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Friday Vocabulary

1. revers — lapel or other garment part turned back to reveal the lining

The colonel wore a half-length silk robe in black with revers in a startling crimson.

 

2. cornice — [architecture] horizontal element surrounding the top of a building; crown molding of walls within a room; overhanging snow in alpine mountains

Jeremy thought he could just make out a small tube or shaft—a rifle barrel? an antenna?—peeking out above the cornice of the shabby hotel across the street from the senator’s election party.

 

3. goloptious — excellent, wonderful; delicious

Steve decided that he’d waited long enough after dinner to enjoy yet another piece of that goloptious pumpkin pie.

 

4. velarium — ancient awning over Roman amphitheaters

Here in the cheap seats of course there was no velarium to dampen the sun’s harsh rays, so the early events were often difficult to see in the blinding light of Apollo.

 

5. carrack — large three- or four-masted merchant ship of European nations from 14th Century and later

The captain had gambled and lost, and the topsail still set now took the mast with it as the wind tore and raged, and now the carrack was lost, no hope of reaching the open water opposite the treacherous rocks to port which seemed evilly to glister in the lightnings’ fire.

 

6. cuspidorian — person tasked with cleaning and maintaining cuspidors

Never an easy job, the cuspidorian despaired of his Sisyphean task whenever the Shriners came to town.

 

7. rangdoodle — round in a card game in which limits or antes are increased after a specified winning hand

The house rules called for rangdoodles after any hand better than a full house, so I ended up losing most of what I’d just won.

 

8. daedal (also dædal) — clever, adroit

Quickly he sketched, and from Bollard’s daedal hand came a striking—not to say devastating—portrait of the headmaster in spitting rage.

 

9. deltiology — the collection and study of postcards

His was a rather specialized subset of deltiology, so I knew when I found the Chinese postcard featuring a fat baby wearing a Mao hat and jacket that I finally had something to bargain with.

 

10. manubrium — upper part of the sternum connecting to the clavicles

The point of the umbrella had pierced completely his manubrium, though somehow the EMTs had kept him alive despite his almost useless trachea.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. terret — ring on harness saddle through which the reins are passed

When driving a unicorn team you need to ensure that the reins of the lead horse are fed loosely through the pair’s terrets, which usually requires an extra D-ring.

 

2. shebeen — [Ireland, Scotland, South Africa] unlicensed place where alcoholic drinks are served

Sammy had found religion in a Notting Hill shebeen after he nearly lost an eye in a fight with a Jamaican lorry driver.

 

3. shantung — thin plain woven silk fabric

Sitting at the tiny table in his shantung suit the same color as the tobacco stains on his lips, he looked like a louche spy instead of a petty broker of crockery.

 

4. chancroid — [biology] STD causing ulcerated lymph nodes in the groin

Though of course chancroid is obviously a venereal ulcer, infection can also arise from contact with the chancroidal pus.

 

5. haecceity — thisness, unique essence, that which makes a particular thing that very particular thing and no other

Professor Sprunt made very clear that we should never confuse haecceity with mere quiddity, for though of course both terms spoke to the ‘whatness’ of a thing, the latter was a general whatness while haecceity was almost the opposite.

 

6. ramiform — shaped like a branch or branches

As I stared at the ramiform chart Bruce had constructed to explain the ‘intuitive’ and ‘easy’ combat system of his new RPG, my eyes began to glaze over and I found myself daydreaming once more of Runequest.

 

7. gerontophobe — person afraid of old people; one who fears becoming old

Nellie loved parties and dancing, and my sister thought her a flighty gerontophobe, though it seemed to me that she detested only old men, not little old ladies.

 

8. satispassion — expiation through suffering

He considered this part of his satispassion, this burning pain in both his heart and his groin, but he told himself he would rather suffer this torment than to lapse back into uncaring and ignorant sin.

 

9. caramelize — to covert into caramel; to brown through heat

The Mediterranean sun had caramelized her skin to a lustrous red gold.

 

10. emissile — capable of being protruded

The Martian lander opened a hatch and extended its emissile probe into the powdery dust.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

non placet — negative vote

The famous vote for Lord Hardwicke was marred by the discrepancy in the proctors’ counts, but in both cases the non placet was insufficient to give Lord Sandwich the victory at Cambridge.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. grom — [slang] young surfer; youth on a board of the various types (wake-, snow-, skate-; i.e., not corporate)

That pesky grom really got worked when he took off on the wrong wave at the reef break.

