Featured

Terms of Service

ALL USERS MUST ACCEPT THE TERMS OF SERVICE TO USE THIS SITE

Continued use of this site binds you to agree and comply with all conditions within the Terms of Service. You must read the Terms of Service immediately upon your first visit to this site. If you disagree with the Terms of Service or any portion thereof, you will discontinue using this site at once and will comply with all conditions noted in Section 1.d of the Terms of Service.
If you do not read the Terms of Service, you will nevertheless be deemed to have accepted them and to have agreed to them in every detail. You may be subject to severe penalties for violation of the Terms of Service, so it is in your best interest to read them fully.

Friday Vocabulary

1. advowson — [British] right to nominate person to fill an vacant church benefice

But the third Lord Ermley had never severed the advowson from those land holdings, and thus confusion ensued when Mr. Symonds asserted ownership of the parcel alongside the banks of the river.

 

2. prevent — [obsolete] to come before, to precede

The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

[Psalms 18:5 (KJV)]

 

3. sclerotic — of or pertaining to the morbid hardening of tissue

The sclerotic nature of bureaucracy meant that no waivers could not be issued without a hearing before this quite temporary board created over five decades ago.

 

4. obliviscence — forgetfulness, an act of forgetting

Though the professor stressed an agnostic attitude towards those things which we students had no knowledge of, and spoke strongly of nescience as an admirable state when one was truly ignorant, I’m afraid that we instead became partisans of obliviscence, forgetting just those facts and natural laws he took such pains to inculcate into our obdurate minds.

 

5. espalier — fruit-bearing tree or bush trained so that its branches form a flat surface, as against a wall or to form a hedge

Unlike the wild topiary of the manor house, Mickelson’s espaliers were designed to catch as much of the region’s rare sunlight as possible, so that his apples would have a longer growing season.

 

6. flat — [obsolete] fool, dullard

Wise about money, perhaps, but the new parson was such a flat about more elevated things that the wags of the town found it easy to convince him that the chapel was haunted.

 

7. minced oath — euphemism for objectionable term or phrase formed by replacing taboo element with another word or expression

After the baby was born he never engaged in baby talk, but he did start using minced oaths in lieu of all his former expletives, even when away from his child, so we enjoyed hearing at work his exclamations of “Flibber-de jibber-de-jabbit!” when he caught his thumb in a drawer.

 

8. palearctic — of the immense biogeographical region consisting of Europe, Asia north of the Himalayas, and North Africa

These distinctive amphibians are found only in the palearctic regions, though Australia has reported an invasive grouping discovered outside Sydney.

 

9. rencontre — unexpected encounter

We left the path and made our way through the grove to escape any unpleasant rencontre with the locals who would inevitably have asked questions about our outrageous attire.

 

10. cariostatic — having the property of preventing or halting production of dental caries (cavities)

I was told that popcorn was a healthy cariostatic snack, but then I got a kernel lodged deeply beneath my gum and ended up with a dentist’s bill far larger than I would have had for a few fillings.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. lithia water — mineral water containing lithium salts

While it is true that 7-Up tried to capitalize on the craze for lithia water with its original name, the soft drink never contained any lithium, unlike the Coca-Cola product mentioned above.

 

2. kirmess (also kermesse or kermis) — street fair in Dutch or German lands; indoor fair, often for charitable purpose

Every young woman in Toronto will be at the kirmess, studying the latest fashions while aspiring to be such a study themselves.

 

3. pistareen — small Spanish coin in wide circulation in 18th-Century America worth perhaps 25¢

Taking stock I found I had only a single pistareen to my name, so my first task was to drum up some ready cash.

 

4. chicane — S-curve in racing course; obstacle in roadway designed to discourage speeding

The soapbox derby course was a difficult one, and many entries had lost too much speed to easily navigate the chicanes just before the finish line.

 

5. ultracrepidarian — opinionated about things outside one’s expertise

The cocktail party was the usual mix of monied frat bros, desperate tech failures, and aging alums, but the sole topic of conversation was the usual ultracrepidarian PR about so-called AI, everyone repeating the received wisdom as if it were carved on stone tablets; they would have disdained anything that hinted at religious ideas, but AI was sacred simply because they thought they smelled money.

 

6. scald — to heat nearly to boiling; to briefly dunk in boiling water; to suffer a burning sensation

For the perfect drink first scald the milk then pouring in the chocolate powder and honey, frothing briskly with a wire whisk.

