Friday Vocabulary

1. bucranium — [architecture] sculpted ox skull used as decoration

Though we can trace the bucrania found at Monticello and the University of Virginia to a frieze depicted in Les Édifices Antiques de Rome by Desgodetz, the decorative use of such skulls and horns has been dated back at least as far as the neolithic site of Çatalhöyük.

 

2. witter — [British] to talk on and on about pointless things

I left Mrs. Funderson wittering on about the latest malfeasance of the milkman and rushed out the door.

 

3. pixilated — mentally bewildered, eccentric

We had a lengthy discussion about the relative merits of Vatican II and the proper method of inserting a padded inner sole into a deep boot, and all the while I had no idea that this somewhat pixilated though kindly gentleman was one of the most important lecturers on the new ‘new’ “New Mathematics”, the discoverer of Bathy-Zienman Space Functions, with all that that implies.

 

4. tare — [obsolete] past tense of the verb “to tear”

And as he tare the meat from the roast, a fell wind arose and extinguished his torch.

 

5. anodyne — pain-relieving; soothing; inoffensive, bland

I found something about his anodyne reassurances about the development project somehow quite disturbing.

 

6. theodicy — vindication of divinity in the face of worldly evils

But Mather’s “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God” is no theodicy, is no apology for the ineffable nature of God, but instead places all the blame for evil squarely upon the shoulders and the soul of man and his wicked, wicked ways.

 

7. beetlehead — dolt

It suffices for most beetleheads to hear the same story repeated once or twice for them to assume that it must be true.

 

8. caitiff — base wretch, despicable or pitiful person

“No!” cried Sir Henry, “no, allow the caitiff to speak, if he can stand on his own two weak legs before this haughty company.”

 

9. reify — to make an abstract or mental thing more concrete or real

The near-infinite promise of the interconnected World Wide Web as promulgated by the breathless ‘reportage’ of Wired and Mondo 2000 has been reified as a society of persons who spend almost fifty percent of their time staring at flat screens of pixels, ‘living their best lives’.

 

10. crawfish — [idiom] to back out from a commitment or position

If you’re going to do it, just do it, without all this crawfishing and second-guessing yourself.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British informal)

faff — to waste or spend time in useless activity; to dither

He got all his tools sorted, explaining the purpose of each one, and how it might—or might not—help in our particular circumstances, with several digressions upon the inner workings of the internal combustion engine and its history, with particular attention to recent and startling advances made in the past two decades, and by this time he stopped faffing and was prepared to actually work upon the car, the engine had cooled sufficiently so that it started right up and I drove off, leaving him standing there to put all his tools away in the boot of his Land Rover.

Friday Vocabulary

1. econophysics — unorthodox use of mathematical models from physics to analyze economics

In spite of a strong debate about the fertility and benefits of econophysics, it mostly seems another example of economists at the highest levels using overly complicated mathematics to explain either the inexplicable or why they got the last explanation wrong.

 

2. yeet — [slang] to throw something with great force; general affirmative exclamation

If you yeet that cat I’ll break your nose.

 

3. skip — large bag or basket, often on wheels, frequently used for collecting laundry

For an exorbitant fee we bought a skip from the local dry cleaners and used it to transport the alien to our room in the hotel, hiding him beneath some of Sammy’s clothes and just marching in through the back entrance bold as brass.

 

4. lame — tool holding razor blade, used for marking or scoring bread dough

Since she’s become quite the bread baker, we thought this fancy wooden lame would make a nice gift, but apparently she had her heart set on one that included the ability to fashion the razor blade into a curve as well as the usual straight scores.

 

5. gallimaufry — dish made from odds and ends of available food; hodgepodge

Instead of calling it ‘leftover hash’ I advised labelling it ‘Gourmet Gallimaufry‘ on the menu, and thus justified my exorbitant consultant fees.

 

6. granolithic — composed of crushed granite pieces

Though granolithic concrete flooring can be difficult to apply correctly, it provides a highly durable surface for many uses, such as workroom floors.

