1. bunt — [nautical] reinforced part of fishing net where the catch is concentrated; bulging middle part of a sail When the sails were well furled, the bunts triced securely, the bosun let us take a short break. 2. spissitude — density, thickness Away from the lake, the miasmic air of the swamps seemed …
Tag Archives: bonus word
Friday Vocabulary
1. treen — made wholly of wood Our current age may best be judged by the label attached to a decorative rabbit-shaped bowl that I found at the store: “Our treen products are made of resin and is not for use with food.” 2. pillock — [British informal] stupid person I always thought that …
Friday Vocabulary
1. hawser — large rope or small cable for warping, towing, or mooring With muffled paddles the trio made their way beneath the six inch hawser to the stern of the English merchantman, grimly set upon their treacherous work. 2. pepperpot (also pepper-pot) — pepperbox; something or someone figuratively like a pepperpot But Brawley …
Friday Vocabulary
1. enucleate — to remove the nucleus; to remove (kernel, tumor, eyeball) from its surrounding cover Nebuchadnezzar famously enucleated King Zedekiah before taking him off to captivity in Babylon. 2. afferent — [biology] leading inward or conducting towards, as of nerves or other physiological pathways to organs One theory of tinnitus holds that the …
Friday Vocabulary
1. peltry — pelts collectively Such families of Indians—bedraggled, half-starving, and bone weary from their threadbare existence at the edge of merest survival—supplied in their thousands the peltry for one of Europe’s most important streams of commerce. 2. aluminium — [British] aluminum In fact, aluminium is quite widespread; the difficulty is extracting the valuable …
Friday Vocabulary
1. depilate — to remove hair from, “to make bare of hair” [OED] Josun had originally depilated his arms and legs because of the bicycle racing; now, however, it had become something of an obsession. 2. arrack — liquor made from fermented sap of palm or cane or fermented rice, typically distilled in India …
Friday Vocabulary
1. pyx — small container for holding the consecrated bread of the Eucharist; [rare] box The tiny, decorative boxes so enamored of by modern collectors hearken back to the enameled pyxides of the famous Limoges workshops, regularly made there since the 13th Century. 2. teal — small dabbling duck from which the mallard evolved …
Friday Vocabulary
1. knobkerrie (also knobkerry) — short wooden club with heavy knob at its head used by South African tribes The similarities between the knobkerrie and the shillelagh go further than the merely physical, however, as both were banned by the ‘powers-that-were’. 2. futtock shroud — [nautical] lines securing platform attached to mast by running …
Friday Vocabulary
1. bittacle — [obsolete] binnacle, box on ship’s deck for the compass Be sure to use wooden pegs or the like in constructing the bittacle, for metal nails can attract the compass. 2. barney — [British] fight, quarrel, brawl Terence spent the night in jail after getting into a barney with some other drunken …
Friday Vocabulary
1. remise — second fencing thrust made after failure of the first; coach house Well, in for a dollar in for a pound, as they say, and since my lunge had left me in an exposed position I essayed a remise under the decorative spaulder of the sneering French lord, changing his expression in a …