1. peltry — pelts collectively
Such families of Indians—bedraggled, half-starving, and bone weary from their threadbare existence at the edge of merest survival—supplied in their thousands the peltry for one of Europe’s most important streams of commerce.
2. aluminium — [British] aluminum
In fact, aluminium is quite widespread; the difficulty is extracting the valuable element from the ores in which it is found.
3. heortology — study of the festivals in the ecclesiastical year
That was the year of the Great Easter Schism, when a dispute over the actual date of the full moon between the two leading heortology departments caused half the faithful to celebrate too early, or (in the view of these celebrants) the other half to celebrate too late.
4. wen — benign sebaceous cystic tumor
The radical journalist William Cobbett first called London “the Great Wen,” likening the burgeoning metropolis to a swelling excrescence upon the face of the nation.
5. inflorescence — arrangement of flowers upon a plant; blossoming, process of flowering
This spectacle of desert beauty is made all the more precious by the fact that the period of inflorescence lasts only for a week or two.
6. turbary — land where peat or turf may be cut for fuel; legal right to cut turf or peat on such land
Each freeholder of the island were adjudged to have common of turbary for supplying his own home with fuel, but not for sale.
7. empiric — one who relies solely upon experience; quack, charlatan
But the vaunted ‘cure’ of the celebrated empiric nearly killed the boy, surprising the mother and no one else.
8. cwt — abbreviation for hundredweight
Margin in livestock is the sales price per cwt less the purchase price per cwt, not the profit realized from the sale.
9. tercel (also tiercel) — the male of a hawk, esp. of the goshawk, peregrine falcon, or gyrfalcon
The master’s tercel has finer chambers than we, who are compelled to sleep in whatever corner we may find unoccupied.
10. floccillation — delirious picking at bedclothes, carphology
Just as floccillation in a fevered patient is a serious symptom betokening a poor prognosis, so may our society’s current nit-picking be a bellwether of a cultural malaise.
Bonus Vocabulary
(from the wealthy Roman L. Licinius Lucullus, famous for his luxurious banquets)
Lucullian — lavish, profligate
After the Lucullian feast in such an extravagant setting, the halting after-dinner speech of the quondam gubernatorial hopeful was weak fare indeed.