dead Miami a large Indian tribe that once populated the Ohio Valley before its lands were stolen and its tribal members shunted to reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Dearly Beloved the traditional opening words for a Protestant wedding or funeral.
Diane dianthus, any of a genus of plants of the pink family, including the carnation and sweet william.
die witch! stories scary tales that Denver's brothers told her, suggesting their fear of Sethe, who had tried to execute them.
Don't study war no more a line from "Down By the Riverside." Baby Suggs, an illiterate preacher, took her texts from Negro spirituals.
Dred Scott (1795–1858) a Southampton County, Virginia, slave who sued for freedom in 1846. Voting seven to two, the Supreme Court dismissed the case of Scott v. Sanford nine years later on the grounds that the Constitution did not guarantee rights to a non-citizen. This pro-slavery decision is thought to have hastened the Civil War. Scott, who was freed by his owner in May 1857, died the following year from tuberculosis.
dropsy edema, or an abnormal accumulation of fluid in cells, tissues, or cavities of the body, resulting in swelling.
dry-goods church formerly a general merchandise store.
established asylums created places where runaway slaves would be safe and secure.
even learn reading Laws forbade owners from teaching their slaves to read.
fagot a bundle of sticks, twigs, or branches, esp. for use as fuel.
familiar in folklore, an evil spirit constantly attending someone and typically viewed as dwelling within an animal; also, the animal within which such a spirit dwells.
fast bread bread made from batter rather than yeast dough, which must rise before it can be baked.
fixed on concentrated on.
fixing ceremony the arrangement of a corpse for burial.
fixing me putting a hex or magic spell on; conjuring.
flatbed a flat?bottomed skiff.
foal to give birth to (a foal). By comparing Sethe's condition to that of a pregnant mare, Amy reveals white prejudice about blacks, whom owners treated like brood animals so that their offspring, like foals or piglets or calves, could be reared for labor or for market.
four o'clocks any of a genus of chiefly American annual or perennial herbs, esp. a garden plant with fragrant yellow, red, or white flowers opening late in the afternoon.
Fugitive Bill The Fugitive Slave Bill, tacked onto the Compromise of 1850, required the return of slaves from free states as just compensation of owners. Although contested in Ableman v. Booth, on October 16, 1859, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the unpopular law.
