Friday Vocabulary

1. censor — to remove or suppress objectionable content from work to be published or promulgated

Still, the easiest way for the occupying government to repress these renascent ideas of nationalism was to encourage these artists to censor themselves, whether from fear of paperwork or of financial loss.

 

2. sprezzatura — [Italian] studied nonchalance, art of making quite difficult work seem effortless

He tried just a smidge too hard to affect an air of sprezzatura in his writing, but often this careful carelessness came off more as a disinclination to proofread his own work.

 

3. dreck — useless stuff; garbage

He wrote thousands of words every NaNoWriMo, but it was always just fifty thousand words of dreck.

 

4. ligyrophobia — fear of loud noises

The doctors agreed that this was not a symptom of PTSD, that his ligyrophobia had some other cause, given that he’d been a headbanger and metalhead up until last Thursday.

 

5. tabouret (also taboret) — small stool

He sat upon the pale pink leather tabouret so as to be close to her, but found it impossible to rise for dinner later without making quite ungentlemanly contortions.

 

6. orography — scientific study of mountains; mountain features of a region

Of course, the orography of an area will inluence its hydrography, though the converse is not always true.

 

7. potter — [British] to busy oneself in a desultory manner to little or no effect; to waste time

When she had pottered about with the index cards for a while, Alice might finally be able to think about the import of the secret she had learned that morning.

 

8. avernal (also Avernian) — of or related to Lake Avernus, Italian lake famed for its noxious fumes and thought to be an entrance to Hell; hellish

For days we made our weary way through the fetid swamp, until I feared that the avernal fumes would leave me with permanent debility even after we should ever leave this pestilential quagmire.

 

9. breasthook — [nautical] shaped horizontal timber spanning the bow between decks of a ship

The use of breasthooks greatly increased the stability of His Majesty’s vessels, and of course provided support when ramming operations were required.

 

10. unhouseled — [obsolete] in the condition of not having received the Eucharist

Is not such a foul deed, assassination in the dark, leaving the victim unshriven and unhouseled, is not this the worst of crimes?

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. sennit (also sinnet) — braided straw or grass used for small crafts or hats

Soon he replaced this rude headgear with a wide sennit hat shaped much like the latest fashions he’d seen in London, although with a wider brim.

 

2. cit — derogatory term for citizen or city folk

We tried not to laugh at all the silly questions of this cit, since some said it was his daughter that the captain had ideas of courting.

 

3. revetment — external layer of hard material supporting an embankment or wall

Perhaps the rock revetment made the shoreline promenade less ‘pretty’, as Susie had complained, but it protected this fine construction against the ravages of the waves and tides, and was the reason why St. Lugons could still boast of its walkway upon the beach, while the new construction at Pelleret was already beginning to crumble.

 

4. Urschleim — primordial soup

And from this Urschleim emerged the various organisms, formed of the ‘vesicles’ which—according to the professor—comprised this ur-slime.

 

5. puerperium — [biology] month-long period after childbirth

She devoted herself to these exercises during her puerperium, aiding the restoration of the pelvic wall.

 

6. neurasthenic — person suffering from a nervous breakdown

He had the pallor habitual to the neurasthenic, as well as a tendency to tire easily, even in mere polite conversation.

 

7. maven — expert, aficionado

Gerald was quite the maven of old nautical knotwork, and consequently looked down upon the paracord craze, short-lived though it was.

 

8. compeer — person of equal rank or ability, peer

Though Reggie felt he had no compeers in his department, in truth he was a merely average worker, no better nor not much worse than his fellows.

 

9. demimondaine — promiscuous woman, woman belonging to the demimonde; prostitute, courtesan

Once acquired, she discovered, a reputation as a demimondaine was not easily lost without obtaining somehow an entirely new identity.

 

10. misdoubt — [archaic] to doubt, to disbelieve; to suspect

I misdoubt ’twill be so easy a conquest as Sir Richard promises.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

sacer vates — sacred poet

Believing that a prophet is scorned by his own country, Trevalian left for the continent to pursue what he conceived of as his calling to be a sacer vates, divinely inspired to bring the truth to an uncaring world, and he thought true in the last part of this conception, for uncaring was his reception everywhere he traveled.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. ferine — feral, untamed, of or related to the state of animals existing in nature

Not all ferine creatures exhibit such maternal love, but many do.

