1. gnomic — aphoristic
Here we see the poetic power of The Beatitudes, their gnomic wisdom shining forth in a manner not seen, for example, in the Decalogue.
2. frontlet — decorative ornament worn on forehead; phylactery
Depending from her frontlet, the wooden body of which depicted one of the many gods and powers tormenting the mental lives of the Wamiweri people, the princess had several beaded silver wires hanging down with an enormous rough emerald at the bottom of each.
3. dicrotic — of a pulse having two beats for every heartbeat
I wished that I had the ancient Chinese art of pulse diagnosis as I felt the odd, skipping, dicrotic beating of Sir Richard’s pulse beneath my thumb, until I came to my senses and realized that, yes, I was stupidly taking his pulse with my thumb.
4. euchre — to trick, to outwit
Well, I guess I got euchred out of my horse fair and square, so to speak, but that don’t mean I have to like it.
5. flounce — to move in exaggeratedly impatient or angry manner; to make overdramatic movements; to decorate with pleated trimming
“Well! I never!” she said as she flounced out of the dining room, audibly sniffing with her nose in the air, which provoked Bill to say sotto voce “I’ll just bet she has.”
6. succory — chicory
White succory makes a beautiful change in daily salads, its thin red lines making a colorful contrast to the blanched leaves.
7. Brummagem (or brummagem) — gaudy and cheap; fake, counterfeit
Once again, Grandmama had given him some brummagem toy instead of what he’d asked for, so Wilton (or ‘Wiltie’, as she called him) found himself pretending to thank her profusely for the knock-off Tickle Me Malmo, its hideous blue and yellow head leering at him in an alarming manner.
8. obliquity — state or condition of being neither parallel nor perpendicular, quality of being oblique; mental perverseness
He approached the overheating problem with his usual obliquity, announcing that he was going to the beach “for research” for the rest of the afternoon.
9. eidolon — phantom, ghost; ideal, representation of idealized thing
Jane Harrison speaks of the destructive process whereby human beings take their gods, so forceful and potent in original conception, and overthink them and intellectualize them until they become mere eidolons that can no longer perform any of the purposes for which they were originally besought.
10. teratological — monstrous, of or related to congenital malformations
After retiring from active practice, Dr. Wells devoted himself to his teratological collection, perhaps becoming over-devoted to his private museum of the bizarre and grotesque.