Educated Guesswork

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 perhaps two dozen archers to screen our flanks.

 

3. diluvial — of or related to flooding or floods, esp. to the Biblical flood

Daddy had painted it over, of course, but you could still make out the high water mark if you knew where to look, a reminder of that diluvial summer when the water main at the top of the hill burst and the basement was filled with muddy water and the pool table was ruined.

 

4. shindy — ruckus, commotion

Finally we opened up the bottle of Sprirytus Zbozowy and proceeded to have such a shindy that I cannot remember a bit of it even to this day.

 

5. imprest — advanced monies; regularly replenished fund of money for small expenses

The payroll checks are drawn on an imprest to ensure all employees are paid in a timely manner.

 

6. daltonism — color-blindness, esp. between red and green

The cultural academics took the Reader’s Digest to task for allowing references to sickle cell and daltonism to remain in a reprinted article on hereditary disease, but not the mention of syphilis in the original.

 

7. catafalque — raised platform upon which body of deceased is placed during funeral or funeral procession

They had tried to cover the catafalque in black velvet cloth to disguise its origin, but I could make out the impression of the giant raised letter ‘N’ on the side, the initial of the general’s most detested rival.

 

8. sententious — given to or using aphorisms or maxims; affectedly formal or self-righteous

Polonius seems truly to love his children, in spite of his sententious bourgeois attitudes and his deluded beliefs about Hamlet’s problem.

 

9. caldera — deep basin formed by collapse of an ancient volcano

The sides of the caldera are so steep that it would be impossible of access were it not for a sharp cut formed by some ancient lava flow that allows ingress for the intrepid explorer.

 

10. rapscallion — rogue, scamp

“I’ve put up with your jokes heretofore, you rapscallion, but putting salt in the sugar bowl is going too far!”

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Japanese)

tabi — Japanese split toe socks with separate chamber for big toe

If you wear thonged footwear frequently, you may want to invest in a few pair of tabi, particularly if you’re like me and get chafed between the toes.

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 in each room into very rough piles of goods, papers, questionable items, and mere trash.

 

3. inapprehension — lack of apprehension, want of grasping or perception; absence of anticipation

But the entire nation seemed beset by an incredible political inapprehension, an almost spiritual failing, a complete vacuity of understanding wherein was lost all comprehension of the necessity for laws and rules or any social mores at all.

 

4. lazarette (also lazaretto) — hospital for contagious patients, esp. lepers; glory hole, storeroom aboard ship set within the hull

We finally found the jewels within the lazarette, where the mate had hidden them within bags of sand stored there.

 

5. wheeze — whistling sound of difficult breathing; comic gag or old joke frequently used or repeated

Though I thought my ‘uncle’ (he was not an actual relation, just a sometime friend of the family) was a wonder when I was very young, even I became tired of his gags and wheezes as I approached adolescence, rolling my eyes at his whoopee cushions and hand buzzers and other relics of the vaudeville era.

 

6. agynary — [botany] not having female organs

You may need to pollinate your eggplant by hand, as the wind cannot always be trusted to carry the pollen from the agynary flowers to the pistillate flowers on the same plant which bear the visible ovaries.

 

7. plenipotent — invested with or having full power

You can see it in the grins they showed in that snapshot taken at the long ago meeting in the Colorado ski lodge, the almost arrogant smiles of the wealthy and plenipotent youngsters who knew they were going to change the world, who were going to leverage their power to the hilt, and only searched for the right fulcrum against which to shove it.

 

8. weasand — [archaic] esophagus; trachea; throat

“Best set down that trumpet, buddy, or I’ll slice your weasand before you can blow a note.”

 

9. sine die — [Latin] indefinitely, without fixing a date for resumption

The lack of funds and the growing threat of plague finally convinced the commissioners to adjourn sine die, and so the glowing prospect of peace was once more dimmed in the region.

 

10. sweetbread — thymus gland used as food; pancreas used as food

Unlike liver, it is nearly impossible to overcook sweetbread.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British)

Nissen hut — prefabricated building of arched metal developed by Major Peter Norman Nissen in World War I

Unlike the Quonset huts developed later by the Americans for use in World War II, the Nissen hut has an internal framework upon which the metal sheeting is affixed.

