1. tropopause — atmospheric boundary layer between troposphere and stratosphere
The air temperature will be at a minimum, ceteris paribus, at the tropopause, rising as the descent is made through the troposphere to the ground.
2. ovinity — the state of sheep, sheep-like nature
Hengval believed that most humans lived always in a wretched mire of ovinity, their potential for active resistance or even awareness of their oppressive surroundings abandoned from their earliest youth.
3. deracinate — uproot
The disbelieving officer then grabbed viciously at my beard, thinking it false, and deracinated a large portion of the facial hair I’d devoted entirely too much attention to in my effort to win the heart of Miss Kinsey.
4. famulus — servant or assistant, esp. of magician or scholar of the occult
Whether he was a charismatic con man or another in the long line of the self-deluded is not always clear, but certainly Edward Kelley was no mere famulus to Doctor Dee.
5. sockdolager — knockout blow, decisive argument or reply; unusually heavy or large thing
Finally tiring of our pointless sparring, I grabbed my shotgun from the wall and, when he seemed all-fired to have me shoot him, I gave him a real sockdoloager with the gun butt across his skull.
6. narghile — hookah
I smiled with happy expectation as I caught sight of the fine narghile in the corner, but was disappointed to learn that Henry displayed the hookah only as decoration, a nod to his time in the fusileers.
7. crannog — artificial island used as fortification or dwelling in ancient Ireland and Scotland
Draining the lake revealed the remnants of a drowned crannog that once protected the rude inhabitants of this green land from foes also long disappeared from history.
8. Corfiot — of or related to Corfu or a native of Corfu
Her magisterial debunking of Professor Plangeton’s standard history of the Corfiot Jews brought her great renown.
9. campanile — bell tower, often freestanding
The campanile of Pisa Cathedral, of course, is more commonly known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
10. grizzle — to make or become gray
But I found that whatever answers he’d found in that lonely town on the moors had grizzled my former school roommate, who had seemed so young and enthusiastic as he left to take up his duties as parish priest.
Bonus Vocabulary
(history)
Nansen passport — passports issued under the auspices of the League of Nations for stateless persons after World War I
But after the Second World War there was not the same impetus to issue a new version of the Nansen passport, which had primarily been necessitated by Bolshevik Russia’s rescission of citizenship for all Russians living abroad.