Educated Guesswork

1. trucidate — to massacre, to murder, to kill, to slaughter

It is of no use to contend that these ruffians were trucidated in defense of the republic, for they are murdered men natheless.

 

2. wether — castrated sheep or goat

Lincoln Farms participated in a study to ascertain if the known problems with wethers—health issues, poorer quality meat—might be ameliorated by replacing them with short-scrotum “rams”.

 

3. dree — to endure

My task it was to watch over the truculent twins, and though not pleased with my lot, I approached my burdensome duty as I would dree any penance given by the priest.

 

4. phantomesque — like a phantom, ghostly

Across the moor I could make out vaguely a tenebrous phantomesque shape, slowly growing larger and as slowly becoming less dim, until at last I recognized the slow, limping gait of the missing butler.

 

5. amerce — to punish

Are we doomed then to remain forever guilty, amerced for the sin of our ancestors until the end of days?

 

6. rantipole — rude disorderly youngster; rake, fop

We all agreed the Jennings was a clever rantipole, who might eventually succeed in business if he didn’t end up in bridewell.

 

7. chunter — to grumble, to complain

The crabbed woman chuntered away the entire time while preparing our repast, muttering imprecations we couldn’t make out against someone or something that had wounded her in the past.

 

8. pudendum (usu. pudenda (pl.)) — external genitalia, esp. the vulva

Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde brazenly displays the pudenda of the subject, giving the lie to the etymological root of the quasi-euphemistic term, derived as the word is from the Latin meaning “to be ashamed”.

 

9. pomerium — legal and religious boundary of the ancient city of Rome

The catacombs are vast, extending almost exactly along the line of the pomerium, as ancient proscriptions forbade the internment of the dead within that sacred boundary.

 

10. mossbonker — menhaden, small pelagic fish

Fishermen all along the North Atlantic seaboard knew well the worth of the mossbonker, as Whitman noted in Leaves Of Grass.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British informal)

splash out — to lavishly spend cash

Since it’s a special occasion we should splash out on something a little fancier than just fish and chips.

1. aseity — metaphysical quality of absolute self-sufficient self existence, existence derived solely from self

Though perhaps other aspects of God may be reproduced anagogically by we lesser beings, aseity is starkly centered in and derived solely from the Godhead itself.

 

2. fifth chain — chain used connecting lead horse to pole when five horses are used in a team

Though they had done wonders clearing and leveling the trail up to the rise, it was still too steep for even a four-in-hand to haul up the heaviest wagons, so Captain Landress added a fifth chain to the harness and finally the party and all our baggage crested the ridge.

 

3. sickerly — surely, certainly; assuredly

Aye, I know his name full sickerly, and trow he’ll feel my wrath afore Midsummer’s Eve.

 

4. knacker’s yard — abattoir, slaughterhouse

Whenever I drive by his estate I have the disquieting fear of an old nag passing the knacker’s yard.

 

5. calx — fine powder left after calcining or burning a substance

The calx of egg shells will have more force if vinegar is added while they are before the fire.

 

6. jetton — token or counter of metal, etc.

He dropped his last jetton into the slot and strode through the turnstile.

 

7. spring tide (also spring-tide) — tide soon after a new or full moon; copious rush, swelling flow; springtime

Baxter reveled in the spring tide of youth, wilding on the beaches and dancing until the dawn, as if he knew even then that these pleasures were to come to such an abrupt end.

 

8. chlamys — short cloak worn by ancient Greeks; longer mantle worn during Byzantine epoch

As the enemy closed in each man wound his chlamys about his arm as a rude shield.

 

9. stope — step-like cut in mining excavation

As Jessup examined the dark streak running across the stope he noticed a whitish patch which seemed to move as his lamp played across its surface.

 

10. astart — to befall; to escape, to start off

Let not a single sound astart your lips, else our plans will fail utterly.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(19th c. British slang)

ramp — to swindle

After Pettison ramped him over those Indo-Turkish railway shares, Lord Leith would have nothing to do with the dashing man about town.