 

2. reata — lariat, lasso

Scotch Bill dallied the rawhide reata around his saddlehorn as he prepared to go after the spooked steer.

 

3. ingle — [obsolete] fireplace

We found the old man asleep—passed out drunk, more likely—in front of the ingle, his tattered boots almost touching the flames.

 

4. functor — [mathematics] mapping of one category to another in category theory; thingies serving a similar purpose in language (function words) or programming (function objects)

In this overheated political environment it becomes obvious that each accusation is a functor pointing to actual activities on the part of the accuser, similar (though orthogonal to) to Evans-Wentz’s analysis of witchcraft accusations.

 

5. megaderm — blood-sucking bat of Asia and Africa

The Lyre Bat has the largest ears and nose leaf of all the megaderms, and this so-called ‘vampire bat’ may be found throughout the subcontinent.

 

6. lagan — goods or cargo sunk at sea which may yet be claimed by original owner

Before the ship foundered the crates of whisky were jettisoned with a buoy attached so that legally the cargo became lagan and could not be considered part of the impending wreck upon the treacherous shore.

 

7. gantlet (also gauntlet) — punishment in which two rows of attackers beat the victim running between them; trying ordeal, esp. as penance or discipline

After her testimony Ellie was forced to run the gantlet of her co-workers’ glares and sneers each day as she made her way to her desk at the back of the boiler room.

 

8. factoid — falsehood repeated in media so often it becomes accepted as true; minor or trivial item of information

The widely accepted factoid that humans only use 10% of their brain power may originate in the bizarre studies of William James and Boris Sidis of the latter’s son, who became an obsessive expert in the field of urban train and bus transfers, or peridromophily.

 

9. misprize — to undervalue, to be contemptuous of, to fail to appreciate

Betty realized then that she had been cruelly misprized, not only by her supposed beau Georges, but by all the men of her acquaintance, ever since she had left The Lodgings.

 

10. hurple — [obsolete] to crouch, to hunch over; to limp

Drymoat Pete slunk out of the shadowed doorway, hurpling against the cold and pulling his tattered cloak closer to his shivering shoulders.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(heterodox Islamic belief)

Alevism — subsect of Twelver Shi’a mysticism

Though the followers of Turkish Alevism are certainly put upon by orthodox Muslims, it is the Kurdish sect which has suffered most in the recent century, as in the Maraş massacre of 1978.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. iconoclast — destroyer of religious images; one who criticizes or attacks orthodoxy; independent thinker

Jocelyn was such a staunch iconoclast she refused the invitation of Mr. Kipling, lest she be thought to support his imperialist views.

 

2. limonite — hydrous iron oxide

Among the important iron ores found in the region are deposits of siderite, limonite, and taconite.

 

3. tamarisk — one of many varieties of shrub found in Eurasia or Africa

And in honor of this covenant Abraham planted a grove of tamarisk by the well of Beer-sheba.

 

4. crowbait — [idiom] worn-out old horse

Charlie was so desperate he gave twenty dollars for the crowbait the farmer had dying out in his field.

 

5. agenbite — [archaic] remorse

The pangs of agenbite gnawed at him as he pondered this last, perhaps final, mistake.

 

6. kalpak (also calpack) — high-crowned hat of Turkic peoples

The gold threads of his black kalpak glimmered faintly in the firelight.

 

7. whicker — to neigh gently

As long as Beau was whickering outside the tent I wasn’t worried.

 

8. chapati — unleavened flatbread of India and Pakistan

Wrapping the lamb in a piece of chapati I dipped it in the wonderful mango chutney.

 

9. meller — [informal] melodrama

Like many mellers today, the plot was contrived to give our hero a chance to shine, meaning every other person in the film is a complete dope.

 

10. homeothermic — of or related to the ability of an animal to maintain a fairly constant body temperature independent of surroundings

Fish in near-freezing water are as homeothermic as a lynx; the term is not a synonym for ‘warm-blooded’.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. corm — [botany] swollen stem of plant serving as storage organ, bulbotuber

Transforming your corm into a burgeoning banana plant is a labor of love and … well, labor, which is the reason for the much lower price.

 

2. graupel — mushy hail, granular snow

To distinguish hail from graupel is most easily done by watching or feeling its impact; if it splashes, it is not hail.

