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 …
Category Archives: Vocabulary
Friday Vocabulary
1. dingle — wooded valley Below the prominence lay a dark dingle which formed a precipitous barrier to any invading force, a steep ditch formed by the stream that even when fordable during the dry days of summer, still had treacherous rocks aplenty to turn the hooves of cavalry and men. 2. dingle — …
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. 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 plonker — [UK slang] fool; penis; [outdated] item of unusually large size or girth “He’s nice enough to his friends, I suppose, but he’s a right plonker with the ladies.” 2.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 …