 

2. latitudinarian — tolerant, allowing great latitude in attitude (esp. of religious principles); lax, lacking necessary rigidity in views

Of course, the allowances of these latitudinarian directives may stem as much from confusion about the policies of the new politburo as much as any real change in official policy.

 

3. faintified — [idiom] feeling faint, evincing propensity towards fainting

She had pretensions of being a true old-fashioned Southern belle, though her models tended to be the sighing type, wistful and faintified, instead of the hardscrabble women who could change a flat tire in the mud and pouring rain if need be.

 

4. majority — adulthood, legal age

He had founded and sold two companies before he had even reached his majority.

 

5. snooter — [informal] snooty person, snob

“Why you should bend over backwards for that bunch of snooters is more than I can understand.”

 

6. misgive — [archaic] to make doubtful or fearful; to suspect, to fear

Still these unadmitted assignations misgive me and daily my mind plagues itself with foul thoughts and worse suspicion.

 

7. limn — to draw, to depict; to describe, to delineate

And though he tried endlessly to limn the supposedly unearthly beauty of his new girlfriend’s features, going so far as to expound for a half hour upon the wonders of her nostrils, all we could see was that Gerald was very much smitten by her.

 

8. dotard — [archaic] old senescent person

“Look here, you dotard! I’ve been trying for an hour now and mayhaps you just can understand how to work the remote!”

 

9. bottomry — [nautical] shipping contract wherein the vessel is used as collateral to raise money financing a commercial voyage

The law was quite clear that even a markedly poor return had first to go to the lender, as only the actual loss of the ship itself released the borrower from the obligations imposed by bottomry.

 

10. videlicet — [Latin] to wit, namely, that is to say

By this agreement Mr. Porter granted the usufruct of his mother’s old homestead, videlicet the cottage known locally as ‘The March of Kent’, to one James Dinwoodie, currently resident in Shropshire.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British)

potman (also pot man) — pub worker who picks up empty glasses

Blackie found work as a potman at The Palky Gander, but was hard put to keep even that unchallenging position.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. pongo — [British slang] soldier; [obsolete] large ape, as an orangutan or gorilla

“I’m not about to let some bloody pongo wheedle his way into Lucy’s affections!”

 

2. perennial — perpetual, enduring; [biology] of a plant with a life cycle lasting over two years; recurrent

Usually Garland found the perennial vigor and enthusiasm of campus life brought about a concomitant rise in his own spirit, but somehow during this visit the brisk vibrancy of the students around him induced only a nostalgic sadness, a soughing sigh of regret for ancient partings.

 

3. alicorn — horn of a unicorn, esp. as medicinal ingredient

Though some say the merest touch of an alicorn is sufficient to erase poison from the body, the best sources teach that it is the powdered form, ingested or mixed into a poultice, that have the famous ameliorative effect.

 

4. gloze — gloss over, make excuses, palliate; flatter

I mean to gloze her in her office, allow her to hurl her abuse at my head, and fawn and nod and agree, until she calms and allows us one more chance.

 

5. analogion — lectern, esp. in Greek Orthodox Church

Here at the Ruthenian mission the devotees kissed the crucifix standing upon the analogion before the altar, kneeling in the aisles (for the pews were already full) to hear the passionate words of the celebrant.

 

6. aibohphobia — fear of palindromes

One can only assume they named her ‘Hanna’ due to the presence of aibohphobia amongst the family.

 

7. peccant — sinful; wrong, faulty

Try as they might, the community was unable to rid themselves of this peccant priest.

 

8. squalid — foul, filthy; depraved

We found him in an SRO down by the river, lying facedown upon a bed made squalid by the many not-quite empty bottles and cans surrounding him, as well as his own exudate and excreta.

 

9. adminicle — document attesting to existence or contents of another document

The uses here are nuanced, as (for instance) one can allow an adminicle in lieu of the actual certificate of marriage, but the same cannot be said in matters of probate if no legal will can be found.

 

10. dun — to importune for payment of a debt; to persistently demand or ask

Though he could easily afford to pay, Larry hated to be dunned for outstanding bills, and the smaller the amount the more obstinate he became in ignoring the creditor.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British)

wrong-foot (also wrongfoot) — to cause an sports opponent to mistake intentions by making an unexpected action; to catch someone off guard, to surprise someone and take them at a disadvantage

They tried to wrong-foot me by filing the paperwork that very day, but I expected some sort of maneuver and had had a man at the clerk’s office ready with the rejoinder documents.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. choler — anger, ire, irritability

Nothing could raise Ira’s choler so much as the suavity of robots.