 

7. pelage — mammalian fur, hair, or wool

There is little change in the male’s pelage during winter, his cold weather coat consisting of, if anything, very slightly darker fur.

 

8. serous — of or related to serum; watery like animal bodily fluid

A large pocket of serous fluid gathered around the site of the bite.

 

9. prelate — high-ranking ecclesiastic

An attentive observer at the hotel might have noted that the supposed prelate‘s collar bore a faint but noticeable carmine stain, which a suspicious mind might have recognized as lipstick.

 

10. internecine — of or related to fighting within a group; destructive, with great slaughter; mutually destructive

Perhaps the worst aspect of the internecine politics of the interregnum was the despair of the masses, who became inured to the terribly violent excesses even as they lost hope for any change save a slow, lingering spiral into worse and worse horrors to come.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

fides Punica (sometimes Punica fides)— treachery, lit. “the faith of the Carthaginians” or “Carthaginian honesty”

The long dreary history of U.S. treaties with Native American tribes is an almost uninterrupted string of fides Punica.

Friday Vocabulary

1. peroration — [rhetoric] concluding section of speech, in which orator sums up main points and attempts to inspire enthusiasm

By the resumption of the strident tones with which he’d begun his overlong speech, I judged that he was building up to his peroration and trying to arouse his audience from their irritable slumber.

 

2. venery — [archaic] hunting, the chase

Of the enormous cultural apparatus associated with venery from early in the middle ages into almost the modern era, only the somewhat silly association of particular terms for groups of animals remains, save for a small rump remnant of present-day devotees of falconry.

 

3. venery — [archaic] devotion to sexual pleasure, sexual congress

The symptoms of overindulgence in venery are similar to those found in habitual masturbators: weak chins, poor vision, listlessness, slumped shoulders, and a complete lack of moral fibre.

 

4. unlax — [slang] to relax

“Come on, Paul, sit yourself down on the couch and unlax awhile.”

 

5. skean dhu — [Scots] small knife worn in the top of the hose of Highland Scots

“Of course the blade of my skean dhu is sharp, razor sharp, for what would be the use of a dull knife?”

 

6. subpoena duces tecum — [Latin] writ commanding person to produce documents to the court

He tried to evade answering questions about his original contract with the trust, so we served him with a subpoena duces tecum forcing him to bring before the court that document and any additional papers detailing his arrangement with Mr. Roma.

 

7. selcouth — [archaic] strange, marvelous, unusual

And now the selcouth monster rose from the dark water, his many slimy arms smashing down the brave warriors as if they were ninepins.

 

8. soup and fish — [slang] tuxedo, evening clothes

So get yourself all togged up in a soup and fish so you can at least try to blend in when we spend the evening dancing with the swells.

 

9. palooka — [slang] ineffectual athlete, esp. a boxer; stupid person, lout

“You got no reason to be afeared of that old palooka, Joe! You can take him out with just one punch.”

 

10. omentum — [biology] fold of peritoneum connecting stomach with spleen, liver, colon; caul

No fat was found in the peritoneum, meaning that the victim had remained abstinent from food, either voluntarily or otherwise, for quite some time before death occurred.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. excogitate — to think over, to plan, to scheme

As the garbage truck pulled into the alley, blocking his exit, Benny reflected how the brilliant plan the boss had excogitated kept running aground when trying to navigate the turbulent river of reality.

 

2. shelve — to slope gradually

We made anchor in a bend in the river by a sharply shelving bank, where the bottom turned out to be three fathoms below us.

 

3. titubate — to stagger, to reel, to stumble

The tarp over the dump truck’s load suddenly tore away, and—caught in the tempest—titubated back and forth across the road right at eye level like a drunkard trying to stay on the sidewalk.

 

4. awhile — for a short period of time

We stayed our speech awhile, expecting response, but our fey hostess remained mute.

