Friday Vocabulary

1. temerarious — reckless, rash, heedless

On the other hand, as a result of his temerarious purchase of Dogecoin he’s now a multi-billionaire.

 

2. shawm — medieval double-reed woodwind with a conical shape

For the nonce we made merry, dancing to the strains of the sackbuts, shawms, and pipes.

 

3. brassie (also brassey) — brass-faced wooden golf club for hitting long low drives

I smothered my brassie shot and still had two hundred yards to the green.

 

4. asyndeton — [rhetoric] figure omitting conjunctions

And now government “of the people, by the people, for the people”—to quote Lincoln’s famous asyndeton—is truly in danger of perishing as never before.

 

5. tulwar — Indian saber

The horsemen held their tulwars aloft as they charged into our camp, their blades reflecting redly our watchfire’s glow.

 

6. topee (also topi) — lightweight Indian hat made from pith of the sola plant, pith helmet

Somehow this pocket Venus managed to seem entirely at home in the fetid jungle, perfectly attired in her topee and jodhpurs, and ready as ever for more adventure.

 

7. decerebrate — to remove the cerebrum

We could only stare in horror as we realized that the fiend had decerebrated Smithers, yet had somehow kept him alive, replacing our stalwart companion’s will and character with … what?

 

8. rereward — [obsolete] rear guard of a military unit

Sir Palence commanded the rereward as we led our battered forces back through the dangerous defile.

 

9. blackbirder — person trading in slaves or coerced labor, esp. in islands across the Pacific Ocean

He was now one of the first families of Honolulu, though many whispered that he gained his initial fortune as a blackbirder in the South Seas before buying himself the respectability he now enjoyed.

 

10. sightholder — bulk purchaser of rough diamonds authorized by De Beers

As one of only about eighty sightholders in the world, the Kim Kharesh Company is under constant scrutiny both from governmental entities and from De Beers itself.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

vade mecum — handbook or manual for constant reference; EDC item

From somewhere on his person (for he wore no pants), Huey (or was it Dewey?) pulled out the thick Junior Woodchuck’s Guide, that vade mecum he and his brothers always turned to in times of trouble.

Leave a comment