| A | B |
| girdled | to bind or encircle with |
| majordomo | a person in charge of a great household |
| barge | a broad flat-bottomed boat that is usually towed and used chiefly to transport goods in harbors and on rivers and canals |
| dainties | something delicious to the taste |
| barren | producing inferior or little to no vegetation |
| gullies | a trench worn in the earth by running water after rains |
| impoverish | to make poor |
| rend | to remove from place by force |
| stormed | to show violent feeling |
| feeble | lacking in strength or endurance |
| laden | with a load; loaded down |
| reproachful | an expression of disapproval |
| Inundation | the annual flooding in ancient Egypt |
| scarcity | a very limited supply |
| blandly | smooth and soothing in manner |
| discretion | individual choice or judgment |
| tactfully | the ability to deal with others without offending them |
| divert | to turn the attention away; distract |
| defiance | a tendency to resist |
| elusive | hard to understand or define |
| vagabond | moving from place to place without a fixed home |
| worm | to obtain by cleverness or trickery |
| caustically | likely to offend or hurt someone's feelings |
| bisected | to divide into two usually equal parts |
| hawkers | a person who sells wares |
| plaintively | showing or expressing sorrow |
| consecrated | to make or declare sacred |
| ponderously | heavily, as in deep thought |
| flotilla | a fleet of small ships |
| malice | the intention of doing harm for the satisfaction of doing it |
| disipated | to cause to spread out to the point of vanishing |
| wrath | violent anger |