 

5. marchioness — [British] wife or widow of a marquis; woman holding rank equal to that of a marquis

One would hardly accuse the marchioness of having the ‘common touch’, as it is commonly called, but, when alone or with her closest family or friends, she could curse to make a sailor blanch.

 

6. ibogaine — hallucinogenic alkaloid derived from West African members of the dogbane family

Edmund Muskie’s 1972 presidential bid hit the skids after Hunter S. Thompson reported the rumor (started by Thompson himself) that the senator from Maine was hopelessly addicted to ibogaine.

 

7. morion — open-faced helmet associated with the Spanish Conquistadors

So saying, he went to the figure in the diorama, hoping to use the soldier’s morion to protect his head somewhat from the villains marauding the museum, only to discover to his disgust that it was made from molded foam, painted to look like bronze.

 

8. sploot — to lie flat upon the stomach with outstretched legs

I’m told that it is a mechanism for cooling down an animal’s body, but the first time we came upon a splooting squirrel while hiking around Bandolier we called him ‘Crazy Squirrel’.

 

9. consanguinity — blood-relationship

I had noticed a definite cooling of his affections once he learned of the tenuous nature of my consanguinity to Mr. Helder, more evidence that Cousin Dell’s assertions were correct after all.

 

10. expatiate — to write or to speak copiously; to wander, to walk about at length

I tried to at least seem attentive as once more he began to expatiate about the need for sound currency based upon silver, though I felt my heart freeze as soon as he uttered the words ‘sound monetary policy’.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

tertium non datur — Law of the Excluded Middle, lit. “no third (option/choice) is given”

Kolmogorov claimed that Brouwer’s proof that the tertium non datur principle may be incorrect in certain applications of transfinite deduction is obviated in all finitistic cases by a strict analysis which escapes the need to appeal to that precept.

Friday Vocabulary

1. vicissitudes — ups and downs, recurring changes

And as he stood there in the sunshine contemplating the various and impenetrable vicissitudes of life, he was stung behind the ear by a gnat.

 

2. scabrous — having a rough surface, scaly; difficult, harsh; obscene, indecent

He blamed his rubicund and scabrous complexion upon the sulfides in the red wine he frequently drank.

 

3. pinchbeck — alloy of copper and zinc supposed to resemble gold; counterfeit, spurious; tawdry

They won’t bind him over, even though they caught him selling pinchbeck watches to the swells, ’cause he’s too wise to claim it was anything like real gold.

 

4. coprolite — petrified animal excrement

Anti-evolutionists contemporary with Darwin preached that the coprolite was actually a previously undiscovered animal, rather than fossilized dung.

 

5. monkey nut — [British] peanut, ground-nut

The floor was covered with monkey nut shells but the bowls on the bar were empty.

 

6. Gytrash (also Guytrash, Guytresh) — [Britsh] legendary animal apparition of lonely country roads and paths, variously appearing as a large black dog or horse or even a cow

I saw him, I tell you, the Gytrash with huge coal-black eyes and flames beneath his cloven feet, right up on Snooks’ Hill as I came out of the coppice past the ruined mill.

 

7. polemic — controversial, disputatious

Though he reveled in polemic discourse I always had the strange suspicion that at heart he held close some deeply held beliefs, fervent ideas that might have seemed quite conservative, even pedestrian were he to reveal them to the world at large.

 

8. tumbrel — two-wheeled wooden cart, esp. that used to convey persons to the guillotine during the French Revolution

And so once again the spectre of the guillotine and the tumbrels is seen all across Europe, history once again repeating an old play for lack of better ideas.

 

9. hellgrammite — neuropterous insect larva, used often as fishing bait

Be careful with that can of hellgrammites, as they’re likely to bite you when you grab them distracted by the beauty of the river.