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 than the paid mercenaries or porters.

 

3. single-tree — crossbar connecting traces to wagon or plow

The rattling chains made the only sound on the somber farm as Ernest attached them to the single-tree behind the broken down mare.

 

4. skint — [British] broke, out of money

Well, I shouldn’t have worked for him again, only he found us completely skint and said it’d be an easy way to pick up a tenner.

 

5. eglantine — sweetbrier, wild rose native to Europe and Western Asia

The fragrance of honeysuckle vied with the aroma of eglantine as we stood hand in hand at the verge of the verdant meadow.

 

6. volatilizing — becoming volatile, passing out as vapor, emitting vapor

As soon as the sunlight hit the rude totem the shelter became filled with an acrid, metallic smell of volatilizing chemicals long dormant in the vegetable matter which had been formed into the leering figure.

 

7. libration — oscillatory motion, as of a scale at point of balance or the apparent movement of a heavenly body

More than half the surface of the moon is viewable by an earthbound observer, due to the latitudinal and diurnal lunar librations, caused respectively by the relative tilt in the two planets’ axes and by the distance from which morning and evening observations are made.

 

8. flatus — intestinal gas

The pressurized contents of his febrile brain have now burst forth as poetry, and a more rank flatus of blank verse can hardly be imagined.

 

9. diathesis — habitual tendency or predisposition, esp. towards morbidity

In these sunny climes she exhibits little evidence of that asthenic diathesis which seemed always to plague her in those overcast and stormy lands of your family demesne.

 

10. lapwing — large plover

We stood at the edge of the lake and watched the ungainly almost doddering flight of a deceit of lapwings.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(19th c. Turkish military)

bashi-bazouk — irregular mounted soldiers of Ottoman army, lit. ‘crazy head’

Notorious for their insensate brutality, the leaderless bashi-bazouk were accused of butchering wounded Russian soldiers during the siege of Plevna.

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 the insect of the same name

The chef had added cochineal to the baked apples in honor of the family colors, matching the banners and flags which festooned the dining hall.

 

3. cyclamen — perennial of the primrose family with white, red, or pink flowers

The corm of the cyclamen plant is quite poisonous, though swine are unaffected by the toxin and will happily eat it, from whence the name sowbread.

 

4. sleeper — [British] railroad tie; horizontal load-distributing wooden beam

Constable Gill found the rucksack behind a pile of sleepers at the end of the work camp, along with another surprise—a baby boy.

 

5. tannoy — loudspeaker system for public announcements

The crowd, which had been hushed after Parson fell, became almost completely silent as the voice over the tannoy announced the substitution.

 

6. doggo — [British slang] in hiding

After the near disaster with the parson, I decided to lie doggo for a while in the hunting shed I’d found in the southern side of the woods.

 

7. American cloth — enameled oilcloth

The large basket was divided by a board covered with American cloth, dividing it into two equal compartments.

 

8. sudoriparous — secreting sweat

The sudoriparous glands may be found around the hair follicles, arranged in a circular pattern.

 

9. lakh — [Indian] a hundred thousand

The Kauravas still had fourteen lakhs of cavalry held in reserve.

 

10. froward — contrary, refractory, untoward

Not only must he be punished, but, like a froward child, he must be made to see the error of his evilly disposed ways.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(internet slang)

ratio’d (also ratioed) — (said of tweet) having more comments than likes; having a comment with many more likes than original tweet

When @steak_umm was ordered to post that ‘hot’ SteakUmm® video he knew he was gonna get ratio’d.

1. skew-whiff — askew, obliquely

And just as we had gotten Mrs. Heriot back up on her feet, here came Jon the cooper charging down the hillside riding skew-whiff on his dappled gray mare.

