| vitiate | v. | to spoil; to invalidate; to pervert, to debase | ||
| viviparous | adj. | born alive, as opposed to hatching from an egg or germinating from a seed | biology | |
| vizard | n. | mask, visor | archaic | |
| vlei | n. | lowland marsh or flat lake, often appearing only seasonally | ||
| voile | n. | diaphanous cotton fabric | ||
| volary | n. | large bird cage, aviary | ||
| volatile salts | n. | smelling salts | ||
| volatilizing | v. | becoming volatile, passing out as vapor, emitting vapor | ||
| volplane | v. | to fly downward in an airplane with the motor off | ||
| volt | n. | leap or jerk in fencing to avoid a thrust; turning in a tight circle in dressage | ||
| volta | n. | turn or change in tone, thought, or emotion (esp. in poetry and more esp. in a sonnet) | rhetoric | |
| volute | adj. | having a spiral shape | ||
| vorlage | n. | 1 | skiing position in skier leans well forward while keeping heel down on the ski | |
| Vorlage | n. | 2 | earlier version of a text | |
| votress | n. | female votary, religious, or devotee | ||
| vulnerary | adv. | useful for healing wounds | ||
| vulpicide | n. | killing a fox by any means other than hunting it with hounds | ||
| vulpine | adj. | of or related to a fox; sly, crafty | ||
| waffy | adj. | silly; faint; sickly, nauseating | British | |
| wainscoting | n. | paneling of walls or halls, often only on the lower section | ||
| wake up and die right | v. | come to one’s senses, get a grip | idiom | |
| wale | n. | ridge or mark upon the skin produced by lash or cane; raised line in fabric; gunwale; horizontal timbers used for bracing piles | ||
| waler | n. | light Australian breed of riding horse, originally bred in New South Wales | ||
| wallop | n. | beer | slang | |
| wally | n. | fool, doofus | slang | |
| wangateur | n. | conjurer, witch-doctor | ||
| wangle | v. | to manipulate, to bring about in an indirect or underhanded way; to induce another (to do something) | ||
| wanhope | n. | despair, hopelessness | ||
| wantwit | n. | someone lacking wit or sense | ||
| wapentake | n. | subdivision of certain shires in Northern England and the Midlands, corresponding to hundreds of other counties | ||
| warrener | n. | professional keeper or hunter of rabbits | ||
| wat | n. | Buddhist temple (in parts of Southeast Asia) | ||
| water-cart | n. | vehicle consisting of a barrel or tank on wheels, used primarily to water streets, though sometimes used to provide water for consumption | ||
| wattle | v. | fleshy lobe hanging down from neck or head of certain fowl | ||
| wayward | adj. | driven by willful deviation from norms to gratify one’s own desires | ||
| weasand | n. | esophagus; trachea; throat | archaic | |
| ween | v. | to think, believe, conjecture | ||
| weft | n. | crosswise threads over and under which other threads (the warp) are drawn to make cloth or rugs | ||
| weir | n. | small dam in a stream; fence or net in waterway for catching fish | ||
| welk | v. | to fade, to wilt, to wither | obsolete | |
| welkin | n. | the arc of heaven, the firmament, the sky | ||
| well-found | adj. | well-equipped, furnished with necessary supplies, etc. | ||
| welting | n. | ridge, wale; strengthening seam with one edge of leather folded over the other | ||
| Weltschmerz | n. | world-weariness, sorrowful depression over the state of the world and one’s portion in life | ||
| wen | n. | benign sebaceous cystic tumor | ||
| wend | v. | to go or to proceed in a certain direction; to flow, to run, to move | ||
| weskit | n. | waistcoat, vest | ||
| wether | n. | castrated sheep or goat | ||
| whang | n. | thong, strip of hide or leather | ||
| wharfinger | n. | person in charge of a wharf |
