Friday Vocabulary

1. molinary — of or related to the grinding of corn

But the crows quickly resumed their post in the old tree, and the old woman resumed her molinary exertions at the metate.

 

2. amain — at full force, violently; at full speed

Their chargers coursed amain down the slight declivity and fell upon the Saracen foe like a river in flood.

 

3. shandy — drink made up of beer and lemonade

If a woman must drink, she should imbibe something appropriate to her nature, such as a shandy or its ancestor the shandygaff.

 

4. reresupper — meal of lavish nature taken after usual evening supper

Besides second breakfasts the colonel was accustomed to append a reresupper to his daily meals whenever his old cavalry comrades came to stay at the mansion.

 

5. scall — eczema

And this compound will be found a useful treatment for scurf, scall, and similar uncleannesses of the head.

 

6. cacodemon — evil spirit; [obsolete] nightmare

Though some felt Mr. Tobert under the baleful sway of a cacodemon, his actions were in general so ludicrous and so harmless that most thought them caused by a more secular derangement of the senses.

 

7. sprat — small fish of the herring family; small thing of little consequence

Around this time, a trifling sprat of political consciousness broke out among some of the rank-and-file, quickly squelched by the union leaders.

 

8. fossick — to search for gold in abandoned diggings; to hunt about

While they fossick for the clues we’ve already found, we’ll be enjoying our new life in South America.

 

9. skerry — sea-rock covered during high tide, reef

Though the skerry looked ominous, its crags were no danger to our small skiff while the tide was out, though a larger craft would have been imperiled.

 

10. tow — shorter fibers of flax separated from the longer more useful strands

When Birnie knocked over the oil lamp it fell upon his small bed and the blanket burned like tow, and the small room was quickly engulfed in flames.

 

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