things fall apart vocabulary
Terms
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- harmattan
- a dry dusty wind that blows from the Sahara to the Atlantic coast of Africa during the cool months
- improvident
- lacking foresight or thrift
- kola
- an African tree whose nuts contain caffeine and yield a flavorful extract
- impending
- about to happen; imminent
- intricate
- complex, elaborately detailed, hard to follow
- cowries
- brightly colored, glossy mollusk shells used as money in parts of Africa and Asia
- prowess
- bravery, valor; skill
- ultimatum
- a final demand whose rejection ends negotiations and leads to a use of force or other strong action
- potent
- powerful
- imperious
- overbearing, arrogant, domineering
- emissary
- a person sent on a mission
- interim
- a period between; meantime
- capricious
- whimsical, flighty, tending to change suddenly and without reason
- malevolent
- wishing harm to others
- oracle
- a person or place believed to reveal messages from a god or spirit
- void
- emptiness
- matchete
- a large, heavy knife used for cutting cane and clearing paths
- abomination
- something hateful and disgusting
- kite
- a bird of the hawk family
- cassava
- a tropical plant having edible starchy roots
- tendrils
- the threadlike parts of climbing plants
- sisal
- a tropical plant whose leaves produce a fiber used in making rope
- luxuriant
- lush, teeming, growing abundantly
- tubers
- the thick, fleshy parts of underground stems, such as potatoes
- brusqueness
- curtness; rough and abrupt speech
- kindred
- a group of relatives; kin
- benevolent
- wishing good to others
- atone
- to make amends
- exacting
- strict, demanding; arduous, difficult
- poignant
- emotionally moving
- ultimate
- final, utmost
- communion
- the act of sharing thoughts and feelings with others
- calabashes
- the dried, hollow shells of a tropical gourdlike fruit, used for bowls
- foo-foo
- an African food made from boiled and mashed yam, cassava, or plantain
- tentative
- hesitant, uncertain
- pottage
- a thick soup or stew of vegetables with or without meat
- consoled
- made less sad; comforted
- persistent
- stubborn, persevering, refusing to give up
- grandees
- people of high rank
- prophesied
- predicted; foretold
- entrails
- inner organs, intestines, guts
- feign
- pretend
- harbingers
- persons or things that announce what will follow
- plantains
- tropical banana plants whose coarse fruit is eaten cooked
- raffia
- a palm tree whose leaves yield a fiber used in making baskets, hats, etc.