How my old low companions did fleer when I confessed to them that my great plans for a tremendous heist had been foiled by two meek nuns and a truculent novitiate.
2. empennage — the stern of an airplane or airship, usually including the tail fin, rudder, stabilizer, and elevatorThe jungle had buried most of the broken twin-prop craft beneath a coverlet of almost black green foliage, making it all the more surprising that the plane’s empennage remained unscarred and uncovered, the blue and white logo on the soaring tail appearing freshly painted.
3. shoat — young weaned pigBlake held the shoat by its ears until the young porker freed itself with a sudden twist.
4. reave — to rob, to plunder (also as reive)“Better to have actual pirates burn me out of house and home than to have my inheritance reft by these pretended relatives and their satanic solicitors!”
5. phalera — sculpted metal disk worn on the breast as military awardThe modern military challenge coin may be the descendent of the ancient Roman phalerae, though it is doubtful that any Roman legion would have wished to honor Coast Guard Memes.
6. truckle — to submit timidly; to submit from unworthy motivesHoping to truckle his way into her pants, Jerome told her that he would be happy to listen to some more country music.
7. pellucid — transparent, translucent; clear in style or expressionThe deceptive ease with which E.B. White’s pellucid prose moves the reader masks a deep mastery of words and a workmanlike craft.
8. heterodyne — method by which an incoming radio signal has a signal of only slightly different frequency added to it, causing ‘beats’ to occurThe actual working of the device would have been undetectable to the human ear had not a heterodyne effect been created by other electronics in the room, so that a very subtle beating was noticeable when the surveillance gear was in operation.
9. noria — device for raising water, consisting of buckets on a chain or wheel, the buckets filling with water at the bottom and discharging the water at the top, used in Spain and AsiaBesides providing water for the monastery, the peasants also used the noria as a convenient, if slightly wet, elevator into the building.
10. gyve — (usu. pl.) shackles, esp. for legsThe hopeless coffle made its awkward way past the coach, each slave affecting a strange bow-legged gait because of the gyves binding his ankles.