1. lithotomy — removal of stone by surgery from organ or vessel
The display of 19th-Century surgical implements, especially the lithotomy tools, frightened him viscerally, almost causing nausea and vertigo.
2. plus fours — baggy trousers gathered below the knee
Inspired by Gert Fröbe’s golf attire in Goldfinger, Jeremy started wearing plus fours everywhere, raving about how comfortable they were and declaring that they should be the male fashion trend to complement women’s ubiquitous yoga pants.
3. behoof — [archaic] benefit, advantage
“Using my lancers may be to Cedric’s behoof, but it certainly isn’t to mine!”
4. duplicity — deceitfulness; [archaic] state of being doubled
But even this was not the height—I should say rather the depth—of his duplicity, for he had also arranged for the two lovely women to meet at the lawyer’s office in the aftermath of his fictitious murder, only there discovering the bigamous nature of their marriage to (as they thought) the decedent.
5. balliwick — area of expertise; jurisdiction district for a bailiff
“Well, of course, it’s not really my balliwick, but I suppose I could try a runner, eh?”
6. mettlesome — possessing marked vigor and courage
You must remember that my troops at this point were mere lads, untrained farmboys most of them, not the mettlesome warriors that many of them were later to become.
7. accidence — [grammar] study of word inflections, the basics of grammar; rudiments of a subject
If you study the examples in any basic Latin accidence, you should have no problem with the entrance examination.
8. solideme — undivided unhyphenated compound word
And then there is an entire class of solidemes which have so lost their compound nature that we forget, for example, that once upon a time the word was written “to-day”.
9. sardonic — sneeringly cynical, bitterly derisive
I realized then that his mocking, sardonic manner concealed a vast reservoir of irresolution and doubt as to his own ability.
10. goozle — [slang] Adam’s apple, throat
I would have taken him out there and then, but he caught me a fist right in my goozle, and I fell wheezing and gasping to the floor.