1. depilate — to remove hair from, “to make bare of hair” [OED]
Josun had originally depilated his arms and legs because of the bicycle racing; now, however, it had become something of an obsession.
2. arrack — liquor made from fermented sap of palm or cane or fermented rice, typically distilled in India and Southeast Asia
Both men were insensate, the one laid low by arrack and the other by hashish, the stentorian snores of the former a marked contrast to the drooling slumbers of the other.
3. scion — shoot or twig; descendant
While Ferdinand’s odd project of placing books into abandoned shopping carts might be thought a scion of the Little Library idea, his penchant for only sharing copies of Ayn Rand’s Anthem suggests a more complex scheme.
4. vesta — [British] short wax or wood friction match
The weak flame of my next-to-last vesta revealed only that the presence of writing upon the rusted iron sign before it sputtered and died out.
5. billycock — derby or bowler hat
We finally captured the errant hamster beneath the brand new billycock of Charles, who immediately searched for an alternative rodent prison, fearing for his heretofore spotless headgear.
6. destrier — war-horse, charger
The bold knight jumped down from his destrier and with his mace cleared the slavering barbarians away from the fallen maiden.
7. welk — [obsolete] to fade, to wilt, to wither
But now are summer’s flowers all welked and sere, and the ache of frost is in the morning wind.
8. envoi (also envoy) — closing stanza of poem; author’s concluding remarks
A lone piper played a mournful tune as the final troop ship cast off, a fitting envoi to the close of British rule on this small island.
9. false key — lockpick or skeleton key
Dottie and I returned to our rooms to find that some thief had opened our trunks (doubtless by means of false keys, as no marks of a pry were found) and rifled through their contents.
10. turf (also turf out) — [British idiom] to forcibly remove, to kick out
After building the houses and making improvements for twelve years, these families are now turfed by the council’s new requirements from the very homes they made.
Bonus Vocabulary
(slang)
thunder mug — small portable signal cannon with a handle; chamber pot
As a guest I felt it my duty to carry the thunder mug out back to empty its contents onto the midden.