 

2. cat — [UK slang] to vomit

“Sorry I almost catted back there,” Timothy said in his oh-so-serious voice, “but the news took me somewhat by surprise.”

 

3. cannikin (also canikin or canakin) — small cup or can for drinking

“Grab us a couple of cannikins of ale and I’ll grab us a table.”

 

4. subjacent — at a lower level, underlying, situated beneath something else

But in addition to the high moral principles and noble ideals, there was another motivating force, subjacent and unstated, but understood nevertheless by those members of the establishment whose job it was, after all, to ensure the preservation not only of the republic, but also their own privileges.

 

5. apocope — loss, omission, or suppression of final letter, syllable, or sound of a word

Though he tried to start a new trend by insisting upon ordering a ‘hamburg’ or a ‘cheeseburg’, these apocopes never caught on.

 

6. chiropodist — foot doctor

Her chiropodist recommended changing shoes, but her agent put a kibosh on the idea.

 

7. zendado — sendal, light cloth of silk; veil made of such cloth

He tried to hold his breath lest it betray him as he saw her pull aside her zendado to drink from the ladle, revealing her fine features to his eyes for the first time.

 

8. esurient — ravenously hungry

So esurient a nature could naturally never be satisfied, and thus by stages Walter was led away from the path of righteousness, until he became nothing better than a common thief.

 

9. mingy — miserly, stingy

Adam looked at his mingy slice of pizza, with its single pepperoni, and wondered once again just what he was doing here.

 

10. anticlinal — sloping downwards to both sides of a central axis or ridge

I looked left and right at the anticlinal scree and realized that I’d never be able to turn the truck and trailer around; I had to go forward, come what might.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(UK slang)

cough drop — obnoxious person; fellow, ‘character’ or ‘card’

“You’re quite the cough drop, ain’t you? Well, best keep on the good side of me.”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. trotter — animal that trots; foot of an animal (esp. sheep or pig) used as food

Harqma, a spicy stew of lamb trotters, is a delicious Ramadan dish.

 

2. taphonomy — study of processes affecting living tissues after death, esp. with regards to fossilization

Shriver was an expert in forensic taphonomy, and had studied six months at ARISTA, the Amsterdam ‘body farm’ which was the first of its kind in Europe.

 

3. ophiophilist — snake lover, ophiophile

The presence of the python at the crime scene made the police suspect Cecile, as she was a known ophiophilist.

 

4. squassation — variant of strappado in which heavy weights are bound to the victim’s ankles and instead of merely being lifted by the arms bound behind the back the victim is jerked up repeatedly

If the prisoner did not confess his heresy after two or three sessions of squassation, water torture was used and was almost always effective in eliciting the desired confession.

 

5. plausive — praiseworthy

Though he struts like a cockerel in plumed cap, he has most plausive manner, giving due consideration to all men as befits their worth, as did his grandfather, the old Lord.

 

6. cemeterian — caretaker of a cemetery

In 1967 the national trade group for cemeterians lodged a formal complaint against the funeral directors’ association for restraint of trade, or, as some wags had it, for not sharing a big enough piece of their pie.

 

7. bewray — to reveal, to disclose

But Ficklegrew held the baby before him, between his precious self and the assassin’s gun, bewraying his true character to everyone present, including his would-be killer, who dropped his pistol to the ground and dropped to his knees, shaking his head at the man who wanted to be a world leader.

 

8. catechumen — person receiving instruction before Christian confirmation or baptism

As is often the case, our new catechumen had a much better idea of our group’s history than the rest of us old-timers, and Jorge was able to recite from memory a dozen or more important dates in the life of Horst Wessel.

 

9. dissensus — widespread disagreement or dissension

Thus the nation entered a period of what may be called holographic dissensus, in which what had previously been only schism between the two major parties devolved into controversy between an endless series of smaller and more divisive factions, as if the political will had been shattered into disparate shards of fractal kaleidoscopic opinions from which no consensus could ever be constructed.

 

10. nether — lower, under; lying beneath the earth’s surface, infernal, underworldly

And that’s how I caught a shotgun blast with my nether regions and saved the preppy princess from having her plaid skirt ruined.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(UK slang)

lose one’s rag — to lose one’s temper, to go apeshit, to blow one’s top

“They kept pushing me and pushing me, until I finally lost my rag, and then I sort of just blurted it out.”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. undulate — to move in a wavelike manner; to look like a wave

Keith dropped to the dance floor to do The Worm, and proceeded to undulate as if he had never seen Dune, Part Two.

