1. williwaw (also williwau) — savage squall off cragged coasts in near-polar waters
Never have I viewed a sudden storm with such joy as I did when I saw the dark clouds rage behind us in what had been clear waters as the williwaw arose suddenly to confound our pursuers.
2. sere — dry, dried out; barren
Carefully Tom cleared a large circle around the campfire, knowing that the sere grass could catch instantly ablaze from even the merest spark.
3. mythopoesis — myth creation
In the epics, of course, nothing would be said of terrible headache Arthur had that morning from the moment he awoke, nor of the midges that pestered friend and foe alike in that swampy morass, but mythopoesis of course has its own laws of poetry and artistic license.
4. commissure — joint between bones; tissue of nerve fiber joining right and left sides of spinal cord or brain; point where lips or eyelids join
Painful vesicles appeared at the right commissure of the lips five days after the first symptoms were noted.
5. overprocrastination — overindulgence in putting things off
And this morning we suffered the consequences of my neurotic overprocrastination, as the front porch slid off the foundations down the hill to rest upon my neighbor’s gazebo.
boscage (also boskage) — thicket or grove of trees or shrubs
The morning haze lay heavy upon the dark boscage at the foot of the hill, though we could hear rustling amidst the bushes.
6. seel — to sew a hawk’s eyes shut for training purposes
And now like a seeled falcon this young warrior is blinded by love.
7. theomachy — fight against or among gods
Nor was Ajax spared in this terrible theomachy, though Athena’s illusion kept him from destroying his fellows before he destroyed himself.
8. analphabetic — not alphabetic; illiterate
At the estate sale I found the books sold in an analphabetic manner, prices being based solely upon the material in which the volumes were bound, so that a (faux) leather hardback reprint of Louis L’Amour cost ten times what they charged for a vintage paperback.
9. serac (also sérac) — irregular towers of glacial ice
Carefully we picked our way past the rocks and seracs which cluttered this saddle of the glacier, nearly tumbling into a hidden crevasse in spite of our caution.
10. fylfot — swastika
The spines of the complete edition of Kipling were decorated with the fylfots typical of so many early versions of his works.
Bonus Vocabulary
(Northern dialect)
cat’s ice — very thin ice, layer of ice formed over puddles from which water has receded
Suddenly I was a child again, delighting in each step upon the cat’s ice and the satisfying crunch beneath my warm weather boots.