1. mews — alley where stables are found; street with houses built from former stables or built to look like stables
No other passerby were on the streets at that hour, and as the tattered waif limped into the dark mews he looked about and behind in fear or resignation.
2. burr — to speak with strongly rolled r’s, to make whirring sounds; to fashion a rough edge upon metal
He burred his words so strongly that at first I thought he was pretending to be Scottish, or possibly even Spanish.
3. proximad — toward the center or point of attachment
The colors of the wing feathers show a distinct change proximad of this joint, and indeed Klipstein found them occurring in a separate row in specimens obtained from Pulzos Island.
4. lambdacism — inability to properly pronounce the letter ‘l’; substitution of the letter ‘l’ for other sounds (such as ‘r’)
The study confirmed a surprising lack of lambdacism among these Guinean descendants, of particular interest because its prevalence in bozal Spanish.
5. shallot — onion-like bulb used in food often in a similar manner
Janey was known as the lady of shallots because she hardly ever made a meal without some of those bulbs from her garden as an ingredient.
6. Pleistocene — of or related to the geologic age beginning in the Quaternary period down to about 10,000 years ago
Because scientists simply can’t keep their hands off of questions their betters thought settled once and for all, nowadays we start the Pleistocene era much earlier—2.588 million years ago instead of 1.7 (notice the foolish precision?)—and also end it ever so slightly earlier, 11,700 instead of simply 11,000 years ago.
7. contravene — to violate an order, law, or treaty; to conflict with an obligation or commitment
This incident marks the fifth time this administration has contravened its stated principle of providing these services to the poorest among the population.
8. abjectly — shamefully, in a completely undignified manner
I could not stand the sight of Mary prostrate at my knees, abjectly begging for shelter for her and her children, so I stood up and left the room, telling Smithers to have her escorted from the estate.
9. braggadocio — boastful speech, empty bragging
Full of arrogance and braggadocio, Jeremy descended upon the storied publishing house to drag it, as he said, “kicking and screaming into the 21st Century”.
10. homograph — words spelled the same but with different etymology; words with identical spelling but different pronunciation
They then descended into an friendly argument over whether a word that changed its pronunciation when capitalized was truly a homograph or not.
Bonus Vocabulary
(British idiom)
drop a brick — to commit a faux pas, usu. in speech
But I really dropped a brick when I went into my habitual rant against gluten-free food, as Harmie cut me off and said, “My son has celiac disease.”