1. gallipot — small glazed jar used by an apothecary
Between the two of them they left hardly one gallipot of the sweet German wine given us by the count.
2. galipot — unrefined turpentine found on some European pines
Though the galipot is of better quality than the dried barras more often found, neither are suitable for distillation, at least not using the DeSalvo method.
3. garabance (also garavance) — chickpea similar to (if not identical with) garbanzo beans
Though some natives make a paste from the garabance which they appear to enjoy with their habitual spices, the majority of these peas are used as fodder for swine.
4. confirmand — candidate for confirmation or baptism
In the case of an adult confirmand, of course, this issue does not arise, and deeper theological questions may be broached if the priest so deems.
5. onomastic — of or related to personal or geographical names
The derivation of ‘Whitehill’ from ‘Whip Hell’ seemed a bit of onomastic legerdemain to our young scholar, a philologist of the old school.
6. deixis — use of context-dependent words, referring to something by use of such words
Is Gödel’s encoding some sort of magical deixis smuggled into the heart of mathematics which destroys the foundations of logic by shifting the ‘meaning’ of a number, say, to some farflung proposition which may or may not be true, may or may not be provable?
7. inspissated — thickened, congealed, dried by evaporation; condensed
Thus Gandhi started upon his fateful confrontation with the British Empire by presenting the powers-that-were the material fact of this inspissated salt.
8. ounce — snow lepoard; lynx or cougar
Sir Billibotham’s expedition was the first to explicitly hunt for the breeding grounds of the ounce, though of course the tragedy of the jeweled puttees stopped the search almost before it began.
9. scullion — menial kitchen servant; base person
Theresa was hardly fit to be even the lowest scullion in the main kitchen, so vile were her manners and language after her years in the Levant.
10. crambo — guessing game involving rhyming words; word that rhymes with another
You can play at crambo all you want, but all that jive went out with blank verse.
11. quaternion — four double-folded sheets of paper gathered together for binding; group of four things; hypercomplex number with one real and four imaginary components
One of the legendary Tales of the Desert Fathers speaks of a monk so obedient that though he had just began to write the first letter of a work he was copying onto a new quaternion, he came so quickly at his master’s call that he did not hesitate even long enough to complete the full circle of the initial letter ‘O’.
12. continent — having or displaying restraint in bodily functions or appetites
T. E. Lawrence spoke of how lack of opportunity can make a man, a people, continent in their actions and passion, but even in the desert the lieutenant could not find it in himself to bridle his fierce urges.
13. tergiversate — to hem and haw, to equivocate; to change one’s mind, to be apostate
Though pressed upon by both sides, Hanquin managed to tergiversate so long that the question became moot when the hordes of angry monks broke into the chamber.
14. jakes — [idiom] outhouse
And so they caught him, as the saying goes, with his pants down in the jakes, and as tragic as his death was, it was the comic elements that were repeated and retold in The Lay of The Last Sit.
15. ayah — nanny or nurse (usu. native) working for Europeans in Southeast Asia
“We couldn’t even trust Billy’s ayah,” said the colonel, “who—though she’d seen my older child Jenny from diapers to gowns—turned out to be a communist.”
16. pseudopod — temporary protoplasmic protrusion of cells or unicellular organisms
From the maddened protesters there now struck a frenzied mass of the angry mob through the line of police and directly into the marble building, as if a pseudopod of hate had wrenched itself from the heart of dark rage to strike at the machine that had caused its ire.
17. schnorrer — [slang, fr. Yiddish] one who sponges off of others, moocher
“No more of this ‘He promised to pay the rest next week’ crap; he’s a schnorrer who’s outstayed his welcome in my life.”
18. accumb — to recline while dining as did the ancient Romans
Due to the consequences of this horrific accident, Petrov was forced to accumb at table in order for digestion to proceed, so we all tried to make light of the situation and pretend we were all ancient philosophers or something.
19. spikenard — aromatic ointment derived from plant of the valerian family; such a plant
Keeping his eyes averted the young page presented the golden chalice of spikenard to the lady, almost stumbling over the stairs and spilling the precious balm of the east.
20. goetic — of or related to dark magic or necromancy
Most Wednesdays Roger could be found practicing goetic conjurations or, if in straitened circumstances, performing tarot readings for paying customers at the local coffee shop.
Bonus Vocabulary
(colloquial)
natter — to prate
Do you two have to natter on about batting runs earned and stolen averages while we’re waiting for the doctor’s verdict?
(informal British)
bumph — useless papers or documents
I hardly see the point in reading through all this bumph when we still don’t even know if Leslie has found the missing skillet.