Educated Guesswork

1. farrago — confused mixture, hotchpotch, medley

Even taking the few moments needed to look up the actual facts to rebut this farrago of nonsense is a waste of my time.

 

2. crassities — [obsolete] materiality, density

The soul must be devoid of crassities, taught the philosopher, else it could be broken into separate parts, but instead, the subtle nature of the soul permits it to pass though all the material of the universe with neither division nor diminution.

 

3. subacid — slightly sour; somewhat sharp or biting in tone or attitude

Percy seemed always to speak in a languid, almost lazy, manner, but his words usually carried a subacid sting that could wound its target most effectively.

 

4. widdershins (also withershins) — in a direction opposite to the usual, the wrong way; in a direction opposite to the sun’s course through the sky

The foul witch’s spell (not so much evil as black with folk superstition) next called for us to march widdershins around the grave before appropriating dirt from the freshly made mound.

 

5. bangtail — [slang] racehorse

She said she liked horses so I took her down to Del Mar and let her study the bangtails while I studied her.

 

6. whirlicue — merry-go-round

In my condition the gyrations of the wooden horse on the whirlicue just made me more nauseous, and made my headache come back to boot.

 

7. lanx — large serving platter used in ancient Rome

To our horror we learned that Petey had melted down the precious lanx for its silver, destroying centuries of beauty and measureless monetary value.

 

8. captious — caviling, faultfinding, apt to seize upon trivial mistakes or defects; sophistical, disposed to deceive in argument or debate

Seemingly the captious cowards have captured the legislative body, and now days of useless debate are followed by bold and vigorous inaction.

 

9. sarcenet (also sarsenet) — very fine soft silk fabric now used chiefly for linings

Lulled by her sarcenet words I quelled my misgivings and ordered another bottle of wine.

 

10. cachinnation — immoderate or loud laughter

I used the cover of their boisterous cachinnation to unlock the deadbolt on the door.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Scots)

chiel — young lad, fellow

Mabley was ne’er looked on as one of our group, more like a chiel taking notes for some book he hoped to write one day.

1. scorbutic — of, related to, or symptomatic of scurvy

The words of denial escaped painfully from his swollen, scorbutic gums.

 

2. undercroft — underground chamber or vault, crypt

The keys to the undercroft had gone missing in my grandfather’s time, so the police were forced to wrench open the rusted gates during their search.

 

3. syndicalism — movement espousing the transfer of control of the means of production and distribution to workers’ unions

The failure of American syndicalism and the oblivion into which the IWW have been consigned mean the lessons of the Lawrence strike have been almost entirely forgotten.

 

4. gravel — to perplex; [obsolete] to run aground

Fully a score of vessels were gravelled on the sandy beaches of our southeastern shores, though we still have no news of their crews.

 

5. grot — [literary] grotto

His elfin grot consisted mainly of a small chamber at the bottom of the stairs, illuminated solely by the pallid and leprous glow of the three (or was it four?) screens of the various computers and consoles at which he played video games all the day and night.

 

6. fipple — mouthpiece of certain recorders and flutes, with a fixed sharp edge against which the blown air is directed

Of course the recorder will need no tuning, but the tone does grow clearer as the fipple warms, so the player should take time to run through the usual ‘warm-up’ exercises before performing.

 

7. cavernicolous — living in caves

Jerome’s skin had the unhealthy pallor common to cavernicolous plants and animals.

 

8. blake — [obsolete] to become pale

Gabby’s face blaked as she realized the full import of our news.

 

9. nef — table accessory in the shape of a boat, used to hold utensils etc.; incense-boat

At the center of the table stood a golden nef holding jellies and other condiments, resting upon a set of rich pillows decorated to mimic the roiling seas.

 

10. commination — denunciation portending divine vengeance

Doctor Cobbledick was of the old school, and thought it his duty to issue comminations against the assembled sinners as if he were the very herald of the Lord, a modern Jeremiah sworn to call back the faithless from the brink of the pit.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

side — supercilious attitude

Though he is an expert—perhaps the expert—in the field of astrological forensics, he is quite agreeable company for all that and singularly free from side.

1. matutinal — of or occurring in the morning

He grabbed the newspaper for his matutinal visit to the smallest room in the house, there to await the results of his first cups of coffee.