 

3. cornify — to transmogrify into horn

In the epidermis as the cell is cornified the organelles including mitochondria are removed, though this process is not yet fully understood.

 

4. flame cell — specialized excretory cell in very simple invertebrates

Using an electron microscope the excretory material can be seen in the cytoplasm of the flame cell.

 

5. cotehardie — long-sleeved outer garment buttoned or laced up the front

He thought himself a fine figure in his blue velvet cotehardie, until an errant swine ran squealing through his legs and knocked him into the cesspool.

 

6. culverin — handheld weapon of the 14th & early 15th Centuries; small cannon

The bow chasers were two brass culverins mounted above the captain’s cabin.

 

7. burleycue — burlesque, esp. burlesque theater

She shamelessly admitted she’d worked in burleycue, yet Haldane persisted in believing he might one day introduce her to his mother.

 

8. monovision — presbyopia treatment in which differently adjusted contact lenses are used, one for far vision and the other to correct for near vision

Monovision lenses are generally used for patients who either will not or cannot simply wear reading glasses.

 

9. exoteric — of or related to information suitable for public consumption

Though the exoteric meaning of the play clearly supported the new regime, party leaders were disturbed by elements they did not understand, fearing some hidden criticism of their rule.

 

10. immie — [informal] marble

Petey was looking for an immie that had rolled into the drain when he saw the silver watch.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(archaic minced expletive)

ods bodikins — interjection palliating stronger phrase “God’s bodkins” (meaning the nails used to affix Jesus to the cross)

“Ods bodikins, man! They can only hang us once, so buck up and set to these bastards!”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. motorik — driving 4/4 beat—often with pop! on 3rd beat—typical of krautrock

Though of course most are familiar with the motorik used in Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn”, aficionados still argue whether Jaki Liebezeit of Can or Klaus Dinger of Neu! deserves more credit for the spread of perhaps the most popular beat of the late 20th Century.

 

2. hadron — subatomic particle comprised of multiple quarks held together by the strong force

In the Standard Model of particle physics, hadrons are formed of either a quark-antiquark pair—that is, a meson—or three quarks—a boson.

 

3. flam — capricious idea or fancy; falsehood, deceit

But Southern finally persuaded himself that the assertations of his old college chum had been, not to put too fine a point on it, barest flam.

 

4. porte-crayon — tube with split ends and metal ring for holding chalk or bits of chalk for use in drawing; any container used for carrying art supplies

The design of the porte-crayon remained remarkably consistent from the 17th Century onwards, with most artists favoring an instrument with clasps at either end, so that differently colored chalks could be used alternately with ease.

 

5. hyperemesis — unstoppable vomiting

Though familiar to the concept from his time kneeling before the porcelain deity back in college, this was the first time that Charlie had suffered from hyperemesis induced solely by listening to the news.

 

6. phenotype — observable trait (of form, behavior, development, or biological properties) characteristic of an organism

Though the phenotype concept is very useful in mapping biology to what we see, students must be wary of pushing the idea too far from the nuts and bolts of genetics, as Hawkins did in his The Extended Phenotype.

 

7. aguishly — in the manner of a sufferer from ague; shiveringly, quiveringly

Making his stumbling way to the front door, Carson aguishly stretched out his hand towards the heavy metal knocker affixed to the center of the portal.

 

8. scatter cushion (also scatter-cushion) — [British] throw pillow

The vintage couch was exceedingly comfortable I was told, filled with down and feathers, but I found it filled instead with so many scatter cushions as to make it almost unusable.

 

9. befleck — to cover with tiny dots

Spots of oil from the cranky motor beflecked the white overalls he’d unwisely chosen that morning.

 

10. muffetee — small wrist muff

The delightful fur muffetees of the 19th Century had been transformed by the late 20th into stretched terry cloth wrist sweatbands.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(music)

Aeolian harp — stringed musical instrument constructed so that its sounds are produced by the wind passing over and through the strings

By its nature an Aeolian harp can only play harmonic frequencies, giving it an eerie sound which is not entirely pleasing to all listeners.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. mews — alley where stables are found; street with houses built from former stables or built to look like stables

No other passerby were on the streets at that hour, and as the tattered waif limped into the dark mews he looked about and behind in fear or resignation.

