1. bonhomous — cheerful, full of bonhomie
But don’t let his bonhomous front fool you, for inside that genial clumban lurks a cunning and devious mind, always set upon gaining profit and power by any means fair or foul.
2. slewfoot (also sluefoot) — [slang] detective, policeman; clumsy person
“Ain’t gonna let no tinhorn slewfoot tell me where I can eat or drink—I does what I please!”
3. ogdoad — group of eight, octet
Behind this Gang of Eight, the official ogdoad, as it were, was a mysterious figure only identified as ‘Alpha’.
4. strake — [nautical] continuous line of planking from bow to stern in a ship’s hull
The garboard strakes are necessarily wider than most strakes at ship’s end, and should be of the strongest wood available.
5. analogon — analog, thing related by analogy to something else
Preston took St. Paul’s analogon of society as a human body to be ideally true, assuming to each member both needfulness and diversity in function, capability, and purpose.
6. erotetic — of or pertaining to questions or questioning
Focused on the erotetic value of these explanations, Herr Füssbacher makes a strong case for the development of the early rites from the devastating experience of droughts in this region, though Professor Edelman reproves this notion as giving too little weight to religious and psychic impulses which may be difficult if not impossible for we moderns to comprehend.
7. lummox — clumsy dummy
“Just stand still, you big lummox!” he growled, “If you break another one of her objects duh art we’ll be out on our ears for sure!”
8. concinnity — well-adapted and harmonious arrangement of parts (in musical work, in logical argument, etc.)
But in Lipstick Traces there is also a tremendous concinnity of argument and exposition in his delineation of the connections between the punk rock of the late ’70s and the Dada movement born after World War I, a harmonious convergence of history and music and art which in his narrative builds to a formidable and resonant whole.
9. amphigory — nonsense verse, meaningless writing
Are these poems, then, windows into a deeper nature and understanding, as the Surrealists claimed, or merest amphigory, a tremendous confidence trick played upon the literate public?
10. salutatorian — graduating high school student with second highest academic record
Coxey always bragged of being the salutatorian of his graduating class, but never mentioned that there were only forty students in the whole school that year, after that situation with the balloons of gin and the strange Swedish bus driver.
11. grosgrain — silk fabric having narrow ribs; ribbon made from such fabric
One of the new grosgrain berets will travel better, having no wire frame, and will keep you looking smart this season.
Bonus Vocabulary
(Black 20th C. slang, sometimes derogatory and sometimes merely descriptive)
ofay — white person
The club was owned by some ofay who installed a time clock by the back door and insisted the bartenders clock out every time they took a smoke break, and Freddy said he’d wanted to hook up the door lock to the clock until the Fire Marshal told him no.