CHAPTER 36 — Vocabulary

Vocabulary Words from CHAPTER 36

case-knives

Common kitchen or table knives, as opposed to folding (pocket) knives. Huck and Tom attempt to use them as digging tools.

fox-fire

The bioluminescent glow produced by certain fungi growing on decaying wood, used as a dim natural light source.

counterpin

Dialect form of "counterpane," meaning a bedspread or quilt used as a bed covering.

lean-to

A simple shed or addition with a single-pitched roof built against the wall of a larger structure.

letting-on

Pretending or making believe; maintaining a fiction about something that is not actually true.

pewter

A gray metal alloy made primarily of tin, commonly used for tableware such as spoons and plates in earlier centuries.

tallow

Rendered animal fat, especially from cattle or sheep, used to make candles and soap.

dog-fennel

A common weed (Eupatorium capillifolium) with finely divided leaves and a strong odor, found throughout the American South.

jimpson weeds

Dialect for jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), a toxic plant with white trumpet-shaped flowers common in the South.

corn-pone

Cornbread baked or fried without milk or eggs, a staple food of the rural South, especially among enslaved people and poor whites.

intellectural

Huck's humorous mispronunciation of "intellectual," meaning relating to the use of the mind or reason.

ciphered out

Figured out or calculated through careful thought; worked out a solution.

dimmish

Somewhat dim; partially dark. A characteristically informal adjective formation.

wusshup

Nat's dialect rendering of "worship," meaning to revere or pay devoted respect to someone.

lightning-rod

A metal rod mounted on a building to protect it from lightning strikes; here used by the boys as a means of climbing up and down from their room.