1. trotter — animal that trots; foot of an animal (esp. sheep or pig) used as food
Harqma, a spicy stew of lamb trotters, is a delicious Ramadan dish.
2. taphonomy — study of processes affecting living tissues after death, esp. with regards to fossilization
Shriver was an expert in forensic taphonomy, and had studied six months at ARISTA, the Amsterdam ‘body farm’ which was the first of its kind in Europe.
3. ophiophilist — snake lover, ophiophile
The presence of the python at the crime scene made the police suspect Cecile, as she was a known ophiophilist.
4. squassation — variant of strappado in which heavy weights are bound to the victim’s ankles and instead of merely being lifted by the arms bound behind the back the victim is jerked up repeatedly
If the prisoner did not confess his heresy after two or three sessions of squassation, water torture was used and was almost always effective in eliciting the desired confession.
5. plausive — praiseworthy
Though he struts like a cockerel in plumed cap, he has most plausive manner, giving due consideration to all men as befits their worth, as did his grandfather, the old Lord.
6. cemeterian — caretaker of a cemetery
In 1967 the national trade group for cemeterians lodged a formal complaint against the funeral directors’ association for restraint of trade, or, as some wags had it, for not sharing a big enough piece of their pie.
7. bewray — to reveal, to disclose
But Ficklegrew held the baby before him, between his precious self and the assassin’s gun, bewraying his true character to everyone present, including his would-be killer, who dropped his pistol to the ground and dropped to his knees, shaking his head at the man who wanted to be a world leader.
8. catechumen — person receiving instruction before Christian confirmation or baptism
As is often the case, our new catechumen had a much better idea of our group’s history than the rest of us old-timers, and Jorge was able to recite from memory a dozen or more important dates in the life of Horst Wessel.
9. dissensus — widespread disagreement or dissension
Thus the nation entered a period of what may be called holographic dissensus, in which what had previously been only schism between the two major parties devolved into controversy between an endless series of smaller and more divisive factions, as if the political will had been shattered into disparate shards of fractal kaleidoscopic opinions from which no consensus could ever be constructed.
10. nether — lower, under; lying beneath the earth’s surface, infernal, underworldly
And that’s how I caught a shotgun blast with my nether regions and saved the preppy princess from having her plaid skirt ruined.
Bonus Vocabulary
(UK slang)
lose one’s rag — to lose one’s temper, to go apeshit, to blow one’s top
“They kept pushing me and pushing me, until I finally lost my rag, and then I sort of just blurted it out.”