 

2. ringent — gaping, grinning

But the lip augmentation was a failure, leaving her mouth looking like a ringent maw of inflated liver.

 

3. huffy — quick to take offense; haughty; sulky

Nicolai was in a huffy mood all evening, making sure everyone at the party knew that he could have been somewhere much more interesting had he not felt sorry for the old gal.

 

4. flageolet — small flute blown from end with four finger holes atop, and two below

Then my grandfather picked up the flageolet and began to trill out a falsetto rendition of “John Brown’s Body”, shocking my grandmother, who had assumed that the thing was a mere decoration.

 

5. chop-logic — disputatious or tendentious argumentation, quibbling

He was not actually interested in hearing the many proofs against the flat earth theory, but only wanted to respond with the same chop-logic and tired questioning of the very conclusions he had been forced to accede to earlier in the discussion.

 

6. judder — to violently shake

After the incident with the cow and the fence post, the frame was badly warped, and the old car juddered and shuddered all the way across the long rickety bridge leaving the county.

 

7. nuchal — of or relating to the nape of the neck

And because he habitually hung down his head, Tom Dooley had a perpetual nuchal sunburn.

 

8. foulard — lightweight cloth of silk or silk and cotton, often with printed design

Once again she felt the weight of her failure, and she almost sobbed to think how proud she’d been of her taffeta gown, only to find that the fashionable women now only wore foulard.

 

9. impi — Zulu warrior unit

Lord Shatterton won a smashing victory in spite of his own incompetence and the courageous impis arrayed against him.

 

10. margarite — [obsolete] a pearl; type of mica supposed to resemble pearls

Do not cast your margarites before hogs.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

shufty (also shufti) — a peep, a look

I’ll just take a walk down the strand, take a quick shufty around to make sure everything still looks good for tonight.

1. telluric — of or related to the earth; of or from the soil; of or containing tellurium

Zircon turns out to be an unreliable source of data about the telluric history of the earth’s magnetic field, leaving a mystery at the heart of paleomagnetism.

 

2. curate — assistant to rector or vicar

I believe that this small vicarage has grown in both population and need to the extent that my work here should be supplemented by the appointment of a curate to aid me in my duties.

 

3. tyne (also tine)— to close or shut

I should rather you tyne your eyes forever than to behold me now, reft of all decency and honor, a dark stain upon the shining samite of society.

 

4. tine — [Scots] to lose

Though he tint his fortune he kept his friends.

 

5. apophenia — tendency to incorrectly perceive connections between unrelated things

We believed her insistence that the new teacher resembled Mr. Scudder was merely apophenia, but it turned out to be our first inkling of the entire sinister plot.

 

6. samphire — edible succulent growing on rocks by the sea

The rocky escarpment was a harsh and unforgiving home, furnishing only a meager subsistence for the samphire gatherers who tore their hands collecting baskets full for the market.

 

7. aphelion — point at which a body in solar orbit is farthest from the sun

Though it may seem contradictory to those sweltering in the summer of the northern hemisphere, the earth passed through aphelion just this week.

 

8. atresic — of or related to congenital lack or pathological obstruction of bodily cavity or opening

Like many people, he is full of shit; unlike most, however, his condition is caused by his atresic butthole.

 

9. bubblehead — dolt, stupid person

“He’s a complete bubblehead, investing all his savings into plastics on the say-so of one stranger he met at a party.”

 

10. sapiosexual — person sexually attracted by intelligence

A practicing sapiosexual may find a devotion to nerd interests helpful, as well as an insouciant attitude toward social norms such as chewing with one’s mouth closed or acceptable levels of body odor.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

n.b.g. — no bloody good

I had planned on arriving early for the interview, but of course Simon’s car was n.b.g. and one of the tyres had a puncture so I was late.

1. scarehead — newspaper headline printed in huge type

As the scareheads of every European daily proclaimed the approach to the very brink of war, events in this tiny Balkan town conspired to slow the fevered sale of the screaming newspapers.

 

2. saltatory — characterized by or adapted for leaping or dancing movement

Suddenly the entire kindergarten class seemed to collapse as one, exhausted by strenuous saltatory exertions and feeling the need for naptime.

