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, …
Category Archives: Vocabulary
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. …
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 …
Friday Vocabulary
1. lithotomy — removal of stone by surgery from organ or vessel The display of 19th-Century surgical implements, especially the lithotomy tools, frightened him viscerally, almost causing nausea and vertigo. 2. plus fours — baggy trousers gathered below the knee Inspired by Gert Fröbe’s golf attire in Goldfinger, Jeremy started wearing plus fours everywhere, …
Friday Vocabulary
1. gallipot — small glazed jar used by an apothecary Between the two of them they left hardly one gallipot of the sweet German wine given us by the count. 2. galipot — unrefined turpentine found on some European pines Though the galipot is of better quality than the dried barras more often found, …
Friday Vocabulary
1. lamella — gill of a mushroom; plate or scale of bone or other tissue The secondary lamellae arise within the spaces between the primary or earlier gills as those latter grow away from the stem. 2. syntagma (also syntagm [linguistics]) — syntactic component; arrangement of components producing meaning or a greater whole; phalanx …