 

2. antimasque — grotesque dance preceding or appearing between acts of a masque

And finally the rude players of the second antimasque scurried away off stage, leaving a calm scene of bucolic peace into which the two court ladies appearing as Prudence and Remembrance made their stately way.

 

3. chiffonier — short sideboard enclosed by doors, sometimes with shelves at top; tall and narrow chest of drawers, often topped by a mirror; rag-picker

I had angrily removed my collar and set it atop the chiffonier, when I suddenly caught sight of my own face, positively purple with fury.

 

4. foot up — to total a bill at its bottom

If you cannot find yourself at your desk at six o’clock every morning, it matters not how quickly you can foot up the accounts in pounds, shillings, and pence.

 

5. smaragdine — of or relating to emeralds; emerald green

I found myself staring deep into her gorgeous dark eyes, hypnotized by the smaragdine sparks hidden therein.

 

6. anagogic — spiritual; of mystical interpretation

Whitmer began to expound upon his anagogic interpretation of toast, detailing how the sacrifice of the amino acids in the bread to the radiant heat is transubstantiated through the mystical process into a revelatory new substance, the extrinsic goal of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

 

7. damson — small dark purple or black plum; dark to medium violet

Surely hers is not the only damson bonnet to be found in the village?

 

8. anfractuous — sinuous, circuitous

But it seemed that the more closely I tried to follow his anfractuous exposition the more hopelessly confused I became.

 

9. dimity — stout thin cotton fabric, with raised stripes

Herr Ploetzl greeted me in a pale yellow dimity dressing gown, grasping and shaking my hand as if he was trying to wring a towel dry.

 

10. scrip — small bag, satchel, wallet (esp. one carried by a beggar or pilgrim)

He rooted around in the worn leather scrip and finally extracted two plastic twenty-sided dice, one white and one black.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(idiom, from sentry’s challenge)

qui vive — alert, state of watchfulness

Best keep on the qui vive until the sun is well and fully risen.

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 and imprisonment as a public safety institution

While some point to carceralism as the major culprit behind a perceived failure of modern policing, others find this a fictive target, a straw man argument for so-called ‘progressives’ to attack as a means of further eroding the stability of the social order.

 

3. nekyia (also nekya) — necromantic rite in Ancient Greece

Questions about a supposed afterlife, and the possibility of some existence after death are found in the earliest human literature, as demonstrated by the nekyia of Odysseus in the great Homeric epic.

 

4. Heptasophs — defunct fraternal organization active in latter half of 19th Century, primarily in southern United States

The Order of Heptasophs was believed to have been inspired by the so-called Mystical Seven, one of the first American college fraternal societies.

 

5. emerods — [archaic] hemorrhoids

Though its loss was grievous to the tribes of Israel, the capture of the Ark of the Covenant was not an unqualified victory for the Philistines, who suffered from a “plague of emerods” that afflicted the “secret parts” of the captors.

 

6. cataplasm — [obsolete] poultice; plaster

When her agonies continued I placed a cataplasm of bark and laudanum on her belly and prayed for the best.

 

7. pediculous — infested with lice, lousy

We stopped at an unfriendly inn, finding only cold gruel for sustenance and pediculous pallets upon the even colder floor.

 

8. holland — opaque linen cloth

The small garret was suffused in murky light, the bright sunlight beyond the gable window blocked by an unfinished holland drapery.

 

9. vavasor — feudal vassal ranking just below baron

Like many another vavasor, Prentys was prickly and proud, easily offended if he felt in the least his rights were being slighted.

 

10. fasciculate — arranged in bunches or bundles

The tree is notable for the fasciculate leaves which tend to grow only at the extremities of its branches.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Australian idiom)

stone the crows — expression of annoyance or surprise

“Well, stone the crows!” fumed Bertie. “We won’t be on their trail after all. The bandits drained all our petrol.”

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 it — [idiom] to live in a slovenly, messy fashion

Anabelle had been gone barely a week yet he had pigged it so severely since she left that not a single surface in the apartment was uncovered by fast food bags or beer bottles or other detritus of his new filthy lifestyle.