 

7. thoroughbrace — leather strap suspending carriage for comfort and dampening

He especially checked the thoroughbraces before riding off, having once had inferior leather give way just as he was crossing the moor.

 

8. benthopelagic — of organisms living both upon the sea floor as well as in the open sea (as opposed to near or upon the shore)

He had made his mark with his studies of benthopelagic plankton, but no longer did fieldwork, content to rest upon his mighty laurels … so to speak.

 

9. headkerchief — bandana, cloth worn upon the head

The typical headkerchief of a Zanzibar maiden is folded so as to completely cover the hair with the brightly striped cloth.

 

10. Hogmanay — [Scots] New Year’s Eve; celebration of same

But he was unaware of the local Hogmanay traditions, and thus was startled awake at two o’clock in the morning when the village boys began dragging tin cans behind them up and down the cobbled streets, making such a racket he couldn’t get back to his much needed sleep.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(US slang, from the restaurants use of uncomfortable chairs with one arm—only!— with a small ‘table’ surface for patrons’ food, meant to encourage quick turnover and discourage loitering, first seen in large American cities at the end of the 18th Century, and usually frequented by solitary workers with only brief lunch periods)

one-arm joint (also one-armed joint) — restaurant in urban centers with only single chairs with small table surface for diners’ use

“So I’m trying to save pennies so I just got a raft and cup of coffee at the one-arm joint around the corner—What? A raft? That’s what they call a plain slice of bread at these places … Keep up, pal—So, anyway, there I was…”

 

1600 Books

Finally I have finally finished Paradise Lost, which I’ve been reading off and on (mostly off, as you will gather) for well over a year now. I can’t even claim that I got stuck in the ancillary materials in this, the Norton critical edition, because it is the poem itself that made my steps through the tome more like slogging through molasses than tripping lightly through flower-filled fields. And then, after I’d finally finished the last book and watched Eve and Adam leaving home to look for work, I got re-bogged down in reading the “Areopagitica”. But just this past weekend I finally got through that prose by Milton complaining of the idea of prior censorship and got to the critical essays and extracts, and—voilà!—I’m done.

I can’t fault Norton for most of my issues with Mr. Milton’s poem—though the editor did allow a surprisingly high number of typos into the modern criticism extracts. ‘Twas the poem itself that wearied me. Don’t get me wrong: It’s a great poem, a staggering work of genius, as the phrase goes. But it gave me the staggers. Its lines were brilliant and moving in detail, but difficult to digest in large quantities. As Samuel Johnson says, “None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure.” And that’s how I found it. And I’m glad I did my duty; I got plenty of entries for my personal book of quotations, and had quite a few surprises. Only … am I glad that’s over!

Done at the same time is my 1600th Book in my increasingly silly book tracking project (which phrase I may need to trademark, as I’m using it constantly now when talking about this database of books I track my reading in). I only finished Paradise Lost yesterday, and will try to write up for you posthaste the complete listing of all the books read in this last century of books.

I had still been reading at a ridiculous rate—i.e., better than a book a day—as I tried to make a dent in the total number of unread books I own. Exceptionally, this last set of books, I have released a book (two! in fact) which I have not read, or which I started and decided was not for me. Hopefully this is a new maturity in my reading life, but one shall see. (I’m not including those books in any list I’ll be sharing with you, not to worry.) As well, I hope to take a bit of a breather from this silly pace, try to finish some longer works, but … we shall see as to that as well. For one thing, the smaller books are more portable and thus I read them more frequently at work, where I do a lot of my reading during my lunch hour. (At night I tend to start with good intentions and then succumb to the lure of Morpheus as the words start to slide sideways across the page.) But plans are for the future. In this last tranche of books I managed an average page count of 193 & 1/2 … which drops to ~163 is we include all the comics I read (a couple of dozen, looks like).

I’m still trying to read as quickly as possible to keep my ‘Books Read’ figure greater than my ‘Books Bought’ figure. And thus my average page count for this last set of books is only 168 pages per. This goes up to ~196 if we exclude comic books, which I do and I don’t, though I’m not gonna get too much into those weeds just now, especially as I need to focus on getting those book lists out the door.

