Vocabulary List One for The Kite Runner (Chapters 1–5)

Vocabulary List for The Kite Runner: Chapters 1–5 (Pages 1–24)

Affluent

  • Definition: (adj.) Wealthy and prospering; related to individuals possessing an abundance of money and property.

  • Contextual Example: "Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a new and affluent neighborhood in the northern part of Kabul" (p. 4).

Unscrupulous

  • Definition: (adj.) Lacking moral principles; unprincipled.

  • Contextual Example: "People had raised their eyebrows when Ali, a man who had memorized the Koran, married Sanaubar, a woman nineteen years younger, a beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonorable reputation" (p. 7-8).

Obstinate

  • Definition: (adj.) Stubbornly adhering to an opinion or course of action despite better reasoning.

  • Contextual Example: "Skeptics had urged him to stop his foolishness and hire an architect. Of course, Baba refused, and everyone shook their heads in dismay at his obstinate ways" (p. 13).

Mullah

  • Definition: (n.) A Muslim religious leader or teacher; a Muslim trained in Islamic theology who leads prayers in a mosque.

  • Contextual Example: "When I was in fifth grade, we had a mullah who taught us about Islam. His name was Mullah Fatiullah Khan, a short, stubby man with a full face of acne scars and a gruff voice" (p. 13).

Koran

  • Definition: (n.) The central text of the Islamic religion; a book of sacred writings accepted by Muslims as revelations made to Muhammad by Allah.

  • Contextual Example: "He lectured us about the virtues of zakat and the duty of hadj; he taught us the intricacies of performing the five daily namaz prayers, and made us memorize verses from the Koran" (p. 15).

  • Note: The Koran is sometimes spelled Quran or Qur’an.

Aloofness

  • Definition: (n.) The quality of being emotionally distant or withdrawn.

  • Contextual Example: "That was how I escaped my father’s aloofness, in my dead mother’s books. That and Hassan, of course. I read everything" (p. 19).