1. hinky — behaving in a nervous manner; suspicious Say what you want about interdepartmental lines of communication and all that, but the way the Secret Service acted makes the whole thing seem hinky to me. 2. gisant — [French] recumbent statue atop a grave representing the deceased For decades after his death in …
Category Archives: Vocabulary
Friday Vocabulary
1. withal — in addition, besides; nevertheless He exhibited an irascible mien, yet Nicholas withal was a gentle soul at heart, ever ready to help the weak and downtrodden. 2. stadial — of or related to geological ages; of or related to stages of society, civilization, etc. The 100-year anniversary of The Glorious Revolution …
Friday Vocabulary
1. taximeter — device for calculating cab fare by measuring distance traveled We were fortunate to find a taximeter cab in that area and so were able to speed to the station before Bertram’s Daimler arrived. 2. hogget — not yet shorn sheep under one year old Reilly was caught red-handed with two of …
Friday Vocabulary
1. mim — [Scots & British] demure, primly reticent, pretentiously shy Alice sat there hands folded in her lap, mim as can be, though now I know that even then she was scheming to foil all our plans and triumph by our ruin. 2. compossible — not inconsistent with some other assertion As we …
Friday Vocabulary
1. plonker — [UK slang] fool; penis; [outdated] item of unusually large size or girth “He’s nice enough to his friends, I suppose, but he’s a right plonker with the ladies.” 2. Dannert wire — concertina wire, coiled barbed or razor wire The village had shown their preparedness by removing all the street and …
Friday Vocabulary
1. sebaceous — fatty; fat-producing The wound revealed a sickly yellow sebaceous sac around some organ I could not identify. 2. chlamydeous — having floral parts, either calyx or corolla or both Ah what chlamydeous wonders! Would the rose smell as sweet shorn of petals? 3. histology — study of biological tissues “I …
Friday Vocabulary
1. pants — [UK slang] terrible, of bad quality “I don’t care if the whole village go there, it’s always been a pants pub with watery beer.” 2. dietrologia — [Italian] conspiracy theory, science of discerning hidden motives behind events Everyone knew he’d been fired for stealing from the till, but Ben’s commitment to …
Friday Vocabulary
1. stridulate — to make a shrill grating, chirping, squeaking or similar sound by rubbing together body parts (e.g., as a cricket does) The latex body suits made the grotesque couple fairly stridulate as they writhed in the heat of, for want of a better or at least more acceptable term, what Will could only …
Friday Vocabulary
1. chuck-farthing — [British] game similar to pitchpenny prevalent in 18th & 19th Centuries Lorson had the eye and arm to almost always succeed in the first round of chuck-farthing, but he flung his coins instead of bunching them in the second round, so was almost always a loser in the end. 2. incontinent …
Friday Vocabulary
1. mayhap — [archaic] perhaps, possibly Mayhap you’ll find your keys immediately after I hang up the phone, but mayhap you’ll not, so I might as well come over to give you a ride should you need one. 2. smarm — to smooth down with ointment or grease; to fawn over Babbidge’s hair was …