 

10. tent — [Scots] heed, attention; to attend, to take heed

Be sure to take tent as you go through the cave’s entrance to stay far on the right side, as there’s a treacherous bit on the left where many a man’s been left with a bleeding head wound.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(idiom)

nineteen to the dozen — going on rapidly without cease, usu. of speech

Priscilla was rabbiting nineteen to the dozen about the latest excesses of the revisions to last year’s trade agreements, so we knew she’d been possessed by some bureaucratic demon.

Friday Vocabulary

1. poll — human head; the part of the head where grows the hair

His encounter with the irate barber left him with a poll looking like a golf fairway covered with diseased fescue and dangerous divots.

 

2. puckfist — [archaic] braggart

I’d not give a farthing for the whole puckfist band of pusillanimous purveyors of supposed prose.

 

3. cock-a-hoop — vaingloriously elated

Only five months after the minister’s cock-a-hoop pronouncement that the new policies would jumpstart the economy, he resigned in the face of the ever worsening news and numbers.

 

4. snaffle — [British] to purloin, to swipe

“Don’t go snaffling all of our host’s good Scotch—leave some for the rest of us!”

 

5. dyadic — of or consisting of a group of two

So strong was their dyadic bond that it seemed that you never saw the one without the other somewhere nearby, and indeed, after Les was sentenced to twenty years hard labor, Sam seemed to retreat into a parallel psychic confinement.

 

6. sneck — [Scots] door or window latch

His fingers were so cold he could barely lift the sneck to open the door.

 

7. nave — [architecture] the principal area of a church, loosely parallel to the longest arm of the Christian cross in cross-shaped churches

I’d been sweating in the heat before entering the church, but as I walked down the nave to join Clarissa I almost shivered from a deep chill which seemed to emanate from the ancient stone floor beneath my feet.

 

8. algolagnia — sadomasochism, sexual gratification from either inflicting or enduring pain

Perhaps this is some sort of strange algolagnia, for I can imagine no other explanation for the bizarre and quite off-putting performance we suffered through at Friday night’s concert.

 

9. aubergine — eggplant; dark purple

As he sat in the easy chair I could see beneath his purple bell bottoms that a pair of silk aubergine socks complemented his lavender loafers.

 

10. shieling — [Scots] pasture; herder’s rude hut

As we came through the heather we saw by the shepherd’s shieling a dark leathern cloak, abandoned by our prey for reasons unknown.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(furniture first marketed by the firm of William Morris)

Morris chair — reclining chair with hinged back and high armrests

When Veronica sat on the armrest of my Morris chair and batted her eyes at me, I found it almost impossible to deny her any request, no matter how ludicrous it later seemed.

Friday Vocabulary

1. plinth — square slab supporting a column; pedestal for statue

The fancifully decorated sarcophagus lay upon a rough-hewn stone plinth, upon which was a tiny inscription bearing the name of some long dead mason.

 

2. kedgeree — Indian dish of rice, onion, lentils, and spices; European dish of rice, fish, eggs

My mother’s recipe for kedgeree included mushrooms and lemons, but we had to make due with limp leeks from Mr. Slattery’s garden.

 

3. grunsel (alternate spelling of groundsill) — [obsolete] threshold, lowest timber beam of doorframe

He hesitated before the grunsel and I entertained Carpathian fears and fantasies for a moment before he finally ducked his head and entered my humble abode.

 

4. hind — mature female deer

The horn had sounded far off, so we were startled when a red hind burst through the thicket to our left and bounded across our path and away into the deep forest towards the old fairy pool.

 

5. hind — farmhand, serf, rustic; simpleton, boor

Though we affect not to be surprised at the supposed idiocy of these hinds calling for him to hang without even a token of a trial, we can hardly believe that the lord of the manor would join his rustic folk in declaiming for the poor fellow’s death.

 

6. salutiferous — salutary, conducive to well-being or health

After all these trials I slept in a darksome, dreamless slumber, awakening finally to the salutiferous aroma of fresh-brewed coffee, bacon, and some sort of breakfast pastry.

 

7. eristic — of or related to disputation, argumentative for argument’s sake

Born with an eristic nature, he should have been a lawyer, but had neither the intellect nor the moral sense for that high calling and so became a conspiracy theorist instead.

