1. loosestrife — common name of flowering plants of two distinct genera: Lythrum and Lysimachia So many flowers fall under the general rubric of the loosestrifes that it is often unclear which is meant, as—for example—the scarlet pimpernel from which the famous hero took his name, which is one of over two hundred plants bearing …
Author Archives: mysterious6030
Friday Vocabulary
1. toerag (also toe-rag) — [British colloquial] worthless or despicable person; vagrant But I’m not about to be made to feel guilty by some toerag whose problems are all his own. 2. noddle — [British] the head This job’s not a very good use of your fine old noddle, now is it? 3. …
Friday Vocabulary
1. erudite — having or showing lots of knowledge or learning But this sort of erudite reasoning is hardly to the point when we’re merely trying to decide where to build the outhouse. 2. gleeman — wandering singer (in medieval era) But the roles were not always thought of as separate in those times, …
Friday Vocabulary
1. usufruct — right to benefit and profit from a property without actual ownership nor the right to destroy, diminish, or alienate said property Though initially the usufruct of the lands granted to the vassal reverted to the lord upon the former’s death, within a short span of years the fief became hereditary. 2. …
2023 By The Numbers
Friday Vocabulary
1. transpontine — of or related to (something on) the farther side of a bridge; of or related to the area south of the Thames river in London; of or related to sensational plays of the 19th Century presented in the area south of the River Thames “I will not have your so-called ‘friends’ bringing …
Friday Vocabulary
1. grutch — to complain “If you must grutch and moan,” said the hospitaler, “have the sense to do it away from the sickroom windows.” 2. voile — diaphanous cotton fabric If you decide to use voile for the side panels, be sure that the fabric is fully mercerized. 3. haylage — silage …
Friday Vocabulary
1. jingo — bellicose patriot Appalled at Lord Muley’s quick insistence on massive reductions in the fleet, Sir Richard showed why he was considered the foremost jingo in the opposition with a long and loud speech of both hawkish and mawkish protest. 2. rondure — supple roundness; orb, sphere As they swung through the …
Friday Vocabulary
1. trunnion — one of pair of pivots supporting something; cylindrical projection from cannon supporting same on its carriage The bearings inside the telescope’s trunnions were manufactured to a previously unheard of precision, allowing the new astronomical wonder unparalleled accuracy in viewing the heavens. 2. okta — measurement of cloud cover equal to one …
Friday Vocabulary
1. doryphore — persistent pest, obstinately pedantic critic And of course Reinhard, the office doryphore, noticed that we’d had to change the printer paper, and that the later pages of the report used 92 brightness paper instead of the 96 bright at the beginning. 2. aoudad — Barbary sheep The hills around Hearst Castle …