1. congener — member of same class or kind as another
The zealots of French Revolution, like their congeners, may be recognized by their furious devotion to idealistic purity and their rush to purge anyone they feel disagrees with those ideals.
2. ging — gang; crew of ship or boat
Just as the captain was stepping into the gig, a roller pulled the boat away from the ladder, landing the officer into the sea while the coxswain and the gig’s ging watched in startled embarrassment.
3. bouser — (obsolete) tippler, heavy drinker, boozer
He was known as quite a bouser before he assumed the manor upon the death of the old Lord Deckledge.
4. embrocation — liniment; action of applying a liniment
Every night Mrs. Murphy applied the embrocation vigorously to the bruised foot, following the doctor’s instructions in spite of Liza’s loud protests.
5. foliiferous — bearing leaves
The foliiferous zookeeper was greeted with delight each morning by the pandas.
6. caponize — to castrate
“Yeah,” said Sal, “he used to be a real world-beater, thought he was gonna win a Pulitzer, but that was before some of Pete’s boys caponized him and now he just writes what they tell him to write.”
7. gimcrack — knick-knack, showy but useless item
To my surprise, I found Bert still toying with the black lacquer box he had purchased in the little gimcrack store off Harmon Square, apparently vying to open its hidden chamber from which came the strange rattling sound when it was shaken.
8. fussation — act or practice of fussing
I could see that Jermaine was not only nonplussed by my aunts’ fussation but that he found it nigh on intolerable.
9. swink — to labor, to work hard
The lords and ladies often look down upon those of us who swink and sweat so they can enjoy the fruit of our labor.
10. shemozzle — muddle, chaotic state; quarrel, row
The only thing clear after the whole shemozzle is that the applied scientists and the theoretical scientists can’t stand each other, for all that they both look down on everybody else as ignorant louts.
Bonus Vocabulary
(British idiom)
according to Cocker — according to Hoyle, strictly by the rules
(from the name of a 17th-Century English grammarian)
Now we hadn’t done our first search of the flat according to Cocker, after all, so the gentleman might have caused us a bit of bother if he had squawked about it.