1. agita — irritation, upset, anxiety; indigestion Me? I lose it completely—but Hélène doesn’t let the agita get to her at all. 2. hobeler (also hobbler) — light horseman, retainer who supplied his own hobby (a small horse or pony) All told we were able to assemble four score men-at-arms and sixty hobelers, with …
Tag Archives: bonus word
Friday Vocabulary
1. bleb — vesicle, blister; bubble of air in fluid But the original insight was confirmed only when scientists inspected the steam blebs of ancient lava flows beneath the microscope. 2. assort — to distribute like things according to type Our first day in the creaking house found us assorting the heaps of material …
Friday Vocabulary
1. excursive — digressive What was supposed to have been a pithy précis turned into an excursive epic under the weight of his overheavy pen, topping two hundred pages of turbid prose. 2. peterman — [slang] safecracker Though once he was renowned as a peterman of the first water, today he is as honest …
Friday Vocabulary
1. tegument — covering; integument He stood haughtily above the field, his bronzed and polished armor a bright protective tegument over the doomed flesh within. 2. quiff — lock or curl of hair hanging over the forehead My eyes kept straying to the oiled quiff of his dark hair which he affected in some …
Friday Vocabulary
1. glister — to sparkle Suddenly the last rock gave way and we felt the welcome breeze of the night air upon our begrimed faces, and beheld in wonder the glistering heavens spangled with an almost blinding glory of stars. 2. sequacious — tending to blindly follow others; pliable, easily molded But the sequacious …
Friday Vocabulary
1. evert — to turn outward or inside out And so everted has the American Dream become that we are sated by likes and follows and bundles of steam and dark mode. 2. ophiophagous — eating snakes When I interned among the ophiophagous lawyers then practicing in Albany, I thought of the experience as …
Friday Vocabulary
1. spancel — noosed rope used to hobble an animal Only a short spancel bound his ankles, but his arms were held tightly behind his back in a pair of police handcuffs. 2. traducianism — doctrine that the soul is generated from the parents at the moment of conception Tertullian’s view of the soul …
Friday Vocabulary
1. indurate — to harden; to make callous; to inure Yet this same experience which had left me an unrepentant criminal had not indurated Wilfred’s heart and soul. 2. parterre — ornamental flower beds; rear section of main floor in an auditorium All these delectable vegetables were surrounded by rows of shrubbery, beyond which …
Friday Vocabulary
1. doolally — [informal British] out of one’s head, temporarily non compos mentis “You see, George went a bit doolally after losing last night, and he’s burnt the whole game, box and all.” 2. thurifer — acolyte carrying the thurible We first began to suspect that something was wrong with the thurifer when the …
Friday Vocabulary
1. screw — small amount (of a product) wrapped in a twist of paper; such a twist of paper In the ragamuffin’s pocket (the one without the hole in it) were only two tarnished farthings, a screw of tobacco, and a piece of rough twine. 2. univocal — having only a single meaning, unambiguous …