1. vaporing — bragging, boastful talk
For all your vaporing about how fine a handyman you are, you’ve done precious little work around the house.
2. gore — triangular or wedge-shaped piece of fabric used as part of a garment, sail, etc.
The manufacture of the hot air balloon required the most stringent attention to detail, beginning with the parti-colored gores making up the most important part of the aerial transport.
3. nictitating membrane — third or inner eyelid for protection from dust and keeping eyes moist
The chicken’s nictitating membrane was drawn over her eyes, giving her a foul, leprous gaze.
4. credenza — (also credence) dining room sideboard or table, used for buffets or for setting dishes to be served
She had held on through her various moves to her grandmother’s credenza, believing it to be a priceless antique, though those hopes were soon to be dashed.
5. malefaction — evil deed, wrong-doing
The worst part of my malefactions has not been the direct harm I’ve done to others, but the further evils perpetrated by those who were inspired—if that is the right word—by my bad actions.
6. cannula — tube for insertion into the body either to allow fluid to escape or to introduce medication
In cryosurgery the surgeon kills the diseased tissue using liquid nitrogen directed at the specific target through a thin cannula.
7. dorp — small village, thorp
The choice of the moneyed men of the cities was widely rejected by every dorp and hamlet where farmers still held to the old ideals.
8. quixotic — enthusiastically idealistic; impractically romantic
“Don’t you think it all too quixotic of you to expect everyone not to pronounce that selfsame word as if the first syllable rhymed with ‘tricks’?”
9. colure — one of the two meridians of the celestial sphere, one passing through the solstices and the other through the equinoxes, both intersecting above the Earth’s poles
The two colures divide the heavens into four parts, though we on the seas can only see the half of it.
10. scramasax — knife or short sword with a single edge used by the Anglo-Saxons
I doubt that Otho’s scramasax had ever been put to the vile use I now made of it.
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