 

2. burr — to speak with strongly rolled r’s, to make whirring sounds; to fashion a rough edge upon metal

He burred his words so strongly that at first I thought he was pretending to be Scottish, or possibly even Spanish.

 

3. proximad — toward the center or point of attachment

The colors of the wing feathers show a distinct change proximad of this joint, and indeed Klipstein found them occurring in a separate row in specimens obtained from Pulzos Island.

 

4. lambdacism — inability to properly pronounce the letter ‘l’; substitution of the letter ‘l’ for other sounds (such as ‘r’)

The study confirmed a surprising lack of lambdacism among these Guinean descendants, of particular interest because its prevalence in bozal Spanish.

 

5. shallot — onion-like bulb used in food often in a similar manner

Janey was known as the lady of shallots because she hardly ever made a meal without some of those bulbs from her garden as an ingredient.

 

6. Pleistocene — of or related to the geologic age beginning in the Quaternary period down to about 10,000 years ago

Because scientists simply can’t keep their hands off of questions their betters thought settled once and for all, nowadays we start the Pleistocene era much earlier—2.588 million years ago instead of 1.7 (notice the foolish precision?)—and also end it ever so slightly earlier, 11,700 instead of simply 11,000 years ago.

 

7. contravene — to violate an order, law, or treaty; to conflict with an obligation or commitment

This incident marks the fifth time this administration has contravened its stated principle of providing these services to the poorest among the population.

 

8. abjectly — shamefully, in a completely undignified manner

I could not stand the sight of Mary prostrate at my knees, abjectly begging for shelter for her and her children, so I stood up and left the room, telling Smithers to have her escorted from the estate.

 

9. braggadocio — boastful speech, empty bragging

Full of arrogance and braggadocio, Jeremy descended upon the storied publishing house to drag it, as he said, “kicking and screaming into the 21st Century”.

 

10. homograph — words spelled the same but with different etymology; words with identical spelling but different pronunciation

They then descended into an friendly argument over whether a word that changed its pronunciation when capitalized was truly a homograph or not.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British idiom)

drop a brick — to commit a faux pas, usu. in speech

But I really dropped a brick when I went into my habitual rant against gluten-free food, as Harmie cut me off and said, “My son has celiac disease.”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. tripper — [British] excursionist, one who goes on a trip

Liz would often go into the city for the weekend, and history was made when the young tripper met the editor of New Moon magazine in an Edinburgh pub.

 

2. medinal — sodium salt of barbital, first commercial barbiturate

“Neil had made himself a rule, which he had never broken, not to take medinal more than one night in three.”

[Mary Renault]

 

3. cubitus — [biology] one of (usu. three) major veins in insect wing; elbow; forearm

This genus of parasitic wasp may be easily distinguished from that above by the near complete lack of cubitus in the front wing.

 

4. crowbar — to prevent overvoltage by creating a short circuit away from electrical components which might otherwise be damaged

They were searching all day for a blown fuse, but the problem was really that they’d crowbarred the power supply and simply needed to reset the circuit.

 

5. servery — [British] location where food is served; canteen

Household staff lived in small rooms accessible only through a small portal which opened to the left side of the servery.

 

6. firth — narrow sea inlet; estuary

But this water between Caithness and the Orkney Islands is not a true firth, despite its name, but just a plain old strait.

 

7. bugfuck — crazy, whackadoodle

Nobody recalls now the absolutely bugfuck wolf in sheep’s clothing attack ad, the one with the laser beam eyes, likely because nowadays it wouldn’t even stir a ripple of comment.

 

8. local — [British] neighborhood pub, habitual bar

But it wasn’t the same, with all the new bright lights and the trendy neutral greys and other grays, and I never did find a new local like the old Donkey’s Arms, though of course I’d stop by every now and then.

 

9. prelest — spiritual conceit, self-delusion in one’s own righteousness

Though it is true that all humans are in a state of prelest to some extent, the modern age seems to have taken this most subtle of spiritual delusions to new and heretofore unthinkable levels.

 

10. galloway — small horse originally bred in Galloway, Scotland

The stubble on this hilly ground is perfect for the galloways Herbert breeds.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. longeron — load-bearing brace or frame running lengthwise in an airplane’s fuselage, or spanwise in its wing structure

The strut was hinged to the bottom longeron of the small craft, but had become warped during the previous landing.