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 a citizen as the next fellow, perhaps more so.

 

3. fiducial — of a fixed point used for comparison; based upon trust

Even without a level, they were able to demonstrate that the pool table was out of true by using the wainscoting as a fiducial marker.

 

4. stomacher — ornamented cloth worn over the chest and stomach in 16th Century

No coins or jewels had she, yet her stomacher cost more than I could steal in a year.

 

5. erysipelas — acute disease of bacterial origin characterized by fever and rough red patches on the skin

Jock’s legs looked like orange peels when he first contracted erysipelas after suffering from gravitational dermatitis.

 

6. spicule — tiny pointy thing, usu. in groups; huge gas jets shooting from surface of the sun

Beneath the icy spicules his mustache had become, Troy’s pale blue lips were barely discernible.

 

7. persnickety — fussy; snobby; difficult to work with

Even before the law changed he was always persnickety about seat belts, refusing to even start the car if everyone wasn’t buckled in safely, and I once even saw him pull over and stop the car when a passenger teasingly undid his seat belt.

 

8. zareba — protective enclosure, as of thorn bushes or stakes

The camel cavalry, if it can be so called, of the Madhi charge fruitlessly against the zareba of the English forces, whose canon decimated the four-legged assault.

 

9. gorbellied — having a protruding belly

Don’t even give ’em a second thought, that gorbellied crew of Izod wearing, golf cart driving, soulless music listening loveless luckless losers.

 

10. terpsichorean — of or related to dancing; of or related to Terpsichore

While I cannot gavotte about, I do love to frolic and pay my untutored homage to the terpsichorean muse.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

mirabile dictu — wonderful to relate, incredible as it seems

For lack of any other choice, we set off to see the sci-fi comedy movie and, mirabile dictu, every one of us from grandparents to granddaughter enjoyed the film thoroughly.

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 misguided attempt at fashion, and I found it difficult to pay attention to the import of his argument.

 

3. hecatomb — large public sacrifice; great slaughter

This lovely wood was once the muddy pit where hecatombs of both British and German soldiers lost their lives.

 

4. wizened — dried up, shriveled, withered

The wizened farmer stepped out of the storm shelter to see once more the wreck of all his plans and efforts, gave a short sigh, and began to clean up the mess.

 

5. atabal — Moorish tambour or kettle-drum

We heard the low rumble of the atabals and braced ourselves to receive their first charge.

 

6. chine — backbone or spine of animal; cut of meat containing the backbone

After the capons, a roasted chine of beef was laid upon the table.

 

7. chine — steep valley formed by running water

There at the very foot of the chine was a small house, a hut really, hidden by the young pines which grew almost at the edge of the rushing stream.

 

8. imperator — title conferred upon victorious general in Republican Rome; title for the Roman emperor; absolute ruler

Now that his only rival was bested, shamed with failure after the dough tossing contest, Virgil reigned alone as imperator of the Shakey’s Pizza Shop.

 

9. steeve — to compress and pack into a ship’s hold

After the hold had been inspected thoroughly to make sure it was waterproof, the crew steeved the cotton tightly within.

 

10. gambado — large boot-like coverings attached to saddle in lieu of stirrups

Besides the obvious protection from the brambles which surround Athelney’s estate, I daresay the support the gambadoes give to the old duffer is a more important reason that he chooses to eschew a proper saddle.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

nihil obstat — permission to publish, certification that a Roman Catholic censor has examined a work and found nothing contrary to official church doctrine, lit. “nothing stands in the way”

That this work, which today reads like one of the most vicious attacks upon a duly elected official, ever received the nihil obstat is perhaps the most incredible aspect of the entire affair.

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 and vulgar habits of the multitude are so ingrained that only with extreme difficulty can they be roused even to fight for their own best interests.

 

3. periculous — [obsolete] perilous

But of all these spiritual dangers, the most periculous is that deceit of the Tempter which makes weary the soul and plagues the heart in the dark of the night.

