Friday Vocabulary

1. pale — stake; paling, fence; enclosure; area within a defined boundary Denys was hauled before the magistrate and fined thirteen pounds for breaking the pale around the park ‘both knowingly and feloniously’.   2. pocket Venus — beautiful small woman Even after a strenuous trek across the desert that pocket Venus had more stamina …

Friday Vocabulary

1. malacologist — one who studies mollusks The French malacologist Pierre Denys de Montfort is most famous for his fanciful descriptions of the kraken, a enormous octopus that supposedly pulled large ships down beneath the waves.   2. cochineal — scarlet or crimson dye primarily used in cookery, made of a dried powder derived from …

Friday Vocabulary

1. bariatric — of or related to treatment of obesity and associated conditions He was too tall to use the ordinary walker whilst recovering from surgery, so they gave him a bariatric rollator instead, as that device could be adjusted to suit his great height.   2. carceralism — philosophy of or belief in prisons …

Friday Vocabulary

1. holism — theory or system asserting that the whole is greater than the parts From this youthful belief in a spiritual and psychological holism he moved to an even more radical reductionism, preaching that all so-called ‘elevated states’ stemmed from a combination of a mere three substances found within brain chemistry.   2. pig …

Friday Vocabulary

1. equipollent — of equal power; logically equivalent The first mistake in Wilber’s reasoning came when he declared that this negation was equipollent with absence, whereas even a schoolchild could have told him that not getting dessert was not the same as getting nothing at all.   2. misease — [archaic] misery, discomfort, suffering The …

Friday Vocabulary

1. temerarious — reckless, rash, heedless On the other hand, as a result of his temerarious purchase of Dogecoin he’s now a multi-billionaire.   2. shawm — medieval double-reed woodwind with a conical shape For the nonce we made merry, dancing to the strains of the sackbuts, shawms, and pipes.   3. brassie (also brassey) …

Friday Vocabulary

1. matrix — womb, uterus That thou shalt set apart unto the LORD all that opens the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males shall be the LORD’s. [Exodus 13:12 (KJV)]   2. hederated — decorated or crowned with ivy Under new management, however, the intriguing hederated adornment …