 

3. syllogomania (also sullegomania) — collectionism, compulsive hoarding, mental derangement characterized by obsessive collecting

Though he spent hours each day—perhaps as much as 36 hours each week—sorting and organizing and labelling all his files—Jacquet never admitted how much his digital syllogomania was taking over his entire life.

 

4. secundus — second

Secundus, setting a set goal for savings at this time is more practical than arguing over buying a house, when neither you nor your girlfriend have anywhere near the required cash or credit to do so, making your entire argument moot.

 

5. velum — [biology] membrane; the soft palate; [meteorology] widespread thin cloud

Velar consonants such as the hard ‘g’ or ‘k’ in English are so named because the back of the tongue contacts the velum during their articulation.

 

6. anathema — detested or hated thing or person, abomination; formal curse pronounced as part of excommunication

After the incident with the ferret, the very notion of furries and plushies became anathema to him.

 

7. shatter — to break into pieces; [drug slang] cannabis extract similar to wax with translucent amber to yellow appearance and tendency to break, with affects (allegedly) similar to hash oil

Marco’s hopes were shattered when he realized that instead of shatter he had purchased a glop of oily Play-Doh.

 

8. swathe — to wrap in layers of material; to bandage

Around the camp we took bets on Adrian’s hairstyle, which none of us had ever seen, swathed as it was beneath the keffiyeh he habitually wore.

 

9. merle — blackbird

I can no more stop smiling at her loveliness than the merle can stop singing in the dappled wood.

 

10. volt (also volte) — leap or jerk in fencing to avoid a thrust; turning in a tight circle in dressage

Keeping the mare’s croup to the center of the circle, Lardley managed a quite passable volt before his outside leg began to cramp and the horse gave up on the evolution.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(railroads)

journal box — metal box on side frame of railroad truck containing bearings and one end of an axle

Make sure to check the journal boxes of every car to be sure they all have plenty of grease before the run up to the Big Twisty.

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 solitary life which had been to him a comfort now turned to great misease as he sorely felt the want of friends and had to rely upon paid companions and servitors.

 

3. againward — once more; back again

Though his troth he plighted that Whitsuntide Eve, never to return, still he found his steed leading him againward ever and anon so heartsick was his longing.

 

4. agal — cord around keffiyeh holding it in place

Of course, if you simply find it too difficult to properly wrap the keffiyeh, you can use an agal to hold it upon your head, though you lose much of the protective usefulness of the headgear.

 

5. hexapod — animal having six feet, insect

“In the continuing war for survival between man and the hexapods, only an utter fool would bet against the insect.”

(from the 1954 film Mesa Of Lost Women)
 

6. empyema — condition wherein pus collects in bodily cavity, particularly in the pleural cavity

They still gave him a medal, though he died from an empyema and not from German bullets, and his hometown buried him like a hero, with a monument and speeches and all.

 

7. evilfavoredness — state of being ill favored

I do not say he is evil, but he is plagued by such evilfavoredness that his company is not such as I would care to enjoy.

 

8. keratolysis — shedding of the epidermis, esp. its horny layers

Peter ascribed the funk of his room to his pitted keratolysis, which we all simply called ‘stinkfoot’.

 

9. minutia — tiny detail (usu. pl.)

He often gets bogged down in the minutiae of a problem, missing the main point entirely.

 

10. scurryfunge — [obsolete] to rush about cleaning one’s house just before company comes over

Wilma and Jeffrey only called as they were exiting the freeway, so I hardly had any time for cleaning house and only scurryfunged for ten minutes hiding this and moving that before I heard their knock upon my front door.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(architecture)

coping stone — stone forming the uppermost course of a wall; utmost or completing element

Doctor Jackson felt that his work on semi-particulate flow would be the coping stone of his life’s work, but his colleagues feared that it was simply another seductive dead end, like fractals.