The Life of Pi - Part 2 (Vocabulary)

Part 2

(Chapter 37, page 97): “The water about him was shifting wildly.”

Shifting means to move or move something. So it means that the water was moving a lot. It is a very useful word because you can use it instead of saying moving.

 (Chapter 41, page 109): “They were bent and neatly tucked against its twisted torso.”

Bent is not straight, like a piece of bent wire, or when you say: do this exercise with your knees bent.

Neatly means tidy and in order. For example, every day I have to leave my bed neat.

(Chapter 41, page 109): “I was so eaten up by anxiety that I couldn’t dwell on it… ”

Dwell means to think or talk a lot about something. So when Pi says this, he is talking about Richard Parker, because he was astonished with this magnificent creature.

(Chapter 41, page 111): “…, fluffy, radiantly white clouds were beginning to light up in a vast fathomless…  ”

Fluffy is soft, light and containing air. Like when you have a teddy bear, you say it’s very fluffy.

 (Chapter 43, page 113): “In the preceding minutes its whining had been rising in volume to a scream.”

Whining is to complain in an annoying, crying voice, like when we were babies, we whined all the time.

 (Chapter 47, page 129): “She thumped the beast on the head.”

Thump is to hit somebody or something hard, especially with your closed hand. For example, some guys, when they are pissed off, they thump somebody in any part of their bodies.

(Chapter 53, page 149): “I was feeling faint with fear.”

Faint means feeling weak, tired and likely to become unconscious. In this case Pi felt like that because he thought his life was in danger.

 (Chapter 53, page 156): “…and I believe it was terror as much as wind and current that widened the distance between raft and lifeboat so swiftly.”

Swiftly means to do something quickly and immediately. So instead of saying fast you can say swift, like ‘she moved swiftly to the rescue.’

(Chapter 55, page 159): “…and the waves that threw a path over me and trod me underfoot one after another.”

Trod is the past tense of tread, which means to put your foot down while you are stepping or walking. In this part of the book, Pi must have felt very scared.

 (Chapter 78, page 215): “The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkles and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.”

Deluge is a very heavy fall of rain. So it means that the deluge wasn’t stopping, and it was a bad weather for Pi.

Wrinkles are lines or small fold in your skin, especially on your face, when you get older. This shouldn’t be happening to Pi, because he is just a teenager, but this kind of things happens when you are in those conditions; when you don’t have anything to protect your skin, I think no one would like to have wrinkles.

Bloated means full of liquid or gas and therefore bigger than normal, in a way that is unpleasant.  This is another effect to Pi’s skin, in such a terrible situation, he must have felt very weak .

Stiff means firm and difficult to bend or move. I don’t imagine myself being in that situation, it must be horrible.

(Chapter 86, page 234): “Oh, what bliss!”

Bliss means extreme happiness. I really like this feeling, because everyone likes to be happy. And when Pi was in that ship, he must have felt like that.