Friday Vocabulary

1. recrudescence — reappearance, renewed outbreak, reoccurrence (esp. of something morbid or bad)

This recrudescence of simony, however, left most strata of society unconcerned, couched in this somewhat disingenuous language of sympathy.

  2. chirality — asymmetry of chemical compounds which cannot be superimposed upon its mirror image, ‘handedness’

The discovery of chirality among quarks, one of the smallest subatomic particles, shows how ‘deep’ is the deep structure of the universe.

  3. junket — cream cheese, or food made from sweet curds; pleasure trip, usu. one ostensibly for business purposes

The two senators on this junket were never actually seen by the press corps, it being assumed that they were tied up in important meetings with foreign dignitaries—and not, as rumor had it, fixed to the roulette wheel in the invitation-only back room at the local casino.

  4. lorn — forsaken; desolate

Emerging from the copse of trees we saw before us a lorn landscape of gloom, a meadow or marsh made from what had once been fruitful farmland, now returned to primeval mire.

  5. wuther — to blow, to bluster; to hurry

The frame of the one window had settled poorly, and the wind wuthered through the large gap all night.

  6. oriel — [architecture] bay window; protrusion from wall in which a bay window may be sited

Unusually, the oriel of the castle spans upwards across all four stories, with clever glasswork concealing each joint with the floors.

  7. turgor — swollenness; distention of plant cells

One assumes that his frequent headaches are due to the turgor of his self-confessed enormous brain.

  8. mootah — [slang] marijuana

“Billy,” she pleaded, “you said we’d smoke some mootah when I gave you the key.”

  9. lituus — curved military horn

The standards were held high, the troops assembled, and as soon as the signal was given and the lituii sounded the force would march forth from the besieged redoubt.

  10. agenesis — failed or anomalous development of body or part; sterility

Though a debilitating condition, the agenesis of the corpus callosum has proved a boon to research psychologists and other deep thinkers on the brain.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

spark out — entirely unconscious

I slipped on the first step, whacked my head on the bannister, and got knocked spark out.