 

3. dispositive — relating to settlement or disposition

But it was the secretary’s deposition which proved dispositive in the lawsuit, undermining the assertions of both partners and providing a different explanation for the missing pants.

 

4. immiserate — to make impoverished; to make miserable

Once again the voters have spoken, voting to immiserate themselves, to deny themselves access to healthcare and assistance, and to make more rich the richest.

 

5. pounce — [archaic] claw or talon of a bird

If your hawk should break or lose her pounce, apply hen’s gall to the portion remaining, to stop up the blood, and bind closely, taking care to hood your bird so that her claw may heal or grow again.

 

6. pounce — to smooth with fine powder or pumice; to sprinkle with fine dust or powder

I could hardly restrain a shudder as I beheld my cousin, her once beautiful face so pounced and dappled with white powder as to appear rather leprous than fashionable.

 

7. pounce — to beat, to grind, to bruise, to stab

After the leaves have thoroughly dried, remove as much of the stem and ribs as possible and pounce the remainder into a fine powder.

 

8. bartizan (also bartisan) — small overhanging turret

From the bartizan Sir Rollin enjoyed the view of the St. Swithin’s Day fair, happy for the tidings of fair weather to come.

 

9. flocculus — dark or light patch on the surface of the sun

The bright flocculi are calcium clouds whereas the darker patches are clouds of hydrogen vapor.

 

10. prang — [British slang] to bomb; to crash

Just as I was leaving the lot some idiot pranged my new car, stove in the left side door and nearly did for me.

 

11. athodyd — ramjet

Although original ramjet implementations slowed incoming air to subsonic speeds before combustion, newer athodyd designs allow for air flow at supersonic speed, permitting operation above Mach 6.

 

12. glossopetra — tongue-shaped precious stone

In olden times glossopetrae were supposed to have many and varied magical powers; today, however, we know these ‘rocks’ to be merely fossilized shark teeth.

 

13. swarf — filings or fine grit from operation of grinder, axle, or other abrasive machining

After the hole is drilled it must be carefully cleared of swarf or chips (usually with compressed air) before tapping, after which any newly created debris should also be removed.

 

14. swarf — [Scots] fainting spell, swoon

Whether from fatigue due to self-abnegation, or mere lethargy, I fell into a swarf and only came to as the sun was just rising, finding myself lying upon the cold stone floor.

 

15. cack-handed — [British informal] clumsy, ham-fisted; left-handed

I’m not saying your cack-handed efforts have made the situation any worse; I don’t think even Kissinger could have made peace between those two.

 

16. jeepney — two-bench jitney bus, usually with bright-colored and garish designs, commonly used throughout the Philippines

Once a common sight throughout Manilla, the utilitarian and sometimes barely roadworthy jeepney may go the way of the horse-drawn carriage, another victim of modern regulation and its evil twin, ride-sharing services.

 

17. piggin — small wooden pail with one stave left longer than the others to form a handle; milk pail

Dorrie ran down the stream with a piggin to fetch water for the injured stranger.

 

18. hypethral (also hypaethral) — open to the sky, without a roof

The damage to the roof was never repaired, owing to lack of funds and expertise, and so the ruin became once again the hypethral temple it had originally been.

 

19. loggerhead — blockhead, dunderhead; long-handled iron implement with bulb or ball on the end used for heating liquids or melting tar; post at stern of whaleboat for wrapping a line to

He was blessed with two beautiful daughters and a brilliant son, as well as one boy who was a complete loggerhead, fit only for politics or the law.

 

20. burgage — tenure of land in town belonging to the king or other lord, the tenants paying annual rent or service

Sir Lowther famously made Cockermouth a pocket borough by the simple expedient of gaining control of the majority of burgages through outright purchase, at the immense expenditure of over £58,000.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

nunc dimittis — permission to leave (from the opening words of the Canticle of Simeon)

Mr. Hereward simply shook his head and returned his attention to the papers upon his desk, which I took as his nunc dimittis and signal that my interrogation was at an end.

1. spile — large wooden piling; wooden plug used as a spigot; to tap (a tree, a keg) by means of a spile

Even with the dark lantern I could hardly make out the body beneath the pier, so dense was the forest of tarry spiles.

