Name______Date______

Vocabulary -- Whirligig by Paul Fleischman

Word / Part of Speech / Definition / Example from Text
careened / verb / pitching dangerously to one side / He focused again on the computer’s screen and careened through the video game’s dark passages, firing at everything speeding toward him, borne along by the never-ending music. Page 3.
reconnoitered / verb / explore, often with the goal of finding something / He reconnoitered his father’s long, handsome face and studied the wrinkles, fine as if scratched in with a burin, feeding into his eyes. Page 4.
consequences / nouns / a phenomenon that is caused by some previous phenomenon / “There are consequences for our acts, my boy.’ Like having to show up in your Studebaker instead of my Mazda MX-6.” Page 7
labyrinth / noun / complex system of paths in which it is easy to get lost / He trailed Jordan through the labyrinth, at last emerging onto the back patio.
conspicuous / adjective / obvious to the eye or mind / Without Jonathan next to him, Brent felt conspicuous. Everything about the party made him nervous.
ferocious / adjective / marked by extreme and violent energy / Brent aimed a ferocious kick at it, connected, sent it spinning over the grass, then turned and stumbled toward the patio, alone.
sarcastic / adjective / expressing or expressive of ridicule that wounds / Alexandra was quite for a time, “Now just sit, eyes closed, and hold the image in your head.” “Like a—” “With your sarcastic mouth shut.”
restitution / noun / he act of restoring something to its original state / When it came time to discuss restitution, Brent saw his father shift nervously. P. 39
retribution / noun / the act of correcting for your wrongdoing / “I don’t believe in retribution. Lea was born in the Philippines. I was teaching English and met my husband there.” P. 39
whirligig / noun / a conical child's plaything tapering to a steel point on which it can be made to spin / Her favorite was a whirligig, of a girl with arms that spin in the wind. He painted the face to look like her. P. 40
bustling / verb / move or cause to move energetically or busily / He followed bustlingStewart Street, viewing the cars and pedestrians curiously.
collaborated / verb / work together on a common enterprise of project / They’d collaborated on the fire. Brent stirred his pan of beef and barley soup. P. 47
dubious / adjective / fraught with uncertainty or doubt / He hadn’t mentioned this oversight, or any others, when he’d called his parents from the bus station in Los Angeles-they were dubious enough about the trip as it was. P. 64
disbanded / verb / cause to break up or cease to function / The passengers gathered their luggage beside the bus, then scattered, their community disbanded. P. 65
rummaged / verb / search haphazardly / Brent rummaged madly through his mind, in vain. P. 67
convince / Of course, it being as late as it is, and unlikely that anyone else will show up, and we being unusually empty as it happens, you might just convince me you’re Canadian. P. 67
substantial / Those who’d bought their own groceries were cooking more substantial fare in the kitchen. P. 68
admiration / Brent studied him in secret admiration, thinking that he might easily have been born into his body instead, might speak his three languages and know all that he knew. P. 68
boisterous / Dinner at the hotel was a boisterous affair, conducted in several languages. He and Emil had bought some frozen enchiladas, which they heated in the kitchen’s overburdened microwave. P. 71.
vagabond / “…A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth,” he shouted out.
fatigue / No more, Brent promised, would he complain about the bus after reading of the retching, fatigue, perennially wet clothes, and mortal dangers that the author endured. P. 88
miniscule / His face felt sunburned. He roused himself, moved back from the water, then viewed the miniscule waves in dismay. P. 89.
monstrous / When he’d lived in Atlanta they’d come to Florida, to Palm Beach, on the Atlantic side, where the waves had been monstrous and the water bracing. P. 89
unintelligible / It was unintelligible, a foreign language. He lay back listened, tried to follow the trumpet’s line, then the clarinet’s then began flipping through the whirligig book. P. 91
comprehend / He reread the captions, then the text below, and for the first time comprehended why there were seasons. P. 94
illustration / Then he held up the illustration of the marching band whirligig in the book and let one of them blow on the finished propeller, sending it circling smoothly. p. 97
baffled / He sensed she was baffled by his grinning. P. 98
pharmacy / “That building there, that was a pharmacy. We used to have our ice cream there.” P. 110
residential / We were in a residential neighborhood.
scrutinize / He scrutinized, weighed, and considered his ingredients while the sun dipped behind the trees. P. 123
dazzling / It had all gone too quickly, like a dazzling amusement park flying past the bus window. P. 124
contraption / He shifted the contraption onto his head just as a breezed flowed over him, setting it ringing and spinning. P. 126.