WORD LISTS

"Dragon’s Gate" by Laurence Yep, Chapters 4–6

May 9, 2024
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Set in the 1860s, this third book of the Golden Mountain Chronicles focuses on teenage Otter Young, who dreams of saving China from the destructive Manchus and British by joining his father and uncle's Great Work in America.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–3, Chapters 4–6, Chapters 7–10, Chapters 11–19, Chapters 20–30
intricate
Father's index finger traced the curves of the intricate carving.
inevitable
When the wall stopped him, Father gave in to the inevitable.
tonic
“A spoonful of prevention is worth a basket of cures,” Mother said, and poured out another spoonful of tonic for me.
tarnish
However, even if the robes were rented, it only tarnished their image a little.
sassy
“He’s getting fat and sassy in San Francisco,” Uncle answered.
ratchet
Next to us, the usual rattle of the water chain slowed to a low, ratcheting sound and then resumed again.
trough
A water chain was a narrow wooden trough through which a “chain” of wooden boards swept water along.
undertake
As we walked along the dikes dividing the fields, Uncle licked his lips as if he were undertaking a difficult task.
radical
“Everybody there, they free. Everybody, they equal.”
It was an even more radical notion than I had expected. I mean people aren't equal. Some grow up tall and some grow up short.
ledger
She was asking me, in front of a living legend, if I wanted to scribble in ledgers all the rest of my life...and yet I couldn't have asked for a better mother.
obscure
Important people were always making their way to our obscure corner of the district to pay their respects to my father and uncle.
troupe
And there wasn't a traveling troupe of actors, acrobats or puppeteers passing within twenty kilometers that didn't stop by to put on a show.
outlandish
The dark hat and denim clothes and outlandish boots made my schoolmate look like a strange, exotic seabird blown off course by some freak wind.
humdrum
When Father and Uncle finally left a few months later, it was Braid who went with them and not I. So I resigned myself to living out a dull, dreary humdrum life counting sweet potatoes in the Middle Kingdom.
resign
I tried to resign myself to the life of a young country gentleman.
kingfisher
The sky was so blue that day. It was the bright, burning blue of a kingfisher as it twirled and darted under the sun.
balmy
Though it was early winter, the weather had turned warm and balmy, so Cricket and I headed into the mountains to Dragon's Gate for the festival.
gorge
Ages ago, someone had erected a stone gate that stood astride the river just as it thundered out of a deep gorge and then thundered swiftly down the mountainside.
idly
Idly I wondered what Father and Uncle Foxfire were doing.
astride
With the rest of the crowd, we stared dutifully at the old stone gate that stood astride the river.
sidle
At that moment, a man sidled up next to me.
hardy
"And isn't there some spirit in the gate that grants the wish of those hardy enough to pass through these portals?”
kickback
"I can recommend a good restaurant, young sirs.”
"For which you'll get a generous kickback.”
torrent
I expected a torrent of curses the equal of the river.
flourish
And with a theatrical bow and flourish of his arm, he returned to the gate to try to pry money out of some other tourist.
coax
As he watched him leave, Cricket muttered to me, "He'll probably fish up any coins he can coax out of the tourists.”
scraggly
His hair was scraggly, the crown of his head wasn't shaved at all and his shirt was open.
prominent
However, I was fifteen and the son of a prominent, wealthy house.
accordingly
So I asked myself what Uncle Foxfire would have done in a situation like this, and I acted accordingly.
ruffian
Even if I hadn’t come from seven generations of rebels, I wasn’t about to bow my head to a drunken ruffian.
stiletto
The soldier slid a stiletto from the sleeve of his free hand. “Don't tell me I've caught me a rebel.” He waved the sharp tip in front of my face.
plume
As they capped their heads, a half-dozen plumes suddenly waved in the air.
thrive
Somewhere I heard parakeets squawking. We didn't get them wild like they did down in the hot, humid lowlands; but escaped pets could thrive and even breed up here.
forge
Even now, in my dreams I saw my birth father, a big, dark shadow, smelling of smoke from his blacksmith's forge—with arms that could have tossed me up to heaven.
prosperous
Since she couldn't forget the days of famine, she insisted on having plenty of food in the house, so there was always plenty to eat. Her body simply rejected the prosperous sign of fat just as she rejected finery.
spry
She was simply Mother, the woman who still went down to tend her fields like any poor farmer and who was still spry enough to trip her husband two falls out of three when they wrestled.
crane
She craned her head back to measure me better. “I'd say that you're just about the same height, in fact. But he had more flesh to him—though I suppose you'll fill out when you get older."
elation
“Scolding's a luxury. If we had enough time, I'd try to track down Tiny's brothers. I think they fled to Hong Kong. But we have to get you out of the country as soon as we can."
For her sake, I tried to hide my sense of elation.
clout
Our name has some clout with the agents. They'll see that you get on a safe ship that'll land you alive on the other side of the ocean.
clamor
Suddenly, now that I had my wish, I could feel a host of fears clamoring inside me.

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