To Kill a Mockingbird

In-context Vocabulary

Chapters 1 and 2

assuage

• When it [Jem’s broken arm] healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury.

assuage

• To relieve, ease, lessen, soothe, calm

• Derived from suavis (agreeable to the taste)

• Think Suave shampoo, or Jared is suave

vapid

• But by the end of August our repertoire was vapid from countless reproductions, and it was then that Dill gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

vapid

• Flat, lifeless

• Derived from vapidus (vapor)

malevolent

• Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom.

malevolent

• Wishing evil or harm to another

• Mal = bad

• Volent = to want

nebulous

• Boo’s transition from the basement to back home was nebulous in Jem’s memory.

nebulous

• Hazy, vague, indistinct

• Like a nebulous cloud

sojourn

• My sojourn in the corner was a short one.

sojourn

• A temporary stay

• Think short journey