1. spadroon — straight single-edged light sword of the 18th and 19th Centuries
Few weapons have been as poorly designed and as badly executed as the British Army’s spadroon of 1796.
2. cock a snook — [idiom] to show contempt; to make rude hand gesture with thumb on the nose with fingers extended
The entire document was seemingly designed to cock a snook at the university’s position, and even his supporters were surprised at how vociferously Robertson-Dial lambasted even the minor concessions the dean seemed willing to make.
3. scotch egg — breaded sausage-wrapped boiled egg which is then baked or deep fried
Some people prefer their scotch eggs a little runny, but I like mine not at all.
4. Rif (also Riff) — mountainous region of northern Morocco; indigenous Berbers of this region
He had lost his arm fighting the Rifs in 1925, and though the pinned sleeve of his uniform evinced a romantic emptiness, it proved a damned nuisance at times.
5. rhyparography — artistic depiction of sordid subjects
Confronted by Weegee’s compelling rhyparography of accident and murder victims, the viewer is simultaneously appalled by and appealed to by the meanest, most contemptible aspects of the human situation.
6. tripos (often capitalized) — examination for bachelor’s degree at Cambridge; courses taken in preparation for such exams
Jocelyn was quite the expert on the Siege of Plevna, having written a thesis on Osman Pasha for his History Tripos, and was simply devastated by the new revelations among the correspondence of the young Romanian captain of artillery which had just been published in the Balkan Revue.
7. hinny — offspring of male horse and female donkey
Bosco Pete never talked much about his lame leg, saying only that he’d crossed too close and the wrong way to a hinny‘s hindquarters.
8. leper’s squint — opening through external wall of church through which lepers could view religious services
And thus Instagram becomes a sort of modern leper’s squint through which we are invited to participate in the lives of the famous and fabulously wealthy, without degrading those fabulous people by the messiness and squalor of our actual existence.
9. smudger — [slang] photographer, photojournalist
“The editor told me to take a smudger along to the arraignment, so come along; there’s no need to bite my head off.”
10. necessarium — privy in a monastery; outhouse, latrine
Brother Andrew advocated for a covered walkway to the necessarium to shelter the monks from the rain during the long, wet winter, but once again his suggestion was vetoed by Brother Jerome.