Friday Vocabulary

1. borborygmus — stomach noise made by internal gas movement; wamble I desperately hoped the girl was asleep on her side of my California king size bed, though the rude borborygmi I was plagued with seemed loud enough to wake the dead.   2. conservatory — preserving from loss or damage These methods are not …

Friday Vocabulary

1. rising — [informal] nearly, almost It was rising two in the morning before we were all prepared, with Vince insisting on carrying his ridiculous stiletto unsheathed in his left hand.   2. bulla — [biology] blister, vesicle; [biology] hollow spaces within bone structures; [historical] clay balls or containers, often with external writing detailing contents; …

Friday Vocabulary

1. defecate — [obsolete] made pure, clarified; spiritually or morally purified Thus may defecate reason attain an even greater appreciation of more universal truth in forging with faith an antinomy stronger than mere material science.   2. anorak — [UK slang] obsessive fan, esp. of trains He’s a total anorak about 2000 AD and especially …

Friday Vocabulary

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 …

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. plonker — [UK slang] fool; penis; [outdated] item of unusually large size or girth “He’s nice enough to his friends, I suppose, but he’s a right plonker with the ladies.”   2.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 …