1. excursive — digressive
What was supposed to have been a pithy précis turned into an excursive epic under the weight of his overheavy pen, topping two hundred pages of turbid prose.
2. peterman — [slang] safecracker
Though once he was renowned as a peterman of the first water, today he is as honest a citizen as the next fellow, perhaps more so.
3. fiducial — of a fixed point used for comparison; based upon trust
Even without a level, they were able to demonstrate that the pool table was out of true by using the wainscoting as a fiducial marker.
4. stomacher — ornamented cloth worn over the chest and stomach in 16th Century
No coins or jewels had she, yet her stomacher cost more than I could steal in a year.
5. erysipelas — acute disease of bacterial origin characterized by fever and rough red patches on the skin
Jock’s legs looked like orange peels when he first contracted erysipelas after suffering from gravitational dermatitis.
6. spicule — tiny pointy thing, usu. in groups; huge gas jets shooting from surface of the sun
Beneath the icy spicules his mustache had become, Troy’s pale blue lips were barely discernible.
7. persnickety — fussy; snobby; difficult to work with
Even before the law changed he was always persnickety about seat belts, refusing to even start the car if everyone wasn’t buckled in safely, and I once even saw him pull over and stop the car when a passenger teasingly undid his seat belt.
8. zareba — protective enclosure, as of thorn bushes or stakes
The camel cavalry, if it can be so called, of the Madhi charge fruitlessly against the zareba of the English forces, whose canon decimated the four-legged assault.
9. gorbellied — having a protruding belly
Don’t even give ’em a second thought, that gorbellied crew of Izod wearing, golf cart driving, soulless music listening loveless luckless losers.
10. terpsichorean — of or related to dancing; of or related to Terpsichore
While I cannot gavotte about, I do love to frolic and pay my untutored homage to the terpsichorean muse.
Bonus Vocabulary
(Latin)
mirabile dictu — wonderful to relate, incredible as it seems
For lack of any other choice, we set off to see the sci-fi comedy movie and, mirabile dictu, every one of us from grandparents to granddaughter enjoyed the film thoroughly.