 

8. manchet — [archaic] wheat bread of the finest flour; loaf of such bread

“Innkeeper! Cider, a manchet, and cheese—at once!” the stranger shouted imperiously.

 

9. thatness — quality of existence, of being a specific thing

I had felt myself trapped among escapees from a nightmare of Alice’s adventures, and it was only with difficulty that I felt myself returning to … well, to ‘myself’, as it were, to that thatness that I had been content to be for all my years previous, found myself reasserting my very identity after those strange three days among the strangest people I hope never to encounter again.

 

10. illude — to trick, to deceive; to mock

Once more he was illuded by the attractive offer made by the even more attractive young lady, and found himself the recipient of several hundred cases of inferior products which he soon learned were, despite the claims of his quondam acquaintance, impossible to sell.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. tempestivity — timeliness, quality of occurring at the proper season or time

You return from the wars with rare tempestivity, for your younger brother even this week has filed a writ with the sheriff laying claim to your mother’s property.

 

2. purler — spectacular fall; [obsolete] resounding blow sending one to the ground

The repaired tarmac had not set well, and I came a purler as I tripped over a divot in the asphalt patch.

 

3. epistemology — theory of knowledge, study of how we know things we think we know

Dr. Johnson famously refuted Berkeley’s idealistic epistemology by kicking a stone, though it is Hume’s toe that is alleged to have almost magical properties.

 

4. cutler — seller or repairer of knives

After this desperate affair it was imperative that I have my sword ground anew, and so the next morning I took myself to the cutler on Tendreary Lane, and on the way I saw once more Lord Beltmore.

 

5. bezoar — concretion found in the stomach of some animals, believed to have power to protect against poison

He added a few grains of bezoar stone to counteract some of the mandragora’s toxic effect, noting how low his supply had become of that rare curative.

 

6. catoblepas — ancient name for African animal of unsure genus

Though today the catoblepas is usually thought to refer to a gnu, being described by Pliny as bull-like, other writers thought it more like a serpent, or even identified it with the fabled cockatrice.

 

7. apteryx — kiwi

In spite of its name, the flightless apteryx does have a wing, a vestigial appendage with a tiny claw at the end.

 

8. dug — pap or udder

We finally found her beneath the water heater, a hitherto unknown family of newborn kittens pulling away diligently at her dugs.

 

9. peon — day laborer; drudge, person of low social status

No, you are right, Señor Williams, you are right that you are not like these peons, but not for the reasons you claim: you are right because I do not think you could work for even a single hour without retreating like a coward back to this barstool from which you look down upon the world about you.

 

10. paeon (or pæon) — metrical foot with one long and three short syllables, in any order

Really, Mr. Carstairs! If you cannot distinguish between a paeon and a trochee followed by a spondee I have little hope for you!

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang of the 19th Century)

toco — punishment, penalty

I admit I felt a tad discomfited when they gave Reggie toco for something I had done, but not nearly as much as if they’d beaten me instead of him.

Friday Vocabulary

1. castellan — governor of a castle

The handsome castellan worried more for his clothes and his hair than for the health of the peasantry in his care.

 

2. rose cold — rose fever, allergic condition triggered by rose pollen

Though the storm shattered the windows, damaged the garden, and flooded the basement, at least his rose fever had subsided.

 

3. piccalilli — East Indian relish of mustard, vegetables, and hot spices

Feel free to experiment on the recipe; we found that the addition of melon rind to the piccalilli gives it a tangy flavor only because Bob wondered aloud what use the small bits of rind could have.

 

4. inglenook — corner or nook by a fireplace

As I entered the alehouse I caught sight of Squire Thomas eating at a small table in the inglenook, savagely shredding a joint between his overlarge teeth.

 

5. shallop — two-masted boat suited for coastal waters

A warning shout told us not to near, but we knew the shallop had aboard only a skeleton crew of two men.

