1. cerement (usu. pl cerements) — cerecloths for wrapping the dead; burial clothes or wrappings
But in the morning when finally we opened the innermost coffin, we discovered only a desiccated pile of cerements, as if the corpse itself had somehow dematerialized from its tomb after burial.
2. lour (variant of lower) — to look dark or threatening (esp. of the sky or weather); to glower
Beneath the louring skies our tiny little jeep raced pell-mell towards safety, away from Rickard and his evil minions, hoping against hope to make it to Pauley’s camp before the inevitable storm broke and unleashed its now barely restrained fury.
3. bootless — [archaic] useless, ineffectual, without effect or gain
Though my assault on yon ravelin may well be bootless, as you say, I’d rather fall in the attempt that sit here watching you ingest your finely minced snuff.
4. chequered — marked by the vicissitudes of fortune
His efforts at romance had had some chequered success, and his third marriage to the Viscountess Brumania was felt by many observers (including myself) to have been marked by real affection on both sides before her tragic death in that mysterious tiger ballooning incident.
5. peridromophily — science, art, or love of collecting street car transfers
Loath as I am to claim the ridiculous role of devotee of peridromophily, I still find I cannot steel myself to throw away this bus transfer I kept from a long forgotten ride upon Santa Clara County Transit way back in 1985.
6. pereion — [biology] thorax (in a crustacean)
This amphipod resembles nothing so much as a small beetle, with antennae swept back past the pereion in mature exemplars.
7. noesis — cognition; use of reason
The Dutch philologist argued that noesis was the singular tool of man alone, perhaps not raising him above animalkind, but certainly placing him somewhat apart from the mass of animate life.
8. picayune — trifling, insignificant; petty, carping
I do wonder at times if it is worth the bother of maintaining this picayune blog when there is very little upside to doing so.
9. arris — [architecture] sharp edge formed by join of two surfaces
The subtle art of the mason is on hidden display here, as the casual observer will little notice that the arris at the upper edge has been formed by creation of a concave surface for the join so that the top does not seem to loom over the observer; in fact it overhangs the bottom column by almost six feet.
10. musette — small knapsack; French bellows-driven bagpipe of the 17th and 18th centuries
Once you have heard the music of the musette your feet will beg to dance every time you remember its entrancing call.
Bonus Vocabulary
(idiom)
apple scrumping — to steal apples from an orchard, to take fallen apples from another’s grounds
While I’m the last person likely to engage in a bit of apple scrumping, still, the furniture was just sitting there in the alley, needing only a tiny bit of work to make it all right again.