 

2. thermotaxic — of or related to biological heat regulation

Petey shivered in thermotaxic response to the cold dew on the grass which was chilling his bare feet.

 

3. glabrous — smooth as a baby’s bottom

The chortling eunuch’s glabrous rolls of fat both fascinated and repelled Lady Donica.

 

4. azonic — not local, not of any particular region

But existential angst and paranoia is an azonic condition found in all times and—almost—every culture.

 

5. perdue — hopeless, lost

So once again we found ourselves in a situation perdue, but, having come through all right the other two times, I started to believe that maybe we might just squeak through this one as well.

 

6. cartulary — bound collection of original documents, charters, etc.; register of transcriptions of important papers; person in charge of records or public papers

The associate professor had made his reputation on the discovery of a previously unknown Benedictine cartulary hidden away in the mouldering papers of the third Earl of Dunwesson.

 

7. pomatumed — pomaded; with ointment applied

Darby bowed his head, wearing his best powdered and pomatumed wig in honor of the special occasion, and tried to exude an air of calm self-satisfaction.

 

8. valedictory — of or related to farewells or to saying goodbye

Jackson turned to us and started to speak but we urged him to hurry aboard, there being no time for valedictory sentiment.

 

9. desquamate — to come off in scales; to shed, to peel

Around the injection site was an ugly oozing red zone, where the epidermis had desquamated in reaction to the potent drug.

 

10. bine — stem of a climbing plant; woodbine

Caught in the bines covering the trellis was a thin scarlet ribbon.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang)

mouse — black eye

“Where’d you get that mouse, then? Was it Willie who give it to you?”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. thirl — to pierce, to drill

To signify his acceptance by the tribe they thirled a hole through his right nostril, and he ever after wore there a ring of gold as a token of that day.

 

2. sallow — of pale sickly yellow color, esp. of skin

Since last I had seen her, Vera’s features had taken on that sallow tone which often betokens an incipient collapse of health.

 

3. bosky — of or related to bushes or shrubs; bushy, covered or shielded by low foliage; shady

In that bosky bower hidden from the gaze of men and animals alike we made love for the first time.

 

4. subparallel — almost but not quite parallel

Along the glacier’s path of retreat we find several subparallel ridges along with exposed quartzite deposits.

 

5. majolica — glazed earthenware decorated in opaque color

Atop the mantle stood an urn of offensive green majolica which Aunt Bertha had brought back from her trip to London, and which I had assumed as a child contained the ashes of dear departed Uncle Trent, though I later learned how wrong I was.

 

6. stipple — to shade (a picture, etc.) by marking with small dots

Even after his shave Rupert’s chin was stippled by the roots of his dark beard, giving him a swarthy mien.

 

7. chiliocosm — [Buddhist] grouping of many worlds

The thousand worlds which comprise the smallest chiliocosm are envisaged as having exactly the same structure, the same geography, and, of course, the same dependence upon the Law of Karma.

 

8. febricule — [obsolete] very mild fever

The doctor diagnosed a febricule caused by imbalanced blood, and prescribed a posset admixed with rosemary.

 

9. psychopomp — spirit or person who guides souls to the land of the dead

Stepping into that flat-bottomed boat in the sultry Okefenokee night, I felt as if I were about to leave the land of the living, and that Po’ Rob had become a psychopomp taking me across the swamp to the other world, and I hoped there’d be fewer mosquitoes in that nether hell.

 

10. hyaline — transparent, glassy

When I reached out to touch it, I was startled to realize that the entire creature was covered from snout to tail with a hyaline surface, a membrane so clear and transparent that I still could not detect visually.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Scots (specific to Shetland and Orkney))

soothmoother — outsider

Since I was a soothmoother they tried to slow their speech down, but I could no more understand them than I would have an old couple conversing in Linear B.

 

1100 Books

I just now finished my 1100th book since I started keeping track, way back in 2015.

