Unbroken
Louie Zamperini’s
Vocabulary
Part I
Chapter 1
Thronged
• Page 6
• A lot of people crowded or
assembled together.
• …where crowds thronged the streets to see it
(Zeppelin.)
Transfixed
• Page 6
•Standing still, not
moving in amazement.
• Under the airship, his feet bare in the grass, he
.
was transfixed
Serenity
• Page 7
• The state of being calm,
peaceful and untroubled.
• …Louie’s mother spotted him strolling in perfect
serenity.
Habitually
• Page 8
• Doing, practicing, or acting in
some manner by force or
habit.
• To minimize the evidence found on him when
the police habitually came his way, we set up
loot-stashing sites.
Teeming
• Page 8
•Many in numbers.
Swarming.
• It was teeming with drunken ants.
Truce
• Page 9
• An agreement between
two to stop.
• Louie declared a truce with the enemy and
cruised around staging brawls.
Resilient
• Page 9
• Able to withstand or
recover quickly from
difficult conditions.
• When history carried him into war, this
resilient optimism would define him.
Overshadowed
• Page 9
•Appear much more
prominent or important.
• But he was overshadowed, and he never
heard the end of it. (About Pete.)
Mortified
• Page 10
• Humiliated or ashamed
• … and above them waved riotous hair that
mortified him (Louie.)
Improvise
• Page 11
•To make up as you go
along.
• … forcing Louise to improvise meals with
eggplant, milk, stale bread, and rabbits Louie
and Pete shot.
Part I Chapter 2
Indifferent
• Page 13
•Having no particular
interest or sympathy;
unconcerned
• Louie, who never joined anything, was
indifferent.
Capacity
• Page 16
• The ability to hold, contain, or
fill.
• To expand his lung capacity, he ran to a public
pool, dove under to the bottom and tried to
stay under as long as he could.
Elite
• Page 16
• A person who is successful
and part of a powerful
group.
• Glenn Cunningham was a member of the elite
track performers.
Excruciating
• Page 17
•Very painful, causing
great metal or physical
pain.
• Cunningham was in an accident during
childhood that initially caused him
excruciating pain.
Speculating
• Page 19
• To make guesses or to form
opinions about something.
• Observers began speculating on when the boy
in the black shorts (Louie) would collapse.
Part I
Chapter 3
Aspirations
• Page 22
• A hope or ambition of
achieving something.
• Not long ago, Louie’s aspirations had been
satisfied by robbing kitchens.
Prestigious
• Page 24
• Inspiring respect and
admiration. Having high
status.
• In May Louie was looking through the
newspaper when he saw a story on the
Compton Open, a prestigious track meet to be
held on May 22nd.
Precipitously
• Page 26
• Happening in a quick and sudden
way.
• Louie’s weight fell precipitously. It was from
the heat wave and running in NYC.
Intimidated
• Page 26
•To make someone afraid
or scared.
• Louie felt intimidated to be running with the
elite runners like Don Lash.
Part I
Chapter 4
Accustomed
• Page 31
• Familiar with something so
that it seems normal or
regular.
• For a poor kid accustomed to stale bread and
milk, the food on the ship was paradise.
Ferociously
• Page 33
•Violent and cruel
• Hitler and his militaristic, ferociously antiSemitic Nazi party were in power, and their
presence was everywhere.
Discord
• Page 33
•A conflict. A lack of
agreement between
people, ideas, and
beliefs.
• The only visible sign of discord was the broken
glass in the windows of Jewish businesses.
Culminating
• Page 33
• Reach a climax or point of
high development. The
end.
…the athletes were treated to a thunderous
show culminating in the release of 20,000
doves.
Hankering
• Page 37
• A strong desire to have or
do something.
• Louie just had a hankering to steal in his head
and two persuasive liters of beer in his belly.
Anti-Semitic
• Page 37
•Prejudice against, hatred
of others, especially the
Jews.
• Louie know about Nazis was that they were
anti-Semitic, so he gave his name in an
exaggeratedly Italian fashion.
Part 1
Chapter 5
Whittled
• Page 41
•Reduce something in
size and/or amount.
• Louie whittled his mile time down to 4:13.7
Stamina
• Page 42
•The ability to sustain
prolonged physical or
mental effort.
• Louie’s body was capable of speed and
stamina beyond anything he’d ever known.
Ominously
• Page 44
•Considered a sign of evil
or trouble to come.
• Most ominously, its army encouraged and
celebrated extreme brutality in soldiers.
Catastrophe
• Page 44
•A terrible disaster. A
complete failure.
• The world was falling into catastrophe.
Bombardier
• Page 46
• A member of a bomber
crew in the US Air Force.
Responsible for sighting
and releasing bombs.
• The air corps was making Louie a bombardier.
End of Part I