A Land Remembered Vocabulary List

This vocab­u­lary list cour­tesy of Sandy Beck, Wild­Classroom.net, Tal­la­has­see, FL.

 

1. adz (adze): an ax-like tool with an arch­ing blade used for dress­ing wood

2. alla­p­at­tah: Semi­nole for alligator

3. auger: a tool for bor­ing holes

4. auger bit: a bit with a blade like that of an auger

5. bay head: a low, swampy place with bay trees grow­ing thick — very dif­fi­cult to go through; the only thing worse is a marsh

6. ban­dana: a large, col­or­ful hand­ker­chief or scarf

7. barn rais­ing: a com­mu­ni­ty effort to quick­ly build a barn

8. black jacks: scrub oaks

9. bliz­zard: vio­lent snowstorm

10. boar: a wild hog with a hairy coat and long snout. Also, an uncas­trat­ed hog

11. bowler hat: small, round­ed hat

12. brack­ish: a mix­ture of salt water and fresh water

13. broad axe: an ax with a broad blade used as a weapon or to cut down trees

14. buck­board: a long, flat wagon

15. bush­whack: to be caught off guard; attacked

16. bush­whack­er: some­one who attacks in the form of an ambush; or some­one who is accus­tomed to cut­ting his/her way through the bushes

17. cab­bage palm: a type of palm tree that has an edi­ble heart

18. can­tan­ker­ous: grumpy, moody, ill of temperament

19. can­ter: smooth, easy pace like a mod­er­ate gallop

20. car­cass: the dead body of an animal

21. cat­tle low­ing: mooing

22. chan­de­lier: a fan­cy light that hangs from the ceiling

23. chic­k­ee-hut: an open-air plat­form raised off the ground with no walls and a thatched roof– most­ly used by the Seminoles

24. clan: a family

25. coal oil lamp: an oil-burn­ing lamp used for light pri­or to electricity

26. cocoplum bush: a small tree that has edi­ble fruit like a plum; native to trop­i­cal America

27. col­lard: a kind of kale with coarse, green leaves; usu­al­ly boiled to eat

28. com­mer­cial: hav­ing to do with stores, busi­ness­es, etc.

29. con­trast­ing: look­ing at dif­fer­ences between things

30. con­quis­ta­dor: any one of the Span­ish con­querors of South or Cen­tral Amer­i­ca in the 16th century

31. coon­tie bread: bread made from the flour pro­duced from the roots of the Sago palm

32. cor­ral: a pen or enclo­sure for ani­mals– cows and hors­es mostly

33. crack­lins: ani­mal skin fried very crispy (usu­al­ly pig skin)

34. cranked the car: cars used to be start­ed with a crank that had to be “wound” on the front of the car

35. cure meat: to fla­vor and pre­serve meat– usu­al­ly with salt

36. cypress: any of a large group of cone-bear­ing trees of the pine fam­i­ly native to Amer­i­ca, Europe, and Asia

37. cypress stand or head: an area where most of the trees are cypress

38. “deef”: slang for deaf; unable to hear

39. deformed: misshapen

40. dev­as­tat­ed: com­plete­ly over­whelmed with grief

41. dike: a bar­ri­er put around a body of water to pre­vent flooding

42. down: soft feath­ers from ducks and geese

43. draw­ing knife: a knife with a han­dle at both ends, usu­al­ly at right angles to the blade

44. dredge: a device con­sist­ing of a net attached to a frame, dragged along the bot­tom of a riv­er bay

45. drench: to soak com­plete­ly — as with water

46. dressed cows: ready to eat

47. drought: a time of lit­tle or no rain

48. drover: one who dri­ves cat­tle or sheep to market

49. dutch oven: a cast iron cook­ing oven

50. eerie: spooky

51. egret plumes: feath­ers from an egret

52. encounter: to come across or meet

53. endure: to suf­fer hard­ships with­out giv­ing in

54. entrails: the inner organs of peo­ple or animals

55. eye of the hur­ri­cane: the cen­ter of the storm — a very still, qui­et time dur­ing a hurricane

56. fate: your des­tiny, where life takes you

57. fer­ry: to car­ry or trans­port some­thing across a riv­er ( water) by boat

58. fetch: to go after things and bring them back

59. finan­cial bloom: prof­itable time

60. flanks: sides

61. fod­der: live­stock feed

62. froe: a wedge-shaped cleav­ing tool with a han­dle set into the blade at right angles to the back

