1. pelican crossing — pedestrian crosswalk in which pedestrians press buttons illuminating lights to stop vehicular traffic [has nothing to do with aquatic birds]
On the weekends it was obvious that normal stop lights should have been installed instead of the pelican crossing, as the continual stream of pedestrians flowing across the avenue from one bar to another made it almost impossible for vehicles to make their way up the main drag.
2. mortify — to become gangrenous
The air in the lean-to was oppressive and close, becoming offensively so as Stanhope’s shattered leg began to mortify.
3. pile — nap of raised fibers in carpet
The thick pile of the dark brown wall-to-wall carpet was a magnet for every bit of dust, hair, derma, and detritus that had ever occupied the small apartment, making the crime scene technician’s job trebly difficult.
4. sclerotica — the hard posterior surface of the eyeball, the white of the eye
The foreign object had made scratches in the sclerotica just behind the corner of the eyelid, but these were only annoying with no permanently deleterious effect.
5. pleach — (of boughs) intertwined, tangled
They were married beneath a pleached arbor of bougainvillea.
6. epenthesis — insertion of a sound or sounds in the middle of a word
He replied to each question with a drawn out two-syllable version of the word ‘well’, making it sound like “well-uhhh”, using the epenthesis to gather his thoughts, I presume.
7. cheval glass — full-length swinging mirror hung in a frame
I regarded myself in the cheval glass before departing, deciding that the orange and yellow ostrich feathers in my regimental shako were perhaps a bit too much.
8. lawny — covered in grass
The supposedly lawny hills of the Teletubbies were in fact covered with a particularly excrescent variant of astroturf, its unnatural hide camouflaging the domes of the reptilian overlords producing the show.
9. endue — (of a hawk) to digest
The raptor could hardly endue the mutant bunny flesh, so dense were the genetically modified leporid thighs.
10. knife-boy — boy employed to clean knives
Freeling looked with disgust at the tainted spork, and said, “This is what comes from using a knife-boy to clean the rest of the cutlery; always use the right jobber for the right tool, I always say.”