I know why the caged bird sings vocab

Git

"'Go. Git'"

Ecru adj very light brown in color, as raw silk, unbleached linen, etc

"(Come and see Edna Lomax spending the money she made picking cotton on five balls of _____ tatting thread"

Tatting noun the act or process of making a kind of knotted lace of cotton or linen thread with a shuttle

"(Come and see Edna Lomax spending the money she made picking cotton on five balls of ecru _______thread"

Litany Noun a ceremonial or liturgical form of prayer consisting of a series of invocations or supplications with responses that are the same for a number in succession.

"... '______ at Atlanta'"

Commensurate Adj corresponding in amount, magnitude, or degree

"...God descends the scale of responsibility at a ________ speed"

Claque Noun a group of persons hired to applaud an act or performer.

"A woman's voice sang out, 'Baylee, Baylee.' And suddenly a _______ of women crowded to the door and overflowed into the yard"

Ledger noun Bookkeeping. an account book of final entry, in which business transactions are recorded.

"After all, we had been away less than a year, and customers whose accounts I had formerly remembered without consulting the ____ were now complete strangers"

Bric-a-brac Noun miscellaneous small articles collected for their antiquarian, sentimental, decorative, or other interest.

"After making the bed, sweeping my room and hanging up the clothes, if and when I remembered to dust the _______, I unfailingly held one too tightly and crunched off a leg or two, or too loosely and dropped it, to shatter it into miserable pieces"

Appellations Noun a name, title, or designation.

"All adults had to be addressed as Mister, Missus, Miss, Auntie, Cousin, Unk, Uncle, Buhbah, Sister, Brother and a thousand other _______ indicating familial relationship and the lowliness of the addressor"

Ritzy Adj swanky; elegant; posh

"And it also sounded _______ to say, 'My husband, Mr. Johnson, the naval dietitian, went over to Mexico to buy some things for dinner'"

Regaled verb to entertain lavishly or agreeably; delight

"Bailey ____ the customers with our exploits"

Filched Verb to steal (especially something of small value); pilfer

"Because of the kinds of news we _____ from those hushed conversations, I was convinced that whenever Reverend Thomas came and Momma sent us to the back room they were going to discuss whitefolks and doing it"

Cacophony Noun harsh discordance of sound; dissonance

"Buoyed by the adrenalin that had flooded my brain as we careened down the mountainside, I had never felt better, and my father's snores cut through the ______ of protestations outside my window"

Onerous Adj burdensome, oppressive, or troublesome; causing hardship

"But on that ________ day, oppressed beyond relief, my own mortality was borne in upon me on sluggish tides of doom"

Elocution Noun a person's manner of speaking or reading aloud in public

"Certainly Dolores adored her outsize lover, and his ______(Daddy Bailey never spoke, he orated), spiced with the rolling ers and errers, must have been some consolation to her in their less-than-middle-class home"

Evenizer

"For since they tend to think of their whiteness as an _______, I'm certain that I would have had to hear her spoken to commonly as Bertha, and my image of her would have been shattered like unmendable Humpty-Dumpty

Fiscal (Adj) of or relating to the public treasury or revenues

"From being a mobile linch cointer, she ser up a stand between the two points of ______ interest and supplied the workers' needs for a few years"

Flippant adj frivolously disrespectful, shallow, or lacking in seriousness; characterized by levity

"Grandmother Baxter's clients were there in gay and _____ array"

Bridle Verb anything that restrains or curbs

"Guide my feet this day along the straight and narrow, and help me to put a _______ on my tongue"

Heinous Adj hateful; odious; abominable; totally reprehensible:

"He moaned the whole night through as if he had, in fact, been guilty of some ______ crime"

enigma noun a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation

"He was away in a mystery, locked in the _________that young Southern Black boys start to unravel, start to try to unravel, from seven years old to death."

query noun a question; an inquiry.

"His _________would hang in the air while she sprang over to peck him on the lips."

Ecumenical Adj general; universal

"However, in the _____ light of the summer picnic every true baking artist could reveal her prize to the delight and criticism of the town"

Winced Verb to draw back or tense the body, as from pain or from a blow; start; flinch.