63. fury: vio­lent anger

64. gai­ly: happily

65. gib­ber­ish: rapid, inar­tic­u­late talk — unin­tel­li­gi­ble chatter

66. gloom: darkness

67. gnarled: twist­ed, full of knots

68. gorg­ing: eat­ing too much

69. gun­slingers: men that car­ried guns

70. ham­mock: a dry area where hard­wood trees such as oaks, cedars, and pines grow

71. hard­wood: any tough, heavy tim­ber with a com­pact texture

72. heed: to take advice

73. high­tail it: to leave quickly

74. hitch­ing rail: a place to har­ness or attach a horse to a vehi­cle, or a pole used to tie ani­mals to

75. hog scrapin’: scrap­ing the hide of a hog

76. hog slop: food for hogs

77. home­stead: a home–the seat of a family–including the land, house and out-buildings

78. hor­ri­fied: to cause or feel horror

79. hov­er: to linger close by

80. huck­le­ber­ries: large, sweet berries sim­i­lar to blueberries

81. humdinger: amazing

82. hurl: to throw

83. irri­gate: to bring water to something

84. iso­la­tion: sep­a­ra­tion from others

85. itin­er­ant preach­er: trav­el­ing min­is­ter of the church

86. Julia Tut­tle: founder of Miami

87. knead: to work dough by press­ing and squeez­ing it

88. knicker­bock­ers: knee-length men’s pants

89. lanky: tall and slender

90. lard: melt­ed hog fat

91. lean-to: a roof with a sin­gle slope, its upper edge abut­ting a wall or building

92. lob­by: main entrance

93. lum­ber: wood used for build­ing things

94. malar­ia: a dis­ease caused by mosquitoes

95. man­gled: dam­aged; twisted

96. man­grove: any of sev­er­al coastal or aquat­ic trop­i­cal trees or shrubs that form large colonies in swamps

97. manure: nat­ur­al ani­mal fertilizers

98. mare: female horse

99. mark-brand: a mark placed on cat­tle to prove ownership

100. marsh: low, wet swamp

101. marsh­tack­ie: a horse– off­spring of those left behind by the Span­ish sol­diers– very small and runty, but strong

102. mine: a large exca­va­tion in the earth to extract metal­lic ores, coal, pre­cious stones, salt, or cer­tain­other minerals

103. muck: fer­tile ground left after swamps are drained

104. mus­ket: a smooth­bore, long-han­dled firearm used espe­cial­ly by infantry sol­diers before the inven­tion of the rifle

105. Okee­chobee: a lake in south Florida

106. out­house: out­door toilet

107. pal­met­to: one of sev­er­al species of palm trees grow­ing in the West Indies and in the south­ern part of the Unit­ed States

108. para­sol: fash­ion­able umbrel­la used pri­mar­i­ly for sun protection

109. pas­tries: sweet baked goods

110. Pay-Hay-Okee: Semi­nole Indi­an word for the Ever­glades mean­ing “riv­er of grass”

111. pewter: an alloy of tin with lead, brass, or cop­per; it takes on a gray­ish, sil­very col­or when polished

112. phos­phate: a salt of phos­phor­ic acid con­tain­ing PO4

113. pick­er­el weed: a sprawl­ing ever­green peren­ni­al with heart-shaped leaves, grow­ing to 4 feet tall

114. planks: heavy, thick boards

115. plumes: feathers

116. plun­der: to rob

117. plunge: to dri­ve into

118. podi­um degree: col­lege degree giv­en to some­one who did not earn it

119. poke greens: an edi­ble weed cooked and eat­en as a vegetable

120. poin­ciana tree: a small, sub-trop­i­cal tree with red or yel­low­ish flowers

121. poul­tice: hot, soft mass applied to a sore spot on the body

122. preda­tors: plun­der­ers or rob­bers ( also bears, pan­thers, wolves, etc.)