 

4. boxty — Irish potato pancake or bread

Some like their boxty with sour cream and scallions or even bacon and eggs, but I prefer mine simply with lots of butter.

 

5. beakhead (also beak-head) — projecting platform at the forwardmost part of a sailing ship, where decorated rams were mounted in ancient times

And with one final glimpse of the gaudy beakhead of the pirate galley which had seemed so menacing mere moments ago, we saw the last vessel of the predacious squadron sink beneath the sea.

 

6. borstal — reformatory school for juvenile delinquents

Despite their reputation, you were far less likely to feel the birch across your buttocks in a borstal than in the fine public schools of England.

 

7. farrow — litter of pigs; to give birth to a litter of pigs

So prolific a pig was of course the exception rather than the rule, but that sow farrowed twice a year while that evil-tempered boar was at MacLeary’s farm.

 

8. farrow — (of a cow) not pregnant, barren

Later he sold a farrow cow to the preacher, still full of spite after the harsh words of the Lenten sermon.

 

9. quoin — external corner of building or wall; wedge for aiming ship’s cannon; wedge for locking type for printing

The pirates thought his skill with quoin and linstock was almost unearthly.

 

10. hammam — Turkish bath

In the dark and moody hammam David lay upon the towel-covered hot stone wrapped in his peshtemal, waiting for the tellak.

 

11. prehension — grasping, act of taking hold

Even now, years after the fateful events of that awful summer, the couple’s movements and faces still seemed marked by the prehension of that overwhelming fear of long ago.

 

12. concrescence — growing together of originally separate parts

The science fiction writers of the 1940s and 1950s saw a future where the continued expansion of suburbs and freeways would lead inevitably to an enormous megalopolis being formed upon the Eastern seaboard, a giant concrescence of the once great cities of the American past into an overwhelming super-city which would swallow up all smaller towns and municipalities in its path.

 

13. midinette — Parisian salesgirl or milliner’s assistant

Even the poorest midinette in her cheapest coat knows more about style than ninety-five out of a hundred American tourists.

 

14. chopine — thick soled, almost stilt-like, shoes worn by European women in 18th Century

A direct line runs from the clunky hoof silhouette of the awkward chopine to the supposedly sexy outline of the present day stiletto.

 

15. seity — selfhood

Though the creation of language leads inevitably to the ascendancy of seity in moderns, the primacy of communication presupposes a social order that may be obviated by the fixation, not to say obsession, with an almost solipsist self-love.

 

16. parturition — childbirth

It is all very well and good to bemoan and belabor the pains of mental parturition; those pains cannot even begin to compare with the real thing.

 

17. foist — to impose an unwanted thing upon, to palm off

No one dares challenge the power of these liars, and so a mad devotion to idiocy is foisted into the very laws which were supposed to protect the public from such conmen.

 

18. shog — to shake or roll from side to side; to walk or move in jerks

The monster shogged towards us across the barn, and I was less frightened than bemused; how had this ponderous beast terrified the whole community?

 

19. guyot — flat-topped seamount

The ocean’s motion has swept away the tops of the guyots, which once were ordinary looking mountains before they sank beneath the waves.

 

20. rebozo — long woven shawl worn over the head and shoulders of Spanish and Mexican women

Wrapped in her pale blue rebozo the silent woman hunched over the cooking pot, stirring without cease.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

chancer — reckless and unscrupulous opportunist

His so-called friends are nothing but chancers and oafs, always ready with a scheme to separate Petey from his specie, but never there when the boy really needs a helping hand.

 

(British slang, now somewhat Yuppie)

sorted — completed, organized, arranged

“The drinks are all sorted; I’ve got Binny at the bar and fourteen bottles of Irish vodka.”

 

(Scots architecture)

but and ben — simple two-room cottage

The romance of the lowland sheep-farming life faded during that first winter in the almost freezing but and ben, whose walls seem to close in upon the miserable couple as they hid within from the lowering clouds.