"I _____ to picture them sewing the coarse material under a coal-oil lamp with fingers stiffening from the days work"

Pacified Verb to bring or restore to a state of peace or tranquillity; quiet; calm:

"I ______ myself about his whiteness by saying that after all he had been dead so long it couldn't matter to anyone any more"

Approbation Noun approval; commendation

"I didn't expect or even need, now, his _______"

Commensurate adj corresponding in amount, magnitude, or degree

"I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a ________ speed"

Expeditious Adj characterized by promptness; quick

"I had been thinking of yesterday's plain invitation and the _____ way Louise and I took care of it"

Coarse Adj harsh; grating

"I thought of her as being ______, but Bailey said she was cute and that her wanted to play house with her"

marauding adj engaged in raiding for plunder, especially roaming about and ravaging an area:

"I understood the arrogance of the young sailors who marched the streets in ___________gangs, approaching every girl as if she were at best a prostitute and at worst an Axis agent bent on making the U.S.A. lose the war."

Lye Noun a highly concentrated, aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide.

"I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper in their faces, to throw ____ on them, to scream that they were dirty, scummy peckerwoods, but I knew I was clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles"

chided verb to harass, nag, impel, or the like by chiding

"I was called Old Lady and _____________for moving and talking like winter's molasses."

vexed adj irritated; annoyed

"I was certainly very __________with Bailey."

siddity adj an uppity and bourgeois person who is stuck on and full of themselves

"I would stop the car when we reached the kiosk and put on my _________ air."

Rife Adj of common or frequent occurrence; prevalent; in widespread existence, activity, or use

"If Dolores had been a little less aloof, a little more earthy, she could have discovered that those ingredients were ______ in her town proper, and Dad had no need to travel to Mexico to buy provisions"

Circumspectly Adverb watchful and discreet; cautious; prudent:

"If Dolores knew, she would crawl up in her blanket of affectations and die ______"

Bolls Noun a rounded seed vessel or pod of a plant, as of flax or cotton.

"If he prophesied that the cotton in today's field was going to be sparse and stick to the _______ like glue, every listener would grunt a hearty agreemnt"

sobriquet noun a nickname

"In fact, even in their absence they could not be spoken of too harshly unless we used the ________"They." If she had been asked and had chosen to answer the question of whether she was cowardly or not, she would have said that she was a realist."

Inordinate Adj unrestrained in conduct, feelings, etc.:

"In later years I was to confront the stereotyped picture of gay song-singing cotton pickers with such ______ rage that i was told even by fellow Blacks that my paranoia was embarrassing"

Affliction Noun a state of pain, distress, or grief; misery:

"In the evening, when we were alone like that, Uncle Willie didn't stutter or shake or give any indication that he had an '_______'"

Vittles Noun Food

"In too few hours they would have to walk back to Sister Henderson's Store, get _______ and load, again, onto the trucks"

Piqued Verb to excite

"It had not been in my plan to listen to him, but my curiosity was _____ and I straightened up to give him my attention"

Blasphemous Adj uttering, containing, or exhibiting blasphemy; irreverent; profane.

"It seemed somehow ________"

Moors noun a tract of open, peaty, wasteland, often overgrown with heath, common in high latitudes and altitudes where drainage is poor; heath

"Like women in English novels who walked the ______ with their loyal dogs racing at a respectful distance"

Placatingly to appease or pacify, especially by concessions or conciliatory gestures

"Momma came in _______"

blithe adj joyous, merry, or happy in disposition; glad; cheerful

"Mother was a ________chick nuzzling around the large, solid dark hen."

Gait noun a manner of walking, stepping, or running.

"Mrs. Flowers would continue her easy _____ up the hill to her little bungalow, and Momma kept on shelling peas or doing whatever had brought her to the front porch"

Pique noun a fabric of cotton, spun rayon, or silk, woven lengthwise with raised cords

"My class was wearing butter-yellow ______ dresses, and Momma launched out on mine"

Inducement Noun The act of leading or moving by persuasion or influence, as to some action or state of mind

"My father added as an _____ the fact that I was only 15 years old"

Servile Adj slavishly submissive or obsequious; fawning

"My grandmother, too, followed their orders, except that she didn't seem to be _____ because she anticipated their needs"

Corrugated Adj wrinkled; furrowed.

"Only a few miles from California's slick highways and, to me, tall buildings, we were bumping along on gravel streets that could have competed in crudeness with the worst paths in Arkansas, and the landscape boasted adobe huts or cabins walled with ______ metal"

Drab adj dull; cheerless; lacking in spirit, brightness, etc.

