1. murrey — purple-red
Somehow the murrey lining made the black hood even darker.
2. dobbin — ordinary farm horse
The county fair has everything you might want, from fancy pickles to thrilling fancies, and if you want to take a flier on the dobbins, well, we’ve got that too.
3. matriculate — to admit to a college or university, to be enrolled in a college
Women were matriculated at Stanford University from its inception, though at one time Jane Stanford sought to limit their numbers.
4. barrack — to jeer at adversaries so as to discommode, to heckle boisterously opposing team
The official simply smiled during all of their insults, calmly refusing to continue his informational speech until the crowd ceased barracking.
5. mixtilinear — bounded or formed from lines of different types
A mixtilinear incircle is one of the three circles tangent to two of the sides of a triangle and also to the circle which encloses the triangle itself (its circumcircle).
6. varix — varicose vein
In fact, however, duodenal varices are a very rare cause of gastrointestinal bleeding, and are almost always a consequence of severe alcoholic cirrhosis.
7. guttle — to eat voraciously and greedily
Harvey will guttle broken glass if you fry it in lard and shower it with salt.
8. empery — absolute dominion
Humans have often dreamed of liberation from Death’s eternal empery, positing such disparate fantasies as brain implants into robots or reincarnation as butterflies.
9. durbar — public reception of Indian prince or high British official in India
For me the high point of the Khan’s durbar was the mass charge of his calvary, the thundering hooves for a short while silencing the inane chatter and useless gossip which is the bane of all such official parties.
10. pelerine — woman’s cape or mantle of lace or fur, usu. with ends forming a point in front
Helen habitually wore a light grey pelerine of lace whenever she left her house, perhaps as a badge of her spinster status.
Bonus Vocabulary
(Latin)
noli me tangere — (lit. “touch me not”) thing or person which must not be touched; prohibition against interference; painting displaying Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene
In spite of his blank noli me tangere expression I bullied ahead, asking once again what he had been doing in his basement before I arrived.