The Jungle Book: 40 words to know before you read it
The 40 words Rudyard Kipling uses again and again in The Jungle Book that are outside the 4,000 most common in English. Learn them first and the opening chapters read much more easily. Each comes with its pronunciation and a sentence from the book.
elephant/ˈɛɫəfənt/131× in the book
The real reason for this is that man-killing means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches.
jungle/ˈdʒəŋɡəɫ/101× in the book
… because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad …
seal/ˈsiɫ/94× in the book
Nobody comes to Novastoshnah except on business, and the only people who have regular business there are the seals.
thou/ˈðaʊ/89× in the book
… or by the Sambhur that I killed (I eat no starved cattle), back thou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle …
thee/ˈði/76× in the book
He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs—frog-eater—fish-killer—he shall hunt thee!
till/ˈtɪɫ/71× in the book
For loosed till dawn are we.
monkey/ˈməŋki/46× in the book
We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die.
wolves/ˈwʊɫvz/39× in the book
“Good luck go with you, O chief of the wolves.”
herd/ˈhɝd/38× in the book
The herds are shut in byre and hut
wolf/ˈwʊɫf/38× in the book
“For a wolf, no,” said Tabaqui, “but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast.
mule/ˈmjuɫ/37× in the book
Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears.
tiger/ˈtaɪɡɝ/36× in the book
Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature.
camel/ˈkæməɫ/33× in the book
Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine,
buffalo/ˈbəfəˌɫoʊ/33× in the book
Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant.
bull/ˈbʊɫ/32× in the book
By the bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog’s den for my fair dues?
bullock/ˈbʊɫək/31× in the book
Does he think that our buck are like his fat Waingunga bullocks?”
cub/ˈkəb/30× in the book
Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived.
beast/ˈbist/29× in the book
… which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe.
mil/ˈmɪɫ/25× in the book
Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty miles away.
ravine/ɹəˈvin/22× in the book
When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by the dhâk tree in the center of the plain.
roar/ˈɹɔɹ/21× in the book
The tiger’s roar filled the cave with thunder.
cobra/ˈkoʊbɹə/20× in the book
said half a dozen low voices (every ruin in India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes, and the old summerhouse was alive with cobras).
mongoose/ˈmɑŋɡus/20× in the book
He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits.
grunt/ˈɡɹənt/18× in the book
“The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter’s campfire, and has burned his feet,” said Father Wolf with a grunt.
flipper/ˈfɫɪpɝ/17× in the book
When he heaved himself up on his front flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground, and his weight …
trumpet/ˈtɹəmpət/16× in the book
And as soon as there was a lull you could hear his high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting and crashing, and snapping of ropes …
foolish/ˈfuɫɪʃ/16× in the book
Baloo knows it; I know it; the Pack know it; and even the foolish, foolish deer know.
nursery/ˈnɝsɝi/16× in the book
He only wanted room by the sea for his nursery.
frighten/ˈfɹaɪtən/16× in the book
He will frighten every head of game within ten miles, and I—I have to kill for two, these days.”
scratch/ˈskɹætʃ/16× in the book
It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned …
hind/ˈhaɪnd/15× in the book
… old Baloo, who can come and go where he pleases because he eats only nuts and roots and honey—rose upon his hind quarters and grunted.
howl/ˈhaʊɫ/15× in the book
Then there was a howl—an untigerish howl—from Shere Khan.
picket/ˈpɪkɪt/14× in the book
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake.
graze/ˈɡɹeɪz/14× in the book
At one end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe.
frog/ˈfɹɑɡ/14× in the book
Are there not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat Man, and on our ground too!”
tusk/ˈtəsk/13× in the book
… fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific, who has no manners except when he is asleep—as he was then …
snort/ˈsnɔɹt/13× in the book
There he checked, for he heard the yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted Sambhur, and the snort as the buck turned at bay.
obey/oʊˈbeɪ/13× in the book
Mowgli obeyed faithfully.
mile/ˈmaɪɫ/12× in the book
Now to Baloo’s word I will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile from here, if ye will accept the man’s cub according to the Law.
yoke/ˈjoʊk/12× in the book
I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky white bullocks that drag the heavy siege guns when the elephants won’t go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together.
Pronunciation: ipa-dict (MIT), from Wiktionary.
Read the book freeEvery sentence translated, natural audio, one-tap dictionary