"Our journey to magical places alone was a spot of color on the town's ____ canvas, and our return made us even more the most enviable of people"

Indulge Verb to yield to an inclination or desire; allow oneself to follow one's will (often followed by in):

"Our summer-gray pot-bellied stove bloomed rosy red during winter, and became a severe disciplinarian threat if we were so foolish as to _____ in making mistakes"

tandem adverb one following or behind the other

"Pride and Prejudice stalked in ____________the beautiful hills."

Profusely Adverb abundant; in great amount

"She ran errands for Momma when we were busy in the Store and sweated ______"

Unprofane Adj characterized by irreverence or contempt for God or sacred principles or things; irreligious

"She used to add, with a smirk that ________ people can't control when venturing into profanity..."

Parceled Verb to divide into or distribute in parcels or portions

"She was a country girl about four years older than Bailey (he wasn't quite 11 when they met) whose parents had died and she along with her brothers and sisters had been ____ out to relatives"

Impish adj mischievous

"She was singularly unattractive until she smiled, and then the lines around her eyes and mouth which made her look perpetually dirty disappeared, and her face looked like the mask of an _____ elf"

traverse verb to pass or move over, along, or through.

"She, who had never been more than fifty miles from her birthplace, learned to _____________the maze of Spanish-named streets in that enigma that is Los Angeles."

dwindled verb to become smaller and smaller; shrink; waste away

"The Asian population __________before my eyes."

Barrenness noun destitute; bereft; lacking (usually followed by of)

"The ______ of Stamps was exactly what I wanted, without will or consciousness"

Chifforobe noun a piece of furniture having both drawers and space for hanging clothes

"The ______ was a maze"

Double Entendres noun a double meaning

"The _________, the two-pronged sentences, slid over his tongue to dart rapier-like into anything that happened to be in the way"

gauche adj lacking social grace, sensitivity, or acuteness; awkward; crude; tactless

"The air of collective displacement, the impermanence of life in wartime and the ____________personalities of the more recent arrivals tended to dissipate my own sense of not belonging."

Epicure Noun a person who cultivates a refined taste, especially in food and wine; connoisseur.

"The amount and variety of foods would have found approval on the menu of a Roman ______"

Masochists Noun Psychiatry.a person who has masochism, the condition in which sexual or other gratification depends on one's suffering physical pain or humiliation

"The idea came to me that my people may be a race of ______ and that not only was it our fate to live the poorest, roughest life but that we liked it like that"

enraptured verb to move to rapture; delight beyond measure:

"The idea of spreading mercy, indiscrimi- nately, or, to be more correct, spreading it on someone I really didn't care about, ________me."

Frivolity Noun Quality of being characterized by lack of seriousness or sense

"The impermanence of a collapsible church added to the _______, and their eyes flashed and winked and the girls giggled little silver drops in the dusk while the boys postured and swaggered and pretended not to notice"

subpoenaed verb to serve with a subpoena.

"The judge asked that Mrs. Henderson be ___________, and when Momma arrived and said she was Mrs. Henderson, the judge, the bailiff and other whites in the audience laughed."

raucous adj harsh; strident; grating: raucous voices; raucous laughter.

"The latter were looked upon with some suspi- cion because they were so loud and _______in their services."

haughty adj disdainfully proud; snobbish; scornfully arrogant; supercilious

"The partner was not shouldering his portion of the responsibility, according to Mother, and when she confronted him he became _______and domineering, and he unforgivably called her a bitch."

Guffaws Noun a loud, unrestrained burst of laughter.

"The sound would jag around in our air for an indecisive second before the balcony's occupants accepted it and sent their own ______ to riot with it against the walls of the theater"

Guffaws noun a loud, unrestrained burst of laughter

"The sound would jag around in our air for an indecisive second before the balcony's occupants accepted it and sent their own _______ to riot with it against the walls of the theater"

Contrapuntal Adj composed of two or more relatively independent melodies sounded together.

"The sounds of tag beat through the trees while the top branches waved in ________ rhythms"

Skimpy Adj lacking in size, fullness, etc.; scanty:

"The sounds of the new morning had been replaced with grumbles about cheating houses, weighted scales, snakes, _______ cotton amd dusty rows"

Revelry Noun reveling; boisterous festivity

"The tall minister stood again at the altar. He waited for the song and the revelry to die."