 

2. cami-knicks (also camiknickers) — ladies’ undergarment combining camisole and knickers; a teddy

Alice put aside the articles at the top of the drawer, revealing the silk cami-knicks still in their original wrapping, a gift from Ben a lifetime ago.

 

3. a taunto — of a ship with all sails set; prepared

The workmen were busily fixing the neglect of years, getting the home office all a taunto in preparation for the visit of the owner, the first in well over a decade to this formerly significant international trading concern.

 

4. stushie — [Scots] hubbub, fracas

We’re used to the neighbors barking at each other like kennel dogs but they had a right stushie last night and I couldn’t get back to sleep and that’s why I missed me bus.

 

5. small-clothes (also smallclothes) — [British archaic] underwear

The baron sat steadily sewing the torn knees of his small-clothes, repairing the silken heirlooms as his father the old baron had made him solemnly swear to do.

 

6. dividual — separate; divisible

After this motion the members of the Plenum formed dividual groups of representatives from each economic group, though the bankers disdained to rise from their seats.

 

7. agistment — act of allowing the livestock of others to graze on one’s land for a specified rate; type of tax for specified purpose

The contract specifies that while the cattle are upon agistment, a monthly notice shall be sent outlining charges and any issues with the stock.

 

8. blackleg — deadly cattle disease; plant disease, esp. those affecting potatoes or cabbages; cheater; strikebreaker

Lafferty was in jail that week, serving time for throwing stones at blacklegs down at the mill.

 

9. aquaculture — cultivation of aquatic plants or animals for food or other products

This well-managed pearl farm promotes biodiversity and is an example of aquaculture at its finest.

 

10. accipitrine — of or related to a hawk; raptor-like

Beneath her accipitrine nose her smile became even more hawklike, her glistening white teeth parting slightly as if in anticipation of the first taste of her prey.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. wally — [British slang] fool, doofus

Brett always acted the wally but I suspected there was more going on behind those blue eyes than any of us ever knew.

 

2. chough — birds belonging to a genus within the crow family

The choughs of Iona seemed to resent our presence, their dark forms wheeling about us and croaking out a warning which grew louder as we approached the lightning-struck tree.

 

3. gompa — imposing religious building similar to Christian monastery in which religious writings are protected and monks work as devotees of Tibetan Buddhism

The producers spent many hours speaking with head lama of the mountain gompa, inveigling the leader to allow our team to film the relics which were supposedly the forearm and brain pan of an ancient Yeti.

 

4. simon-pure — entirely pure, authentic, clean

He really was as simon-pure as his brother had said, following the written law with a maddening consistency, insisting on paying his full share of all taxes, driving at precisely the posted speed limits, and hence his remodeling project was doomed to failure, as the San Francisco regulations were entirely inconsistent.

 

5. swainmote (also sweinmote) — [British] one of the courts of the royal forest, with power over rights of agistment and pannage as well as ability to try offenders by a jury of forest swains

All we knew of this Gilley was that he was a verderer, so Pauncey and I decided we might find him at the swainmote meeting at the beginning of June, two weeks before the Feast of John the Baptist.

 

6. cumber — to hinder or hamper, to burden

Cumbered as we were by this awkward mass of stuffed ferrets, we were unable to set off quickly in pursuit when we realized this strange figure in yellow top hat and tails was the malefactor we sought.

 

7. stratosphere — second layer of the earth’s atmosphere, in which temperature increases in stratified zones as altitude increases

Jets are more efficient in the stratosphere, as less oxygen is necessary for combustion at those altitudes because of the lower air pressure and temperature.

 

8. bam — to cozen or cheat

So there I was, bammed again, and this time because of my suspicious rather than my trusting nature.

 

9. raise hob — [informal] raise hell

The Legion was less a political project and more an excuse for shiftless men to run amuck and raise hob.

 

10. play hob with — [idiom] to derange, to upset

The switch to decaffeinated coffee was playing hob with my work, and I found myself unable to concentrate on any intricate projects until after lunch.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(commercial law, generally as applied to transshipment contracts; also used as relating to archiving and preserving art etc.)

inherent vice — tendency of an item to degrade due to poor manufacturing or materials used or other factors

The drayage contracts all had the standard clause indemnifying the company against inherent vice, but it was galling to see this applied in this case where our product had sat in a Mexican warehouse for some sixteen years during the legal disputes.