1. scrimer — fencer, swordsman; fencing master
Unlike the young braggarts who fancied themselves scrimers and focused on feathers and pose, the bladesman before me stood flatfooted, his rapier steadily pointed at my head and main gauche held loosely at his side, and I knew from his calm confidence that I had a true challenge before me.
2. Mameluke — former military slaves who seized power in Egypt in the 13th C., ruling for centuries
He watched over his daughter as vigilantly as a Mameluke guarding the sultan’s harem.
3. hectograph — jellygraph, early document duplicating process
While the hectograph fell out of favor long before the mimeograph, some elements of its process are still used today in nail stamping at salons.
4. bract — [botany] small specialized leaf growing with a plant’s flower
That beautiful flower we admire on a peace lily is not a flower at all, but a spathe, a hood-like bract which surrounds the flowering spadix within.
5. bandbox — small cardboard box for storing collars or small hats
Eliezer was born in a bandbox of a shack, and confined to its four cramped walls for the first few months after his birth, so cold was the winter and so tenuous was his grasp upon life.
6. swale — low hollow, esp. marshy declivity between higher land
The faint tracks led into a swale in the middle of the prairie, where we lost the trail among the marsh grass.
7. antonomasia — [rhetoric] use of epithet, title, or appellation in place of proper name; use of proper name to designate an idea or another person supposed to share the characteristic property of that named
“Yes, your Ineffableness,” said the servile lackey in one of the more bizarre examples of antonomasia it has ever been my displeasure to witness.
8. marl — soil composed mainly of clay and lime, often used as fertilizer; to fertilize with marl; [archaic] earth
Two skeletons were discovered in the marl pits last Tuesday, and in the pub all the talk was whether Bettie and Haney had turned up at last.
9. fiacre — small four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage for hire
Of course, since it was raining, not a single fiacre could be found to convey us and our parcels to the station.
10. sybaritic — fond or overfond of luxurious pleasure
I dared not confess that what she thought of as my sybaritic lifestyle consisted solely of brief moments at exclusive clubs with her on my arm, followed by weeks of drudgery and twelve to sixteen hour days whilst I saved my pennies for another night on the town with her.
Bonus Vocabulary
(history of The Reformation in Germany)
Schmalkaldic League — Lutheran military alliance aimed at preventing Holy Roman Emperor Charles V from crushing nascent protestantism within German states
Before democratic governors dream of banding together in a modern blue state Schmalkaldic League, they should reflect on the failure of the original alliance in the Schmalkaldic War, when unclear chains of command and competition for precedence allowed their forces to be picked off piecemeal.