weak
    I looked at the name and imagined a young woman with dreamy green eyes and an aura of wispy blonde curls.
  5. coax
    carefully manipulate, adjust, or bring to a desired state
    So, on the first day of school I was actually excited and showed up with my straight brown hair coaxed into a long ponytail, a new pair of white Keds, and a small bouquet yanked from Mrs. Howard’s plot on the way out.
  6. mundane
    found in the ordinary course of events
    Her sentences had an uneven rhythm that threw even the most perfectly mundane statement into dangerous disarray.
  7. fateful
    having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences
    I laid low for the first few weeks, making sure I did her work and paid attention, which wasn’t all that difficult, since it had just been the year before when I’d read my fateful report and was dubbed “the weird kid.”
  8. dub
    give a nickname to
    I laid low for the first few weeks, making sure I did her work and paid attention, which wasn’t all that difficult, since it had just been the year before when I’d read my fateful report and was dubbed “the weird kid.”
  9. sprig
    a small branch or stem, usually with leaves or flowers
    I felt that finger, clammy like the dank sprig of a lake plant, and panic jabbed into my chest, making my arms twitch as if I’d been pinched instead of touched.
  10. flush
    sudden reddening of the face
    My cheeks hurt with an intense flush.
  11. regard
    look at attentively
    We walked out into the yard and stood there, hands on our hips, watching the kids run and yell around us. Not us; we were hardened and matured. We regarded them with the nostalgia of the old.
  12. cohort
    a company of companions or supporters
    After the pig portrait incident, Jack and I didn’t suddenly become cohorts in mischief or anything; we didn’t plan any pranks and were not known for being a bad influence on one another, but still, after that glorious fifth-grade year, we were never together in the same classroom again.
  13. sedate
    dignified and somber in manner or character
    I was thirteen, but my dad was still cautious to an extreme. I didn’t give him much to worry about with my sedate social life, so it hadn’t yet become a struggle.
  14. narcoleptic
    of a disorder characterized by episodes of deep sleep
    The dog was about five pounds lighter back then but was still a narcoleptic butterball.
  15. delineate
    show the form or outline of
    I felt sorry for their neglect—long grass covering the crumbling inscriptions on soft rock; unworn pathways barely delineated from the fields; flowerless plots and unappreciated statues rounded by time and weather, guarding the long-forgotten bones.
  16. gnarled
    old and twisted and covered in lines
    The Peak slouched off behind a collection of willows that grew together so close that their branches were braided and their boughs shared one set of gnarled, gray skin.
  17. opaque
    not transmitting or reflecting light or radiant energy
    A gentle sort of gloom settles over the tombs and statues like the thinnest layer of jam—sticky and opaque, making everything appetizing and appalling at the same time.
  18. whim
    an odd or fanciful or capricious idea
    We were both aware that time was running out for us to be able to follow our own weird whims. Soon enough we’d have to conform.
  19. vertigo
    a reeling sensation; a feeling that you are about to fall
    I felt ripped off in a way that gave me vertigo, like I had lost my footing.
  20. asinine
    devoid of intelligence
    Turns out he was more startled than hurt. Thank God—not that I’d get in trouble. Floyd would just tell him it was his own damn fault for being there at night, after visiting hours. And running, and not from anything giving chase, of all the asinine things to be doing.
  21. spiel
    artful or slick talk used to persuade
    Jack launched into his ghost hunter’s spiel and then apologized to the jogger, gladly showing him the makeshift ghost-detection laboratory set up in the Peak when asked.
  22. splay
    widen or spread apart
    He was splayed out on a towel at our feet, a baby bonnet slipping over his eyes, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth.
  23. impeccable
    without error or flaw
    “Relax, I believe you. I’m sure your hygiene is impeccable.”
  24. bestow
    give as a gift
    The summer between ninth and tenth grade, the puberty fairy had visited Jack, fallen in love with him, and bestowed all her best gifts in such a frenzy, he was left with stretch marks.
  25. nonchalant
    marked by casual unconcern or indifference
    “Sure thing.” He was always so casual, so nonchalant.
  26. bane
    something causing misery or death
    “Yeah, thank God school is done. It’s the literal bane of my existence.”
  27. casually
    in an unconcerned manner
    I’d spend the next month stressing about it, overthinking it. I couldn’t casually tap and count and fidget the patterns that would be required to try to cage in that anxiety.
  28. incredulous
    not disposed or willing to believe; unbelieving
    “Are you serious?” He was genuinely shocked. He even laughed a bit, incredulous.
  29. pariah
    a person who is rejected from society or home
    “I’m weird?”
    He of all people knew how this one word—this one stupid word—had isolated me, had made me a pariah at school while people like him got to think “school’s not that bad, dude.”
  30. mortified
    made to feel uncomfortable because of shame or wounded pride
    I was mortified, embarrassed beyond belief.
  31. serrated
    notched like a saw with teeth pointing toward the apex
    My desperate want, even now, sat like serrated knives in my chest.
  32. midway
    the place at a fair or carnival where sideshows are located
    Her apartment always smelled like mini donuts, the kind you get at the midway, but I never saw her cook.
  33. oversight
    a mistake resulting from inattention
    She was just salty because disability hadn’t approved her for one yet. She blamed this oversight on her “dancer’s calves” being too strong to fail a medical exam.
  34. powwow
    a council of or with Native Americans
    “I was a great powwow dancer back in my day, boy I tell you. And not traditional style neither. I danced fancy shawl right up until I had to retire.”
  35. windfall
    a sudden happening that brings good fortune
    That was it, all the snaking fault lines that made the crucifix so dangerous, fault lines that kept Mr. Ferguson paying into the insurance and hoping for a windfall in plot sales so he could remove the hazard; all these worried cracks amounted to the same as the number of hours in a day, one measly day.
  36. measly
    contemptibly small in amount
    That was it, all the snaking fault lines that made the crucifix so dangerous, fault lines that kept Mr. Ferguson paying into the insurance and hoping for a windfall in plot sales so he could remove the hazard; all these worried cracks amounted to the same as the number of hours in a day, one measly day.
  37. parish
    a local church community
    He needn’t have worried; it would be nearly ten years after his own peaceful passing of old age while riding the train to Washington, when it finally crumbled directly on top of a priest visiting from a Swedish parish.
  38. emboss
    raise in a relief
    I got a red journal with embossed flowers on the cover and a real lock with a tiny key to lock it up.
  39. gauge
    an instrument for measuring and indicating a quantity
    She looked out the front window, her face lit up by the green glow from the dashboard gauges, making neon lines in her wrinkles so that for a moment she looked like a cat.
  40. striking
    sensational in appearance or thrilling in effect
    It was striking, so strange it made Noreen certain she was witnessing something supernatural.
Created on Wed May 29 10:15:35 EDT 2024 (updated Thu May 30 10:21:11 EDT 2024)

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