My 1100th book (not counting comics and books of the graphic novel type) was The Sensuous Dirty Old Man by Dr. “A”, a pseudo-pseudonym for Isaac Asimov. It’s a funny little throwaway humor book capitalizing on the (then) popularity of a whole slew of books on sex that were appearing on bookshelves of the non-yellow variety at the cusp of the 1970s, but particularly the books The Sensuous Woman and The Sensuous Man, respectively ‘authored’ by “J” and “M”. I say ‘throwaway’, and many of the jokes are silly, only a half-step above other books in the humor section meant to be read once and … well, thrown away. But Asimov’s wit is pretty wise and clever, in spite of his punotropism. And his introductory chapters, on “Becoming An Old Man” and “Becoming A Dirty Old Man” are brilliant examples of written humor, which is, in my opinion, the most difficult writing of them all. The book as a whole, I should warn you, is sexist—as one might guess from the very title—was sexist even by the standards of its time. And Asimov himself was reputed to be just such a wannabe-rake as the hero of this book. But … well, it’s all in good fun, and the closing chapter lets us all in on the secret.

In this last set of a hundred books, once again, I’ve been reading a lot of mysteries, though the number is down to 35% (31% if we count the comics I read). I should note that this number is comparative to the set of books read in the hundred before the hundred before this last one, as I pledged not to read mysteries for that last set. Science Fiction had the next most volumes read in the latest hundred, with 12 of that ilk. I read the same number of comic books during this last set of one hundred, though, as I said, I don’t count those towards each century of ‘books read’.

My reading pace was slower than the last hundred, though still a pretty good pace. It took 205 days to read this last century, as opposed to 165 or so days for the previous set. Not so many kids’ books this last hundred made the difference. The absolute pace, however, is also slower, in that I read around 131 pages per day this last set, while the previous hundred I read at a pace of 137.5 pages per day. (The gap isn’t quite as wide if we discount the comics, and I’ll note as well that this last tranche includes a re-reading of Tony Hillerman’s People Of Darkness to compare the original source material with the AMC miniseries (the latter not coming off favorably, to my mind), which I did not include in the counting of books up to one hundred, though I am counting those pages. (Originally the Hillerman book was Book Read #95 in this silly tracking project of mine.))

   1 Book per 2.05 Days   

I’ve just about given up ever getting around to making up some data post for y’all, given that I have a few other (quite silly) irons in the fire already, and I’m often too tired after work. Ah, well.

Friday Vocabulary

1. orthoepy — study of pronunciation; correct pronunciation

No matter how many times he was told that pronouncing ‘Jacobean’ as if accented on the second syllable with a long ‘o’ was not correct orthoepy, Yakov insisted upon mispronouncing it so, until it became a sort of proud talisman of error for the staunch Pynchonophile.

 

2. haver — to be indecisive, to hem and haw; to natter, to chatter

And worse even than his dull and lifeless hair was his havering inconstancy, the fact that you couldn’t be sure he’d turn up when he said he would and that half the time he’d have trouble expressing pleasure at your company when he did.

 

3. eo ipso — [Latin] by that very fact, thereby

Bringing Lacan up in casual conversation eo ipso signals that the speaker is a very deep thinker, very deep indeed, and that others need do little save make small signs of wonder at the brilliance which it shall be their pleasure to endure.

 

4. suasion — act of persuading or influencing

One of the most important aspects of suasion, as the ancient teachers of rhetoric emphasized, is to know your audience.

 

5. morphew — mark or blemish on skin, esp. a blister caused by scurvy

Most will not get near enough to smell her vile breath, warned off by her evil visage, the pustules and morphews that cover her face and arms like Satan’s own spotted livery.

 

6. chastise — to punish; to castigate, to criticize severely

Though I felt chastised enough by the sad look Mother gave me when I returned home, still I had to suffer through a painful hour with Papa as he ranted at me about the consequences of the foolish act I’d committed.

 

7. cottar (also cotter) — [Scots] peasant living in a cottage in exchange for service

“He’s no more ambition than is right for a cottar: to make straight furrows, to plant his seeds well, and to have a glass of ale at week’s end.”

 

8. conurbation — metropolis, large urban area formed from expansion of several cities into each other

The cost of modernizing the railway throughout the conurbation proved to be prohibitive, requiring as it did both a high tax burden and the wholesale destruction of large swathes of old communities.

 

9. foremother — female ancestor; female predecessor

One of the most important foremothers of the women’s rights movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, died nearly two decades before the United States belatedly passed the 19th Amendment.

 

10. stannary — [British] of or related to tin mining

Lewes found evidence to support his contrarian views in, of all places, the records of the Welsh stannary courts, citing several cases from the late 18th Century.