Friday Vocabulary

1. scribatiousness (also scribaciousness) — quality of writing excessively

Finally we decided that the only cure for Artur’s scribatiousness was to take away all of his electronic devices and leave him solely with pen and paper—which was not a cure per se, but since no person other than Artur could read his handwriting, at least we were saved the bother of trying to keep up with his over-prolix logorrhea.

 

2. disanalogy — inaptness or lack of analogy between two things; failure of an analogy

Of course, the disanalogy between the circulatory system and American freeways becomes even clearer when one considers that—I mean, good Lord, have you driven on the roads recently?

 

3. glede — hot coal or ember

In my hand I felt it burn like a glede and would have dropped it had not Noreto warned me of its ability to cause dissociative sensations when touched.

 

4. kermis (also kirmess) — fair or festival

Her booth at the kermis was attractively decorated, so many passersby stopped to view her luxury seasoned almond oils and extracts.

 

5. tombola — raffle or lottery at which winning tickets are drawn from a rotating drum; such a drum

Inside the tombola Pritchett was surprised to espy a patch of double-sided tape, which an unscrupulous person—such as Edgar—might have used to ‘fix’ the results of the raffle.

 

6. speccy — [British slang] derogatory descriptor of one wearing glasses

“Why do I have to make allowances for some speccy bastard who can’t be bothered to read the brochure before the boat gets underway?”

 

7. sparrow-fart (also sparrowfart and sparrow fart) — [British idiom] sunrise, dawn, very early in the day; useless person or thing

I had training that day so had to rise before sparrow-fart to get to the other side of town on time.

 

8. maenadic (also mænadic) — frenzied, of or related to a maenad

And thus Gibbons fell victim to his own hubris, destroyed by the very maenadic devotees he had debauched for this vile orgiastic defiance of all common decency.

 

9. parti pris — [French] preconceived notion or attitude, bias

At this time in his career as a young junior executive on the rise, he was so much a prisoner of his own partis pris that trying to get Reggie to entertain a new idea was like teaching a lizard to appreciate Erik Satie.

 

10. landaulet — early automobile style having a small passenger compartment and an open area behind the windshield for the chauffeur

Though Sir Jennings had given us the loan of his landaulet, the large package with which we were encumbered made our seating arrangements quite uncomfortable, Peter being somewhat loath to let our prize out of his sight.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang, from the film Fatal Attraction)

bunny boiler — vengeful former partner after being spurned, usu. of a woman

Eventually Chip moved to the Florida Keys to escape this bunny boiler who kept showing up at his home and work and standing outside restaurants even when he was dining alone.

 

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