The first book of this past century was An Experiment In Criticism by C. S. Lewis, which I finished on the last day of May. I found myself wondering how much Lewis’s fuzzy opening was a response to his quite profound grief, especially in his digression on tragedy. But most of the work seemed pretty judgy for an argument against almost all ‘evaluative criticism’. His notions about ‘unliterary’ readers are pretty much blind prejudice—not necessarily wrong, but derived from an understanding of other readers as experienced by an Oxford don. My own bookstore career made many of his points seem laughable. The ending isn’t all that bad, however, and his conclusions from his ‘experiment’ are, again, not necessarily wrong.

Science Fiction (with a soupçon of Fantasy) preponderated in this last set of 100 Books, mostly because I’ve started rereading a lot of my old Philip K. Dick books. All told, I read 23 books of this genre-fluid genre, topping the usually leading Mysteries by 4 books. Regular old Fiction came in at only 8 Books Read, leaving 50 books in all the other categories. (I actually read more Children’s books than regular old Fiction, with 9 exemplars ‘consumed’.) Oh, and since we’re not counting Comics and Graphic Novels to the total Hundred Books Read number, I’ll confess that I read more of those than any other category, at 26 comic books imbibed. More details will be in the full list, soon to come (I hope).

The pace was a ridiculously speedy 96 days to read these 100 books, slightly slower than the pace set in the last century of books. If we include the comics, the pace was just north of 3/4 days per book read. Of course we don’t, so … moving on.

   1 Book per .96 Days   

See you soon with Book List(s), j’espère!

Friday Vocabulary

1. chalybeate — containing iron salts

The town council decided that our chalybeate springs should be highlighted in the promotional materials.

 

2. gynander — woman with characteristics of a man

In response to the nascent women’s movements of the fin de siècle, the forces of reaction posited a pretended threat from gynanders who would devolve the fine sensibilities of modern women into a merely bestial state.

 

3. Gretna Green — Scottish town famed for easy marriages; any destination with lax marriage laws

The law was first modified in 1856, leading to a steep decline in Gretna Green marriages.

 

4. Tyler — guard stationed outside meeting of Masons to prevent uninitiated persons from entering

The chosen rendezvous was far from prying eyes, obviating the need for a Tyler.

 

5. sinicize — to make Chinese in style or form

It was the same old Chop House I remembered from my college days, only now the name of the restaurant was in some racist, sinicized font, but when I entered I realized that Spooky Bob had converted my favorite steak place to a full-on Chinese menu, and I doubted that I’d be getting my New York Strip after all.

 

6. metoposcopy — telling fortunes or reading character from studying lines on the forehead

In the particularly kabbalistic version of metoposcopy associated with Luria’s group, diviners claimed to find Hebrew letters etched in the wrinkles and folds of the forehead, characters which pointed to specific passages of the Talmud.

 

7. ousel (also ouzel) — Eurasian blackbird; American dipper

My cherry trees were under constant threat by a thuggish band of ousels seeking to fatten themselves before the long flight to North Africa.

 

8. harebell — Scottish bluebell, herbaceous perennial of Europe with blue flowers

Among the heather the harebells were beginning to emerge, and Holly was happy oh so happy once more.

 

9. jockey box — insulated container using ice, water, and coils to provide cold beverages at at temporary location; container on conveyance for tools, etc.

Molly had hidden the money under the tools and wire in the jockey box, but apparently that was the first place they searched.

 

10. tallboy — highboy

The pleasing lines of the tallboy originate in its two-part construction, for ease when moving the furniture.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(English idiom, from rhyming slang: “Not on your Nellie Duff” –> “Duff” = “puff” (of breath) = life)

not on your nelly — no!, not on your life, noway nohow

“I? Take in your vagabond ex-boyfriend for whom the police are searching to … ahem … assist in their inquiries? Not on your Nelly!”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. Telfordize — to pave a road using Telford principles

The sudden squalls inundated the terrain and flooded the newly constructed roads, damaging them after each reconstruction until the captain decided to Telfordize the roadways, raising them above the surrounding ground with large stones creating a foundation which helped quickly drain the road surface after the torrential rains.

 

2. cruor (also cruror) — clotted blood; [obsolete] red colored matter within blood

The sickly salty stench of the rear chamber sickened us and I dared not guess what fiendish rituals had taken place at the wooden block in the center, covered with a vile melange of feathers, cruor, bones, and dung.

 

3. antinomian — of or related to one who believes in no moral law because only God’s grace determines our salvation

Though accused in the 1670s of antinomian tendencies, his compeers all agreed that Sir Henry was a good man and an upright jurist.

 

4. bourne — boundary, limit; goal

The setting sun approached its bourne in the horizon.