 

2. piacular — making atonement, expiatory; requiring atonement, sinful

But still he knew that no amount of piacular fasting could ever bring back poor Dennis from his watery resting place.

 

3. amaurosis — total or partial loss of sight, usu. without external changes to the optic orb

Kincaid was initially diagnosed with a fleeting amaurosis which a later specialist correctly identified as merely a symptom of his recurring migraines.

 

4. longanimously — with forbearance or patience

Jolene sat longanimously upon the bench before the county seat, waiting for a man who would never come.

 

5. riggish — promiscuous

Ah, but she is a right riggish maid, especially when the moon is full.

 

6. hellion — troublemaker or rowdy person, esp. a child

With the television their only parent, the three hellions respected no person or property, and had no moral sense except that whatever gave them pleasure was good.

 

7. sneap — to pinch; to repress, to chide

So poorly joined were the rough timbers of his cabin that the icy wind did sneap me all the night, until I arose with the sun only slightly better rested than if I had slept out of doors.

 

8. finical — finicky

Our tabby, like all his finical breed, will not eat unless everything is just so, and the repainting of the kitchen seemed to have unnerved him so that he would only take his supper in the dining room.

 

9. paletot — loose or fitted overcoat or jacket

Jessalyn thought she looked splendid in her red moire gown with the matching silk paletot with black trim.

 

10. busby — tall fur hat with colored cloth hanging down right side; tall bearskin hat

As proud as I was of my black busby trimmed with red, I was relieved to remove my headgear as we entered the back room of Mrs. Sweeney’s establishment.

 

11. cordwainer — [archaic] shoemaker, leatherworker

Let us meet, then, at noon, beneath the sign of the boot before the cordwainer‘s shop.

 

12. riverine — of or related to a river; situated upon a river

Yunkel’s village turned out to be a riverine collection of rude wooden huts held above the water’s edge on stilt-like posts.

 

13. adit — horizontal opening into a mine

The city had grown up around the ancient church, and the earth of the old burial ground was now below the street level surrounding, so that a sort of adit had been dug to permit access to the sepulchers of the twice-buried dead.

 

14. tepidarium — warm room in ancient Roman baths

The tepidarium where the bathers assembled before entering either the hot or the cold baths was heated by a hypocaust.

 

15. pendency — state of being undetermined or awaiting settlement

You must understand, of course, that the building was made available to you only on a temporary basis, during the pendency of your cousin’s estate.

 

16. impennous — without wings

It was Sir Thomas Browne who first noted that the earwig did not belong among the impennous insects, but in fact had two wings which it kept folded back upon its body.

 

17. younker — youngster

“Blast me, younker! You did not think to best Old Jack, did you now?”

 

18. floccule — thing resembling a small tuft of wool

The wiring problems were caused by tiny floccules of dust which had collected in the ports.

 

19. sanguinaria — bloodroot

The red sap of the beautiful sanguinaria is quite poisonous, and the Abnaki used the root as an abortifacient.

 

20. fumid — vaporous, having or emitting fumes

Sitting at the traffic light behind the vaping driver, his fumid fruit-scented cloud nearly made me retch.

 

21. chaogenous — born from chaos

The scar across Nicolai’s face, and his inability to speak, were reckoned as merely another of the chaogenous evils which befell our city on that terrible day.

 

22. decollate — to decapitate

The savage general ordered the mutineers to be decollated and their heads displayed on the garrison walls.

 

23. nutant — drooping

The wearisome heat and humidity began to tell upon the group, until even the nutant tail of the dog bore witness to the fatigue felt by all.

 

24. murgeon — [Scots] to mock, to make faces, to grumble; grimace, wry face

Dovey would cavil at his every pleasantry, would murgeon him unrelentingly, and rebuffed every attempt he made to woo her.

 

25. debenture — unsecured loan certificate; fixed-rate bond; drawback certificate against imported goods

He realized over one hundred thousand on the cocoa imported, less the debenture.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British military slang from WWI)

blighty — (often capitalized) England; wound necessitating soldier’s removal from the front to the homeland

Roslyn volunteered to learn the new equipment, hoping perhaps that he might be sent to Blighty for instruction.