Tribulations noun grievous trouble; severe trial or suffering

"The three of us knelt as she began, "Our Father, you know the _____ of your humble servant"

abetted verb to encourage, support, or countenance by aid or approval, usually in wrongdoing

"The undertone of fear that San Francisco would be bombed which was ________ by weekly air raid warnings, and civil defense drills in school, heightened my sense of belonging. Hadn't I, always, but ever and ever, thought that life was just one great risk for the living?"

Rakishly Adverb Charming and immoral

"The used-to-be sheriff sat _______ astraddle his horse"

impassivity noun without emotion; apathetic; unmoved

"The weight of appreciation and the threat, which was never spoken, of a return to Momma were burdens that clogged my childish wits into ___________."

Inequities noun lack of equity; unfairness; favoritism or bias

"Their decision to be satisfied with life's ______ was a lesson for me"

Jauntiness Noun easy and sprightly in manner or bearing

"Their shoulders dropped even as they laughed, and when they put their hands on their hips in a show of ______"

Staggering Adj tending to stagger or overwhelm:

"Their wages wouldn't even get them out of debt to my grandmother, not to mention the ______ bill thay waited on them at the white commissary downtown"

Commissary Noun a store that sells food and supplies to the personnel or workers in a military post, mining camp, lumber camp, or the like.

"Their wages wouldn't even get them out of debt to my grandmother, not to mention the staggering bill thay waited on them at the white _______ downtown"

abated verb to reduce in amount, degree, intensity, etc.; lessen; diminish

"Then she picked me up in her arms and the terror ________ for a while."

Peal any loud, sustained sound or series of sounds, as of cannon, thunder, applause, or laughter.

"There was a little ______ of a scream and before I could open my eyes Louise had grabbed my hand"

reprobation noun disapproval, condemnation, or censure

"There was no police investigation nor social ____________."

Lynched Verb to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.

"They would have surley found Uncle Willie and just as surely ______ him"

Impudent Adj of, relating to, or characterized by impertinence or effrontery

"Thou shall not be dirty and thou shall not be _______ were the two commandments of grandmother"

Engrossed Verb to occupy completely, as the mind or attention; absorb

"Uncle Willie was _____ in the Almanac, his nightly reading, and my brother was far away on a raft on the Mississippi"

Ravening Adj rapacious; voracious

"We had always taken candy and a few nickels and of course the sour pickles, but Bailey, now called upon to feed Joyce's _____ hunger, took cans of sardines and greasy Polish sausage and cheese and even the expensive cans of pink salmon that our family could seldom afford to eat"

Swarthy adj dark-hued or dark-complexioned

"We passed houses which I knew well by daylight but couldn't collect in the ______ gloom"

Swarthy Adj Dark

"We passed houses which I knew well by daylight but couldn't recollect in the _______ gloom"

presumptuous Adj full of, characterized by, or showing presumption or readiness to presume in conduct or thought, as by saying or doing something without right or permission

"We were maids and farmers, handymen and washer-women, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and ______"

Entrusted Verb to charge or invest with a trust or responsibility; charge with a specified office or duty involving trust:

"We were then given money-pennies, nickels, dimes _______ to Bailey- and sent to town to buy liver"

illusory adj causing illusion; deceptive; misleading

"We, or at any rate I, had built such elaborate fantasies about him and the ___________mother that seeing him in the flesh shredded my inventions like a hard yank on a paper chain."

Impudent adj of, relating to, or characterized by impertinence or effrontery

"When I refused to be the child they knew and accepted me to be, I was called _____ and my muteness sullenness"

Sullenness noun showing irritation or ill humor by a gloomy silence or reserve

"When I refused to be the child they knew and accepted me to be, I was called impudent and my muteness _____"

Debutante noun a young woman making a debut into society

"When I told her that in Stamps my grandmother had owned to only Negro general merchandise store since the turn of the century, she exclaimed, 'Why, you were a _____'"

jollity noun jolly or merry mood, condition, or activity; gaiety

"With all her ____________, Vivian Baxter had no mercy."

didoes noun a mischievous trick; prank; antic

"Would they be more severe with our _________than she?" or "Our youngest uncle, Billy, was not old enough to join in their _____________"

Aghast Adj struck with overwhelming shock or amazement; filled with sudden fright or horror:

"______, the ladies would ask, "Die? From what? He ain't sick'"

Lye Noun a highly concentrated, aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide.

Before she had quite arisen, she called our names and issued orders, and pushed her large feet into homemade slippers and across the bare _____-washed wooden floor to light the coal-oil lamp