1. artemon — square sail on a sharply steeved spar at the bow of ancient Roman or Greek merchant vessels and ships
Runners were sent forward to furl the artemon so that the master would have clear sight lines as the enemy ships rushed towards our prow.
2. vaward — [archaic] forefront; vanguard
The noblest captains of Christendom were in the vaward that day, doomed by the treacherous words of the blackest knave who ever walked those faraway lands.
3. wrack — destruction due to violence; ruin, catastrophic change for the worse; remnant left behind after destructive force
Suddenly as it had come the storm abated, and the full moon could just be seen through the cloud wrack on the horizon.
4. verderer — officer of the English king having charge of royal forests with especial duty to protect the trees and undergrowth and deer
The venison has grown scarce lately, and the king fears malfeasance by one or more of his verderers.
5. invidious — likely to incite ill will or odium; offensively prejudicial
Do not take the bait laid out by her invidious words, as any response at all give her yet another petty victory.
6. fug — stale, close air
“Land’s sakes, Jethro! At least allow me to open a window or two and clear the fug from your sickroom.”
7. panmixia — entirely random mating within a breeding population
Although panmixia brings mathematical comfort to genetics calculations, the concept is so obviously foreign to actually observed breeding habits of most higher animals that it stands as another example of that rational disdain for reality that too often provides the fuel for the engines of science.
8. maunch (also manche) — overly long dropped sleeve fashionable in 14th Century; [heraldry] stylized representation of such a sleeve used as armorial bearing
The maiden in her pale green gown held a single white lily in her right hand, and this color of purity was repeated in the lining of her maunch which opened in descent from her lovely arm for a full two feet.
9. currawong — medium-sized crowlike songbird of Australia
These wrens know well their enemies, and even the nestlings can recognize the sound of a currawong walking nearby.
10. lower (also lour) — to scowl or to frown, to appear sullen; to look dark and threatening (esp. of the sky)
Our guide met every protest we made with a lowering insolence.
Bonus Vocabulary
(fashion)
Eton crop — severely short woman’s hairstyle of the late 1920s
Though worn by such icons as Josephine Baker, by 1930 the Eton crop was almost entirely passé, associated only with masculine lesbians.