1. barracoon — temporary holding place for prisoners, esp. slaves The king wished to drive the emigrants away from Port Cresson so that the barracoon could be reopened and his lucrative trade in human souls could recommence. 2. caftan (also kaftan) — loose-fitting, full-length garment with long wide sleeves, worn throughout the Middle East, …
Tag Archives: vocabulary
Friday Vocabulary
1. draegerman — specially trained miner who is expert in underground rescue The boisterous draegermen, still prideful after their success at the Slewton Slide, kept teasing the old miner at the end of the bar. 2. ted — to spread out or to strew for drying As the orange sun cast its parting rays …
Friday Vocabulary
1. penetralia — innermost part (esp. of a temple); most secret or private parts We rushed into her well-appointed toilette, and found her already dying, lying in the very penetralia of her boudoir before a beautiful Art Nouveau vanity, a tortoise-shell brush still clutched tightly in her hand. 2. chary — wary, shy, sparing, …
Friday Vocabulary
1. nosology — classification of disease Psychiatric nosology frequently ignores the cultural determinants of so-called mental illnesses. 2. fulminate — to flash like lightning; to explode; to thunder forth condemnation(s); to inveigh violently Though the board has fulminated numberless edicts, motions, and denunciations against the developer, the situation remains exactly as it was one …
Friday Vocabulary
1. forfend — to protect by precautionary measures; to prevent, to fend off Try as they might to forfend from her everything likely to bring Clarence back to mind, they were powerless to stop the lawyers with their evil videotaped depositions. 2. glabella — line of flat space on forehead between and above eyebrows; …
Friday Vocabulary
1. wapentake — subdivision of certain shires in Northern England and the Midlands, corresponding to the hundreds in other counties Though an orderly appropriation was to be hoped for, in some outlying wapentakes the bailiff summarily took whatever goods were upon his list, often without payment or with payment only through tallies. 2. fog …
Friday Vocabulary
1. reredos — decorated screen or wall behind altar in a church; brick or stone back of a fireplace The first project of the Church Restoration Committee will be to fund the repainting of the reredos in the Saint Matthew’s Chapel, using the extensive notes of the 19th-Century antiquarian Devon Shrikeston as our guide for …
Friday Vocabulary
1. prelapsarian — of or pertaining to the time before the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden; innocent and pristine; supralapsarian (vide infra) My studies in that liberal arts college in New England were an academic prelapsarian nirvana, funded by the GI Bill. 2. blacksnake — long, heavy leather whiplash He weren’t …
Friday Vocabulary
1. nastic — (biology) (of plant movement) caused by external stimulus which does not determine direction of response A strong flick of the finger against the leaf of a mimosa plant creates a strong nastic response, with the leaf quickly and visibly folding up in a striking example of thigmonasty. 2. snug — (nautical) …
Lexicographer’s Dozen
1. Desterham — Turkish minister of finance (variant of defterdar, apparently only used by Voltaire in his story Zadig) The case was brought before the Grand Desterham, who had both parties beaten soundly with knouts so that both would know the majesty of Babylonian justice. 2. bizzie — (British slang) policeman or policewoman; (pl.) …