1. mob-handed — [British] as a mob or in a group, esp. with violent designs
So there we were, breathing heavy after the chase and all of us ready to start swinging mob-handed at the boys, when this tiny dark-haired woman—Joanne it turned out to be—steps out from the alley next to the store, and just stares, long and hard, just stares at each of us, never saying a word.
2. gasping — [British slang] extremely thirsty
“How ’bout some service over here? We’re positively gasping.”
3. scanger — [Dublin slang] petty crook, usu. associated with specific brand name clothes etc. used by same
And I suppose you afford your scanger threads on your copy shop salary, do you now?
4. tippex — [British] trademarked correction fluid similar to Wite-Out; to erase using such fluid
All you’ve got to do is tippex out the company’s name here, photocopy the receipt and fill out the copies, and you’ve got all you need for the revenue man.
5. osoji — [Japanese] massive cleaning before the new year
Certainly there is much to be admired in the Japanese tradition of osoji, but there’s no reason to go all Marie Kondo on my man cave.
6. pawky — [Scots] sly; shrewd
He’s got you all believing in nightmares about UFOs and little undead green men while he sits there behind his pawky smile, drinking his ale, all the while daring you to call him a liar to his face.
7. peerie — [Scots] small
He wouldn’t lift a peerie finger for you, now that you need some help, after all we’ve done for him and his.
8. bivvy — [slang] shelter, small tent
At that time he was sleeping in a bivvy made from parachute pants thrown in the rubbish by some fool who’d only now realized that disco was over.
9. coup de grâce — [French] death blow
It only remained for Annabelle to administer the coup de grâce by introducing Jeremy Fonagal to him as her fiancé.
10. sotto voce — in an undertone, in a quiet voice, quietly
“He’s always like this,” Parkes said to me sotto voce as Topham thundered down the steps to greet us, buttons almost bursting, “he can’t stand to be left on his own for even an hour nowadays, ever since the accident.”
Bonus Vocabulary
(from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels)
Brobdingnagian — stupendously huge
The Deadhead then pulled out a Brobdingnagian bong, so large that at its top it had the oxygen mask from a ’60s fighter pilot’s helmet, as the circumference of the main cylinder was too wide for a person’s mouth to span.