 

6. ptisan — barley-water; medicinal decoction

She still prefers the poultices and ptisans of her grandmother to the elixirs and pills of our modern pharmacopeia.

 

7. pantler (also panter) — [obsolete] baker; household officer in charge of the pantry

The gilded candlesticks were found eventually, secreted beneath a floorboard in the pantler’s room next to the kitchen, though no one could believe Old Tom capable of the theft.

 

8. vesicle — cyst, sac, blister

The white color of the snow is caused by the tiny vesicles of air captured within the frozen precipitation.

 

9. nepotism — favoritism towards family members

Of course such nepotism likely preceded that of the Popes, though the fiction that these heirs were ‘nephews’ was only necessary because of the strictures of supposed chastity which bound the religious hierarchs of the Catholic Church.

 

10. curricle — two-wheeled light carriage drawn by two horses abreast

I’m sure I made quite the dashing figure flying about town in my dark blue curricle drawn by the matched pair of long-tailed bays.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. zone — girdle, belt, cestus

Such his charm and then his force that at the end of this unequal warfare she threw away her virgin zone and ever after they cleaved together like the antient Mother and Father of our human race.

 

2. haycock — hay heaped into a cone

We sat against the one haycock which lay beneath the shade of the old oak at the corner of the field, eating our bread and onion, watching the clouds, and speaking quite volubly of nothing at all.

 

3. vexillology — study of flags

Whereas once the quadrennial Olympics were an opportunity for impromptu vexillology lessons, now modern television graphics have relegated each country’s flag to a tiny box of vague color somewhere among a mass of statistics, blurbs, and photos of the various athletes in an array of striking poses.

 

4. incommensurable — without a common standard of comparison, having no shared basis of measure; entirely disproportionate

Though the accountants may use the same numbers to tally up your paltry income and that of the wealthiest CEOs and ‘capitalists’, in reality the gulf between your existences is incommensurable, for you shall always be burdened by the knowledge that every act, every purchase, every choice, has a price, which cost is as nothing to that other class.

 

5. syncretic — joining or reconciling diverse beliefs or practices

But the wild and varied beliefs of the Hippie Frontier crashed against the rock of fundamentalist American religion, the latter itself a syncretic meld of “hoorah!” jingoistic patriotism, almost misunderstood sacred texts, and a vague nostalgic recollection of the church practices of their ancestors.

 

6. monotonically — in or with a monotone; [mathematics] (of a function) generating ever-increasing or -decreasing values ad seriatum

I thought I’d found a monotonically increasing correlation between my alcohol consumption and my social prowess, but was unprepared for the sudden and catastrophic collapse of my wave function.

 

7. dedecorate — to dishonor; to stain, to disfigure

Your favors to dishonest men allow those rapscallions to dedecorate the high office to which you have been called.

 

8. mortmain — inalienable ownership

Though of course the Rule Against Perpetuities has its place, dissolving the barriers against fair taxation which mortmain erected, the destruction of that latter principle also dovetails with the modern penchant to think of nothing—absolutely nothing—as exempt from sale, perhaps up to and including those so-called “inalienable rights” which Jefferson so highly spoke of.

 

9. wily beguily (also wilie beguilie) — [obsolete] crafty person caught by their own trickery

Had he been less cunning he would succeeded, but by playing wily beguily he caught only himself with his cleverness, and succeeded only in placing a hempen collar about his own neck, which will forever mar his drinking.

 

10. perorally — by mouth

The patient must have nothing perorally for twenty-four hours before the surgery.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British food)

bread and scrape — bread and dripping, toast with melted-away fat from roasting meat; bread with thinnest amount of butter applied

As he grew older and as his economic circumstances became a trifle less dire, his tastes grew more catholic and his larder became less barren, but he never lost his love of the simplest dishes of his impecunious youth, such as the rare treat of bread and scrape (though even he would confess to gilding the lily somewhat, adding jelly to the drippings on his fancy wheat toast).