1. calipee — food delicacy made from fatty substance immediately above lower shell of a tortoise
Besides a fine stew, I was invited to enjoy the calipee, my first experience with this delectable treat.
2. pastophore (also pastophorous) — lower priest of ancient Egypt charged with keeping the door of the temple
If this reading be credited, this lonely pastophore was quite content in his role, feeding and caring for the holy birds used in temple rites.
3. peristyle — [architecture] row of columns around a yard or buiding; yard within such a colonnade
Within the central peristyle formed by sixteen columns stands a marble fountain depicting either the rape of Leda or some darker fantasy of the artist.
4. terebinth — tree of the Mediterranean region noted for its longevity and turpentine
Eusebius himself saw this famous terebinth still living late in the fourth century of the Common Era.
5. ad libitum — [Latin] as much as one wishes, without restriction, ‘according to pleasure’
Breadsticks ad libitum turned out to be much safer for Olive Garden than the endless shrimp which put paid to Red Lobster.
6. photism — luminous hallucination
But each phrase, sentence, each word of that fateful letter seemed imbued to MacReady with a shining tinge of light, a photism of great import that surrounded each letter of her message as he read the words her beautiful hand had impressed upon the ragged edge paper.
7. imprescripible — absolute, incapable of being taken away by law
Thus the close of the 18th Century found lawyers and philosophers alike fixated upon defining rights in this negative sense, drawing up lists of these imprescriptable rights and qualities, rather than setting their shoulders to the proper task of law, prescribing limits and procedures for legal actions.
8. fellah — peasant, worker, or farmer of Egypt or North Africa
The ox was followed by the inevitable fellah holding the arms of the wooden plow just as his father and his father’s had done since time immemorial.
9. fathomer — [nautical] sailor assigned duty of sounding depth
The fathomer sounded out “By the mark, six” in the silence of the night and the hushed crew.
10. lapstone — [archaic] stone placed in lap against which shoemaker beat and stretched leather
The pensive cordwainer now stretched the dyed goatskin by hand against his lapstone, manipulating it into its final shape for these most precious boots.
Bonus Vocabulary
(idiom)
beggar’s lice (also beggar’s-lice, beggars’-lice, beggar lice) — any of many plants which deposit sticky bits onto clothes
I usually didn’t mind the beggar’s lice you got when rutching through bushes and brambles to avoid the main paths, but this time I’d gotten some piece stuck on my sock just at my inside ankle and it made every step a pain, but I couldn’t see any clearing where I could take my shoe off to get at it, and besides, I’d just get more stuck to me before I got through this underbrush and away from Sheriff Parker.