1. non sequitur — [Latin, sorta] disturbingly inapt transition or sequence; statement not logically following its precedent
I had already given up trying to follow the plot with its plethora of holes and non sequuntur, but the literal resurrection of the bishop killed so drastically in the very first scene of the movie solely so that he could reveal the location of the treasure map was a ludicrous bridge too far for me.
2. sucker — [obsolete] inhabitant of Illinois
A rowdy crowd of hoosiers joined the suckers around the debate stage in Jonesboro.
3. imbrute — to transform or devolve into a brute; to make brutal
Olmsted’s relentless inventory of missed opportunities, failed projects, passive squalor, and degraded morals makes clear how slavery had imbruted the owners as much as the slaves themselves, if not moreso.
4. hygroscopic — absorbing moisture from the surrounding atmosphere
But the hygroscopic crystals used in these dehumidifiers can be quite toxic if ingested, so proper disposal is important.
5. greengage — light green plum
While we were talking my horse nibbled at some greengages that had fallen to the ground.
6. conglobulate — to make into a ball
Now the worms began to writhe and join together in a horrid mass, conglobulating into a leprous sphere that made my stomach heave.
7. brevier — size of printing type, usu. judged nowadays equivalent to 8 point type
By trimming the contents header, we were just able to add an inch-and-a-half in brevier stating this new information in such a way as to avoid the legal danger Mr. Markus had pointed out.
8. aerobate — to perform dramatic maneuvers with aircraft
After the war Nicholas became a barnstormer, aerobating for the farmers outside Dubuque with an old Jenny he’d patched up, but never really approaching the thrill he’d felt when contending with other warriors of the air in skies where death was a constant companion.
9. zeugma — [rhetoric] use of a word to modify two other words either in two different senses or in an inappropriate (sometimes for humorous effect) fashion
Cornball then shred the eviction notice and his guitar, a zeugma which unfortunately only occurred to me much later.
10. vorlage — skiing position in skier leans well forward while keeping heel down on the ski
Somehow the back heel clip had become damaged, making impossible the extreme vorlage I needed to escape these skiing gunmen.
11. Vorlage — [German] earlier version of a text
Even the interesting symmetry shown by Paskukov between the two cantatas cannot prove the existence of a heretofore undiscovered Bach Vorlage, as Scott claims in his recent article.
Bonus Vocabulary
(Soviet Union)
nomenklatura — official list of bureaucrats and appointees to government posts in the Soviet Union; the people on such lists; any elite or other privileged group
In trying to storm the citadel held by the academics of this most conservative (if not most prestigious) state university system, the revolutionary professors succumbed to the risk faced by all exorcists, becoming members of the nomenklatura themselves, and defending the high towers of academe just as vigorously (and viciously, at least in the Tennis Elbow Affair) as had their quondam opponents.