 

5. dole — distribution, portion or goods or money (esp. for charity)

One wonders how she supports her kind dole, so meager seems her own household.

 

6. triphibious — able to move on land or water and in air

The triphibious craft had proven an ungainly boat in even the smallest waves, so we were both surprised by its quick response once Captain Chicken took us into the skies.

 

7. yen shee (also yen she) — opium pipe bowl ashes and residue

Sucking at his pipe filled only with yen shee, the porter turned his mournful gaze to the gathering storm behind us and looked at our strange party once more, saying only “I guess it’ll be another of those ‘Incredible Journey’ things, is it?” as he unbarred the gate.

 

8. hierogamic — of or related to rituals promoting fertile crops by representing deific sexual congress

Berringer’s contended that hiergamic rites took place atop the mound, but this idea was belied by Harlan’s discovery of a cache of bones suggesting human sacrifice instead.

 

9. jankers — [British military slang] punishment detail with pointless tasks, inspections, and confinement to barracks

I first got jankers at my very first inspection, for not telling Rogers (who was standing next to me) that he had a hair on his uniform.

 

10. prosthaphaeresis — use of trigonometric formulae to compute products of large multiplicands as well as other functions

Before logarithms ruled the day, some mathematicians swore by prosthaphaeresis as the best tool for quick calculation.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. dawamesc (also Dawamesk) — greenish edible paste or marmalade consisting of hashish mixed with butter, sugar or honey, pistachios, cinnamon and other spices, musk, nutmeg, pine nuts, orange juice

Perhaps the Algerian dawamesc was the first introduction into Europe of cannabis edibles, being served in 1844 at the Club des Hashischins in Paris.

 

2. leather gun — early light cannon of the 1640s & 1650s, where toughened leather wrappings were placed around the more portable smaller barrel in an attempt to give it stability

Gustavus Adolphus hoped that his leather guns would give him an edge over his opponents, but the experiment proved a failure as the guns usually could not fire even a dozen shells before bursting.

 

3. Krishnacore — musical subgenre mixing hardcore punk with Krishna Consciousness

Naturally straight edge musicians are most often associated with the rise of Krishnacore, but Poly Styrene’s became a follower of the Hare Krishna movement as early as 1983.

 

4. swizz — [British informal] to be disappointed, to be cheated

So I finally pushed through the crowd and found my seat, and of course—swizzed again!—it was directly behind a I-beam pillar supporting the upper deck.

 

5. smellfungus — [archaic] one who finds faults, grumbler

It’s all well and good to sigh and say that she’s just an inveterate smellfungus but that does nothing to make her lengthy visits less interminable nor less intolerable.

 

6. picaresque — of or related to rogues and their adventures; of Spanish satire dating from 16th Century depicting such rogues and such adventure

George Plimpton famously identified Pynchon’s first novel V. as a picaresque story of heroes living outside of normal society, and indeed almost all of the notoriously reclusive author’s works might be so described.

 

7. biandry — the state of having two husbands at the same time

Since she was not technically a bigamist, there was some question whether she could be charged at all, or whether biandry was even a crime in this state.

 

8. churl — boor; [archaic] freeman of lowest status under feudalism; [archaic] peasant

I had expected Bronson to be upset, but I didn’t think he’d be such a churl as to barricade the gates to the farm.

 

9. rubato — [music] expressive phrasing of music by use of non-strict tempo, often by slight speeding up of tempo followed by slowing to the original beat

In “Kind Of Blue” Paul Chamber’s bass keeps a strict tempo which allows the other musicians to employ rubato in their solos, which tension gives the piece part of its power.

 

10. triblet — conical tapering shaft used for adjusting size of metal objects such as rings

If you don’t know your ring size I can just pop your gold band on my marked triblet and we can find out right quick.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(English idiom)

round Robin Hood’s barn — by a circuitous route, in a roundabout manner

So I thought, why ask my lawyer to talk to his lawyer to inquire about the best means of determining et cetera and so forth, when instead of such shilly-shallying and going round Robin Hood’s barn I could just pick up the phone and directly ask the man himself?

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. verisimilar — appearing true or real

At first I thought myself deceived by a demonic phantasm, some tool of the dark forces assuming a verisimilar likeness to my favorite actor playing his most famous role, but then I realized it was just a cosplayer.

 

2. thrang — [Scots, N. England] busy, occupied with work

On the shore the maids were thrang sewing at the nets.