 

(militaria)

Pickelhaube — typically Prussian spiked helmet

All of his former comrades sported lavish mustaches beneath the Pickelhauben they had worn in the memorial photo; only Jens had been clean-shaven at the reunion.

 

(American slang, early 20th C.)

fanning bee — informal conference, group discussion, gabfest (from the habit of worker bees ‘fanning’ their wings in hot weather to keep the hive cool)

After the game the usual crowd gathered at Barr’s soda shop on 15th for the usual fanning bee, and there was much concern over the poor performance of the rookie left-hander.

 

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 an anthropological adventure.

 

3. humbug — [British] striped hard candy, usu. peppermint flavored

Chumley was never without a pocket full of humbugs, claiming they acted as a cough suppressant when out on a job.

 

4. fox — to discolor, to become spotted

The brittle and foxed endpapers had some faint inscription upon them, but the aged ink no longer could be read by the naked eye.

 

5. appetence (British appetency) — longing, desire; instinctive inclination

Socrates seems to have believed that the appetence for the good is inherent in mankind, though later philosophers have found this a difficult tenet to credit.

 

6. evanish — to vanish, to disappear

Though the crepuscular and ruddy rays of the sun lingered long after its passing, they too evanished after a while and we suddenly found ourselves shivering and lost in the dark.

 

7. inapt — inappropriate, not suitable; incapable, unskillful

The comparison was so inapt that I suspected that Ricardo was trying to squeeze a reference to the Marvel Cinematic Universe into our discussion on the use of dolphin imagery in the poetry of Yeats.

 

8. dulcify — to sweeten; to mollify

While I once would have dulcified my upset by smoking a cigar, now even that was denied me.

 

9. doublet — close-fitting padded jacket worn by men, with or without sleeves

His leathern doublet was far from the latest fashion, descending almost to the tops of his boots which themselves were far too short of the knees.

 

10. vermeil — vermillion, bright red; gilt silver or bronze

Now finally the angry iron clanging of the battle had ceased, and the anguished cries of the wounded and dying moaned across the field under the darkening vermeil skies.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang)

office — tip-off, warning

Joey had given me the office that The Shark would be carrying two hundred large on the train, payoff to the West Coast boys for their part in the Leaventon job.

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 as quasi-corporeal dovetailed with his espousal of traducianism.

 

3. aperient — laxative

Licorice helps calm the stomach, and may have a gentle aperient effect.

 

4. surplice — loose white linen overgarment worn by clergy and choristers

A murmur arose from the congregation, and I looked up from prayerful contemplation (oh, all right, I was nodding off) to see a bright red stain upon the preacher’s surplice, a spreading stain of blood.

 

5. estaminet — small café

Luther sat at the tiny table in the back of the estaminet, slowly lowering the level of wine in his bottle, while trying to read his guide book by the poor light.

 

6. immure — to imprison, to confine within walls

Yet we’ve had no word from Rochester since that evening last spring, and I suspect he may be immured in the basement of her house, trapped by the the pandemic and the fascination of the old model train set.

 

7. doddered — infirm; having lost most branches due to decay or age

All that now remained of the glorious tree of halcyon memory was a doddered stump jutting up ten feet or so at an odd angle from the blasted red clay surrounding the equally decayed manse.

 

8. knop — ornamental knob

Set into the center of the false door was an enamel knop displaying the family initial, a rude ‘E’ in the rough handwriting of the first baron.

 

9. piffle — silly nonsense

The family thought Charles spoke mere piffle, but Leslie and I were well aware of the menacing meaning behind his seemingly vacuous words.

 

10. cyclostyle — early duplicating device in which a toothed rowel is used to create holes in a stencil through which ink is forced

My friend Andy thought she had a valuable signed letter from the famous playwright, but it turned out to be only a cyclostyle signature on a mass appeal that was sent to hundreds during the early days of the British suffrage movement.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(French)

en travesti — dressed as the opposite sex for theatrical role, lit. “in disguise”

The police raid made headlines throughout London and even on the Continent, particularly when it was learned that most of the guests were found en travesti.