1. effulge — to shine forth, to brilliantly radiate
Jackson found himself hiding within his own shadow, his dark mood made darker by his rival’s brilliant smile, which effulged across the room as if to compete with the very sun streaming through the bay window.
2. mardy — [British] grumpy, sulky, moody
No matter how mardy Darcy got, her mother remained affable and upbeat.
3. allocution — formal or hortatory speech; pontifical address to secret consistory
Struggling mightily not to fidget, as I’d been told I was overfond of doing whenever my grandmother launched into one of her hours long allocutions on the correct way of behaving or acting or doing or not doing things, I found myself almost holding my breath as I attempted to restrain my boyish disdain and insouciance.
4. exonym — name for place or people or language used only by people not of that grouping
Once you know that ‘Allegmagne’ is the French exonym for Germany (itself our English exonym for the German ‘Deutschland’), the Spanish word ‘Alemania’ becomes obvious.
5. plat — to braid, to plait; to plan out, to sketch a map
But Toby sits quietly now, no longer the boisterous champion of the field and campus, content—perhaps?—merely to occupy his time with nothing more strenuous than platting another of the baskets that begin to fill the shelves of his ancestral manse.
6. saturnine — sluggish, gloomy, moody, cold; of lead, suffering or caused by lead poisoning
What events had given my once curly-haired and elfin friend these saturnine features I was never to learn, even after the usual inquest which follows an event such I am about to relate.
7. intercalary — inserted, esp. of a day, days, or month inserted into a calendar
Looking backwards, those frantic weeks of pleasure and excitement seemed merely an intercalary interlude within the slow and deadening descent of his life from cradle to the grave.
8. shirr — to poach or bake (eggs); to gather into parallel threads
Liza shirred our eggs in the same pan she’d made the johnnycake the night before, and placed them upon the two remaining squares of the cornmeal bread.
9. seiche — sudden perturbation or oscillation of the water surface of a lake or bay
The mountain lake was known by the locals to be subject to seiches, which the more modern latecomers to the area affirmed were caused by the sudden storms and clouds which would sometimes occur in the late summer, but which the old-timers wisely thought were the result of disgruntled trolls.
10. overparticular — fussy, very fastidious
I suppose that I am not overparticular about my wife’s friends, even of her friendship with that ‘bounder’ as you call him, perhaps because I trust my dear wife completely, and also, that bounder is my friend as well.