1. crepitus — grating noise produced by friction between bone and cartilage or pieces of broken bone; rale
As I slowly made my way up the stairs, each step with my right leg produced the crepitus from my knee that had been constant background music for the past five years, though usually unheard except at times such as these, when all the other blares and noises of the day finally subsided and into the silence came the creaking sigh of my weary patella.
2. alidade — sighting instrument used for measuring angles (both horizontal and vertical) from a fixed point
The fire towers of the great northwestern forests used simple alidades to triangulate and pinpoint the first signs of dangerous smoke.
3. poltroon — worthless coward, craven
“Are you such a poltroon as to stand idly by while braggart traitors despoil your heritage?”
4. squirearchal — of or related to the country’s landed gentry as a collective body; of or related to rule by squires
This tension between the king and parliament fixed firmly the squirearchal rule of the country gentlemen in the provinces, where tradition and economics both conspired to cement these sometimes pompous men firmly into their local seats of power.
5. ilex — holm oak, evergreen oak; holly
As we walked through the lovely groves of cypress and ilex, Barnaby informed me that these oaks had been grown from some of the first acorns ever brought to England.
6. effete — ineffectual and lacking vitality
Of the clutching of pearls by the effete devotees of the West Wing let us take no more notice.
7. weft — crosswise threads over and under which other threads (the warp) are drawn to make cloth or rugs
I felt an almost religious pang as I viewed my brother’s painting of our old natal home, whose stability and daily pleasures formed the weft upon which so many happy childhood memories were woven.
8. Arimaspian (also Arimaspi) — legendary single-eyed peoples of northern Scythia
Perhaps the one-eyed man is king among the blind, but as a two-eyed man among these modern Arimaspians I found myself singularly unexceptional.
9. goosander — [British] common merganser, a diving duck with a serrated bill
The wild brown fringe trailing behind the goosander‘s head reminded me of a punk singer I knew in West Oakland.
10. jillflirt (also gillflirt) — [archaic] wanton, giddy young girl
The dancing hall, a sweltering oven of coxcombs and jillflirts, can produce no fine delicacy from its overheated confines, but only an oleaginous joint of vice and concupiscence.