1. messuage — dwelling house along with its outbuildings and attached lands dedicated to household use
We had a small messuage in my youth, though to be fair the only outbuilding was a leaky prefab toolshed poorly placed in the sloping backyard.
2. byre — shed for cows
The beeves in the byre became restless, suddenly awake and uncertain as to why.
3. machan — hunting platform in tree
My client kept nipping from his flask whenever he thought I wouldn’t notice, and soon I began to worry that he would take a drunken tumble from the machan and break his neck at the base of the tree.
4. chape — metal point folded over or sometimes enclosing the tip of a sword scabbard
Though we found several chapes and a brooch near the remains of the largest fire, the digging revealed no swords or pieces of swords.
5. clerestory — upper part of building rising above interior space so as to allow the entry of daylight through high windows
Looking up from his paper as he sat in his easy chair, he could just make out through the rightmost window of the clerestory a small bird, perhaps a finch, clinging to the highest branch of the lemon tree, bobbing up and down in the morning wind coming in from the ocean.
6. yester — (archaic) of or relating to yesterday
I found it difficult to believe that it was only yester noon that I had first met this chap who already seemed to be a bosom friend.
7. defervesce — to experience abatement of fever
Finally the patient defervesced and I was able to reassure the family that the crisis had passed.
8. thitherward — toward that place; on the way thither
Boney thought he’d seen a shallower place upstream about a half mile, so we retraced our weary steps thitherward and I tried not to despair of reaching the battalion in time.
9. foreweary (also forweary) — to make tired at an earlier time
Robie and Paskell, unused to the rigors of the march and forewearied by carrying the heavy teak commode up the side of the mountain, laid down by the fire and almost immediately both fell asleep.
10. jess — short leather strap tied around each leg of a hunting hawk, usu. with ring for attaching bird to its perch
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to put jesses on that wild bird, but I fear that she’ll never be tamed.”
Bonus Vocabulary
(British slang)
sprog — child; [RAF] young recruit
They imagined they were tough, these beastly sprogs in their baggy tracksuits, but all their pretended menace they’d learned from music videos and Ali G.