1. sesquipedalian — long-winded, given to using big words; polysyllabic

I finally was able to decipher the doctor’s obfuscatory and sesquipedalian oration and learned that my car had been stolen.

 

2. plexus — network of nerves or blood vessels; web-like structure of networked complexity

Somehow over the years this one small block of the community had become enmeshed in an almost unbreakable plexus of favors owed and favors received, expectations and promises, financial obligations and friendly loans, as well as bonds of family and past friendships and rivalries.

 

3. fremitus — palpable bodily vibration

He would lay the infant upon his chest as he practiced his German, and the baby was tickled by the guttural fremitus as Pedro counted up to ninety-nine.

 

4. intumescent — swollen

Karen’s lips startled me, intumescent from overdone and inapt collagen treatments.

 

5. costa — [biology] rib

The buried electrical wiring produced earthen costae that radiated from the cargo container we used as our command center.

 

6. umbrage — offense, annoyance; slightest feeling, as of suspicion or dislike; shade or shadow

I lost sight of the black snake as soon as it entered the dark umbrage of the pines.

 

7. sequaciously — in logical order; with blind following

Jimmy attended sequaciously to the latest QAnon analyses.

 

8. renitent — offering resistance; recalcitrant

Aye, he was smart enough, but so obtuse and renitent was he as well, until you’d throw up your hands as soon as tell him something new.

 

9. monostich — a one-line poem

Rather than writing another epic, Gerrold undertook to fill a volume with 14,000 separate monostiches.

 

10. murine — of or related to mice or similar rodents

At the bottom of the trunk was a pile of chewed cardboard, gnawed gloves, tufts of some sort of cloth, tiny fewmets, and other detritus of a murine nest.

 

11. pemphigus — disease characterized by painful blisters on skin and mucous membranes

In his thirties he barely survived a very serious case of pemphigus, and the scars both external and internal remained with him all the rest of his life.

 

12. scoriaceous — of or related to dark frothy volcanic rock

So tiny were the vesicles of the scoriaceous pebbles that little rainwater found its way into the blebs.

 

13. versant — slope of a mountain

The hardy sheep found good grazing upon the verdant versant of the aged mountain.

 

14. ashlar — square-cut stone; masonry made of such stone

The archbishop gravely blessed the fine granite ashlar which was destined to be the final stone placed in the coping.

 

15. quag — boggy, marshy place, esp. with yielding turf

The sheriff thought that Jackson had drowned in the swamp, but some believed that the runaway knew secret paths through the quag and had made it to safety, though he was never seen alive again.

 

16. erumpent — bursting forth

Lulled into tranquility by the initial pastoral images, the moviegoers were shocked by the suddenly erumpent gore.

 

17. virescent — greenish, turning green

I’d thought that JoJo was virescent from envy, but it turned out to be a symptom of heavy metal poisoning.

 

18. charabanc (more properly char-à-banc) — sightseeing bus with bench seats and no center aisle

The baby cheetah posed in the shade, and the riders on the left side of the charabanc rued their positions on the wrong side of the bus.

 

19. mugient — bellowing

Aidan sensed something wrong when the mugient monsters in their cages suddenly ceased lowing.

 

20. rax — to stretch, to extend

I got out of bed, threw out my arms, and raxed like a waking dog.

 

21. mollitude — softness, luxuriousness

Suddenly faced with Molly’s indescribable mollitude, Oliver panicked and ran.

 

22. burke — to kill by suffocation or strangulation so as to leave no trace; to hush up

But I soon found my plaint lost in the system, burked by the very bureaucracy charged with bringing these malefactions to light.

 

23. viscid — sticky

The price tags came off without too much trouble, leaving, however, a viscid residue on the front and back covers which stuck to the books on either side of the shelf.

 

24. arctophile — lover or collector of teddy bears

She was a devoted and demented arctophile, and an asshole to boot.

 

25. perfervid — very ardent, extremely impassioned

Swayed by his perfervid oratory, we once more spread out into the community, seeking donations for the Acne Awareness March.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(language)

lingua geral — either of two trade languages used in Brazil, based upon that of the aboriginal Tupi people

The Englishman proved to be a valuable addition to our crew, as his familiarity with the lingua geral decreased our dependence upon the increasingly inebriated Cuttleson.