 

3. pinna — [biology] visible outer parts of ear in most mammals; wing, fin, or similar structure in animals

While he wore his big slouch hat he seemed almost unscathed by the fire, but once Jerome removed it the scars on his skull spoke of his misadventure and his pinnae were almost entirely missing, burned away during the rescue mission his ex-wife once told me.

 

4. anoxic — lacking oxygen

She had that effect, could transform a lively party into an anoxic wasteland of discomfort and antipathy, her very presence making everyone else decide that they would be better off anywhere but here.

 

5. aplanatic — (of a lens) free of spherical and comatic aberration

These fancy binoculars were supposed to be high-tech aplanatic masterpieces of German engineering, but of course just turned out to be some Siamese knock-offs with spherical lenses.

 

6. schlub — oaf, boor, clumsy or unattractive person

Don’t let that poor schlub ruin your party; he’s just jealous of your success.

 

7. deadworks — [nautical] those parts of a laden ship above the waterline

The Dutch frigate employed the guns in her towering poop deck to rain deadly fire on the pirate ship, almost completely destroying her deadworks and all the crew who had not immediately abandoned ship.

 

8. brontide — sound of distant thunder

Debate still continues as to the possible seismic origin of brontides in some earthquake-prone regions such as Haiti.

 

9. demarche — diplomatic or political maneuver; official notice of a country’s position vis-à-vis some situation

Jennison was quite proud of the ambiguous language in the latest demarche he had written for the ambassador, and was sure that it would feature prominently in that eminent person’s eventual memoirs.

 

10. keystone — to project an image improperly so that the projecting plane is not aligned with the receiving surface and thus causing distortion

Once Billie pointed out that the decrepit theater’s cameras were off-kilter and were keystoning the movie, I could see nothing but strange trapezoids instead of the noir buildings of the city, as if Dr. Caligari had cast a spell upon 1940s Los Angeles.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

pro tanto — only to a given extent

The court ruled the claims were limited pro tanto by the damages asserted in the original filing.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. finca — large estate in Spain or Hispano-America

The Labor Law of 1894 established the right of any worker in Guatemala to seek employment outside his finca on days when the owner was not using his labor.

 

2. trichiliocosm — [Buddhism] third order world of thousands of thousands of worlds, conception of universe of universes, higher power universe of billions of universes

Whatever construction one makes of the Buddhist idea of chiliocosm and trichiliocosm, the one thing that we can be sure of is that it is really, really big. But these billion worlds are also simply one.

 

3. gun-founder (also gun founder) — manufacturer of cannon and other armaments

The most sought after gun-founders were from the Low Countries, until England’s development of reliable cast iron cannon changed the industry forever.

 

4. indefectible — perfect; resisting decay, permanent

I supposed that my reception of God’s grace on that dark night on the ramparts was indefectible, so I was taken aback by my obvious backsliding and I redoubled my prayers … but in vain.

 

5. dixie — [British military] large cooking pot

But the upshot of this little fracas wasn’t too bad, as our punishment was getting water for the kitchen, which meant three trips with two dixies each to the well on the farm over the hill—though we cursed under their weight on the way back.

 

6. ebullition — boiling; temperamental outburst

We were used, by this time, to Nessie’s little ebullitions whenever the weather turned gray, and so we ignored her fretful monologue and instead tried to remain focused on our cards.

 

7. dandiprat — [obsolete] hateworthy person or person of no consequence

Do not be swayed by this mob of dandiprats who wouldn’t know real culture if it took them across its knee.

 

8. cocksparrer (from cock-sparrow) — cocky youngster

He won’t be humbled for long, that one; he’s a real cocksparrer for getting into trouble time and time again.

 

9. Pliofilm — plastic wrapping material used instead of cellulose-based substances

The medallion is in Near Mint condition, still wrapped in its original Pliofilm packaging.

 

10. inamorata — female lover

Bradford resolved to end it all until, while penning a farewell poem to his unknowing inamorata, he was stumped in finding a rhyme for ‘Letitia’, and his frustration kept him alive through the night until he found himself facing yet another dawn.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Australian informal)

come the raw prawn — to try to trick or pretend

“I saw it with my own eyes, so don’t come the raw prawn with me and try to convince me otherwise.”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. dapperling — dwarf or child, esp. one neatly dressed; mushroom of the Agaricaceae family

Face to face finally with my tormentor, I found him to be a smartly turned out dapperling with the missing monocle suspended like a mayoral chain beneath his chic imperial beard, and confess I did not know whether to bow or to pat him upon the head.