123. predilec­tion: a fore­telling– like of the future

124. prism: tri­an­gu­lar piece of crys­tal or glass that refracts light into rain­bow colors

125. pro­ces­sion: a num­ber of peo­ple or things mov­ing forward

126. pukin’: vomiting

127. raid: a sud­den, unex­pect­ed attack

128. ram­pant: run­ning wild

129. ram­rod straight: very erect and straight

130. rations: small por­tions of food

131. recruits: hired help

132. reser­va­tion: a guar­an­teed spot at a hotel or restaurant

133. roast­ing pit: a device used over an open fire that slow­ly turns a hog or cow while cooking

134. Roy­al Poin­ciana Hotel: a lux­u­ry hotel in Miami

135. quilt­ing bee: a social gath­er­ing of women at which they sew quilts

136. sali­va: the watery flu­id secret­ed by glands in the mouth

136. savan­nah: an exten­sive open plain in a trop­i­cal region of sea­son­al rains, des­ti­tute of trees and cov­ered with grass

137. saw grass: a marsh grass hav­ing lin­ear leaves with sharp, saw-toothed edges

138. scald­ed hog: butchered hog placed in a pot of boil­ing water, then the hide scraped to remove hair and bristles

139. scrawny: lean, thin, scrag­gy, scrubby

140. scrub: a high, sandy, dry Flori­da ecosys­tem of tall, twist­ed, lean­ing sand pines, scrub oaks, rose­mary, hol­ly, bay and hick­o­ry. Thou­sand of years ago, these areas were Flori­da’s beach­es. Today, very lit­tle Flori­da scrub remains in its nat­ur­al state. Much of this high, dry land has been turned into golf cours­es, cit­rus groves and hous­ing devel­op­ments, and the non-human scrub ani­mals — Flori­da scrub jays, gopher tor­tois­es and Flori­da black bears — are quick­ly disappearing.

141. scur­ry­ing: run­ning away

142. sec­ond phase: the sec­ond and more vio­lent part of a hur­ri­cane after the eye pass­es through

143. share­crop­per: a ten­ant farmer who obtains land, a house, tools, and seeds for farm­ing on cred­it from a landowner

144. shin­ny: to climb by using the shins for gripping

145. side­wheel steam­er: a steam­boat hav­ing a pad­dle wheel on each side

146. slaugh­ter: the killing of ani­mals for food

147. sleet: frozen, or part­ly frozen, rain

148. slough: wet, swampy area

149. slush: par­tial­ly melt­ed ice and snow

150. smoke­house: where the meat was smoked and cured

151. “som­mers”: somewhere

152. Span­ish bay­o­nets: a species of Yuc­ca grow­ing in deserts hav­ing sword-shaped, sharp, point­ed, rigid leaves

153. squat­ters: peo­ple who live on prop­er­ty they do not own

154. stal­lion: male horse

155. stern-wheel­er: a steam ves­sel pro­pelled by a sin­gle pad­dle wheel at the back

156. stir­rups: foot rings attached by straps to a saddle

157. stock­pil­ing: stor­ing food sup­plies for lean times

158. stoked the fire: stirred, added more fuel

159. suite: sev­er­al rooms in a hotel grouped togeth­er as a unit

160. sur­plus: more than what is needed

161. swamp cab­bage: the cen­ter of a cab­bage palm, boiled and eaten

162. sweet gum: a North Amer­i­can tree with lobbed leaves and hard wood

163. Thomas Edi­son: inven­tor of the incan­des­cent light bulb

164. thun­der­head: storm clouds

165. time cap­sule: a con­tain­er that can be opened at a lat­er time, to pre­serve a time in history

166. Timu­cuan: native tribesman; a tribe of native Americans

167. titi: a small ever­green tree or shrub with fra­grant white or pink­ish flow­ers, found in the swamps in the south­ern Unit­ed States

168. trudg­ing: mov­ing slow­ly with difficulty

169. tur­ban: any of var­i­ous styles of head­dress worn by men in the mid­dle east and orient

170. turkey oak: scrub oaks

171. tusk: a long, point­ed tooth–usually one of a pair–projecting out­side the mouth and used for defense and digging

172. twi­light: the time of day when it is not quite light or dark

173. udder: a mam­ma­ry gland, espe­cial­ly one that is large and pen­du­lous with two or more teats, as in cows

174. varmints: ani­mals or bugs con­sid­ered to be pests

175. veran­da: cov­ered porch

176. “vit­tles”: what food was com­mon­ly called

177. wheeled about: turned quickly

178. whiskey into wound: antiseptic

179. whiskey still: a dis­tillery to make whiskey

180. wick­er: woven sticks made into furnishings

181. yel­lowham­mer: a type of cow