1. blue — [slang] to squander, to spend wastefully or without restraint
Of course he blued the whole hundred grand within a matter of months, and came back to me hat in hand looking for a handout to help him cover his rent.
2. craic — [Irish] fun, good time, esp. in pleasant company and conversation
“No, man, you don’t have to drink if you don’t want to, just come for the craic!”
3. henotheism — worship of single god while countenancing other deities
Are these pleas to a god called just ‘God’ in Aripostrophes’ prayers, as Ludwice believed, a form of henotheism followed by the Greek dramatist, or merely a rhetorical device—as is thought by many modern scholars?
4. hot gospel — [British] of a church or preacher where services have an emotional or frothy bent, esp. of an evangelical denomination
Pearson had grown up in the hot gospel churches of the American South, so our more sedate C of E services must have seemed quite dull to his mind, if not veritably soporific.
5. TDA — car theft, “Taking and Driving Away”
“You’re gonna charge me with TDA when she told me it was okay to take the car?”
6. garum — wildly popular fish sauce in Ancient Rome
Why was garum so popular, then, if it indued the food with such a fetid odor of decay?
7. crise de foie — [French] indigestion, “upset liver”
Such an enormous repast was bound to cause a crise de foie after the meal, if not right after the oyster starters, so I paced myself accordingly, only sampling lightly from each of the dishes, being sure to wash it all down well with the fine wine.
8. crise de foi — [French] internal religious tumult, “crisis of faith”
His endless months of captivity had apparently induced a sort of crise de foi upon his return, though not because of the strange beliefs of his captors but rather some sort of internal schism caused by his many hours spent in weary contemplation.
9. navvy — [British] manual laborer, esp. on construction project
“It’s simply a matter of aptness; a navvy can hardly have time to study Seneca and Epictetus, so tired is he from his work in the evening, and so the music hall and gin are perfectly suited to his needs and abilities.”
10. erubescent — blushing, red or reddish; rubescent
The fine old nose upon which I had seen the housefly alight lo those many years ago was now become an angry erubescent proboscis due to his constant sneezing and repeated blowing and wiping and massaging of that now intractable rhinal appendage.
Bonus Vocabulary
(British informal, from the phrase “It’s as much as my job’s worth” (to do some thing))
jobsworth — worker or official using their petty authority unhelpfully and refusing to make accommodations for particular cases
But the meter maid was a nasty little jobsworth who declaimed that ten seconds was the same as ten hours as far as she was concerned.
Bonus Bonus Vocabulary
(Latin, from “verbum sapienti sat est” [“a word is enough to the wise”])
verbum sap (also verb. sap., verbum sat, or verbum sapienti) — enough, no more need be said (used to indicate that further discussion would we unwise, unwarranted, or unnecessary)
It becomes obvious that all these ‘reasons’ have to do with money, rather than the underlying principle, so I’ll say no more. Verbum sap.