 

2. smoker — [informal] casual get-together for men at which cigars or other tobacco products are smoked

It was one of those smokers at which ribald songs would be sung by the former military men after the brandy, and which always devolve further into the mournful singing of nostalgic drivel about home and mother.

 

3. orlop — [nautical] fourth or lowest deck of a sailing ship

The gunpowder and lanterns were each stored at opposite ends of the orlop, for obvious reasons.

 

4. snaffle — large ringed horse bit

Damon and Alex began to argue about the relative advantages and disadvantages of curb bits versus snaffles in horse training, and I tried to look interested in spite of my yawning apathy.

 

5. tenon — projecting part formed by cutting wood away

But closer examination revealed that the classic mortise and tenon construction was clever fakery, with modern glues used instead in all the joins.

 

6. dropsical — affected by swelling

These hypertrophied fringes will cause and often sustain dropsical knee joints, and with their removal relief will come to the patient.

 

7. tonga — [India] light two-wheeled horse cart used for passenger transportation

Rickshaws are used in the city proper, but the smart set make their homes in the hills, and so tongas are de rigeur for attendees at the most popular parties.

 

8. porphyry — reddish or purple-red crystal-containing rock

His sarcophagus was entirely of porphyry, befitting his imperial status.

 

9. gollop — [UK colloquial] to gulp down, to greedily eat

Not to be outdone, the tiny homunculus golloped the entire roast and twelve potatoes, pausing only to drink two flagons of ale.

 

10. perennity — quality of long duration, state of lasting throughout the year, everlastingness

There was an awakening, yes, an awareness of that golden warmth surrounding and infusing all life, but many more months yea years of meditation were needful before that consciousness became a perennity in my daily life.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Edwardian women’s hairstyling)

hair rat — shaped pillow of loose hair (often collected from brushing) used as base for elevating women’s hairstyles

The victim was identified by comparing a hair rat found near the scene with those in the boudoir of the suspect’s missing wife.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. crocodile — line of walking persons, esp. when composed of children

Like some strange Pied Piper I led the crocodile through the rubble and broken walls, hoping the older children would encourage the younger and prevent those toddlers from falling aside before we had reached some semblance of safety.

 

2. gramercy — [archaic] expression of thanks

“Gramercy, sire!” he said, going to his knees. “That you should bestow such grace upon one as mean as I, who am not fit to carry your linen.”

 

3. cruet — small container of condiment or seasoning for use at table; small container for Eucharistic wine

Not like some publicans, he was never ungenerous with his cruets of mustard or vinegar, and he always gave full measure in his tankards.

 

4. proprioceptive — of or related to the sensing of body parts and their relative position one from the other

The fog began to lift from my mind, though I was still having some proprioceptive difficulties from whatever drug my wine had been doped with, and my right shoulder seemed to be missing while my left foot somehow became detached and floated up towards the ceiling whenever I turned my head sharply.

 

5. rogation — profound prayer

The church began observance of Rogation Days in the 5th Century, but we moderns eschew the very idea of rogation, which recognizes our subservience before God’s power to provide everything we need to live our daily lives.

 

6. dysthymia — long-term low-grade depression

Alan realized quite well that he suffered continually from dysthymia, with occasional severe episodes usually centering upon his birthday, but he felt that the medication he’d been offered was like getting rid of a fly in the house with a bazooka.

 

7. instanter — immediately, right away

The sheriff is therefore directed to seize instanter all properties, chattels, and appurtenances of the defendant, saving only the attire he now wears and the sum of £20.

 

8. motivic — [music] of or related to a motif, used as a motif

These descending fifths serve as a motivic connection to the closing theme of the act, which is reprised by the horns as the finale begins.

 

9. griffonage — terrible handwriting, illegible scrawl

I am including a typed fair copy of my griffonage because, although I do believe that personal letters should be handwritten, I also wish you to be able to read the words I write.

 

10. soilure — act of soiling; staining, dirtiness

Though I feared at first to track mud into his rooms, one look at the soilure filling his apartment convinced me that I could hardly add to the mess within.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(tools)

head race pliers — pliers with curved notched grip, designed for loosening or tightening lock rings on a bicycle’s headset

That bearing was just rolling in its slot as I tried to remove the pulley, and I wished I had some head race pliers to hold it while I turned the pulley, but I ended up having to use the sawzall instead.