Educated Guesswork

1. catoptric — of or related to a mirror, or to optical reflection

He felt lost in this strange, emotional world, in which people’s motivations always eluded him, and wished he could create some catoptric device capable of splitting and reflecting the psychic waves around him, a psychological Michelson-Morley experiment to enable him to determine just which way the social aether around him flowed.

2. water-cart — vehicle consisting of a barrel or tank on wheels, used primarily to water streets, though sometimes used to provide water for consumption

After his third failure at a desk job, the boss gave Hector the duty of manning the water-cart patrolling the south side, near the stockyards.

3. buccal — of or related to the cheek

Once bitten, he couldn’t seem to stop reinjuring his cheek whenever he ate, and of course he couldn’t slap a bandage into his buccal cavity.

4. acroter — pedestal at apex or bases of pediment, upon which statue or ornament (an acroterium or acroterion) is placed

The statues themselves had long been lost, making the stubby acroteria on either side of the squat temple resemble Hellboy’s cut-off devil’s horns.

5. argal — therefore (used facetiously to suggest clumsy reasoning)

You say you read very little, argal, this dictionary will be quite a valuable book for you, as it shall retain its pristine pages and thus its resale value.

6. phaeton — light four-wheeled carriage with forward-facing seats

To one side of the mounts of the principals and their seconds stood the doctor’s phaeton which had been brought in the possibly forlorn hope that the loser of the duel might be brought back to health if he could be carried away quickly to the medico’s surgery.

7. annelid — worm

Now you shall see how the annelid turns about!

8. scathe — to injure, to damage; to destroy by fire or lightning, etc.; to shrivel or waste with invective

You can still make out where the old cabin stood, before it was scathed by the roiling flames of the meth lab explosion.

9. joss — Chinese cult image or idol

Although the term became associated with both the incense used in worship and the house where the idols of the deities were maintained, the term ‘joss‘ itself is not of Chinese, but of Portuguese origin, being a corruption of the word ‘Deus’.

10. rufous — brownish red, ferruginous

Pete had the worst case of trucker’s tan I ever hope to see, his left arm a hairy rufous mass while his right, though just as massive, seemed a pallid thread-covered log in comparison.

1. bodge — to patch poorly or clumsily

As long as he remained in his chair nobody could see how he had bodged the rip in the seat of his pants, leaving a pleat along the center seam.

2. malefic — producing evil, baleful

Being snubbed at the party had a malefic effect upon his judicial rulings.

3. bint — (British) derogatory term for girl or woman

“No, she won’t be helping with the food—I gave one hard look at the bint and she ran away!”

4. ecchymosis — discoloration from extravasated blood beneath the skin

The purplish ecchymosis of a deep bruise will fade to a yellowish green as the hemoglobin is broken down by the body into biliverdin and bilirubin.

5. gralloch — to remove the viscera from game, usu. a deer

By the time I returned with our camp buckets filled from the stream, Jerry had already gralloched the whitetail and was beginning to assemble the fire.

6. canting arms — (also allusive or punning arms) (heraldry) coat of arms in which charges make visual play on the bearer’s name or title

The arms of President Eisenhower stretched the idea of canting arms still further, with a blue anvil somehow supposed to evoke the German word ‘eisenhauer’, though this means ‘iron worker’ rather than ‘anvil’.

7. canting — affecting piety, often hypocritically

For all his strident, whining, canting devotion to Marx, the professor remains a true capitalist at heart.

8. canting — using thieves’ slang

I understood most of the carny’s canting words, but had to ask just what a ‘moll dip’ was.

9. sternutatory — causing sneezing

I have never found snuff to have as strong a sternutatory effect as ground black pepper, but his blend always made me sneeze violently, crying all the while.

10. fulvous — dull yellowish-brown, tawny

Viewing the cougar at this distance through the binoculars, I could appreciate her beauty, the strong feline muscles beneath her fulvous coat, her massive paws treading lightly across the rock-strewn hillside.

1. tagger (HT to Steve Skaar) — one who tags; device for tagging (sheep, merchandise, etc.); graffitist

Most variants of the game have a ‘no tag-backs’ rule of some sort, so that the tagger can not immediately become the taggee.

2. dorter — dormitory, esp. in a monastery

I had been so nervous the previous night, creeping as quietly as possible past the dorter, only to realize this morning that at least half of the monks had been up and about at the same time.

3. maidan — open space near or in a town; parade ground

Rogers was found with the other horsemen playing polo on the maidan, cutting a fine figure on his chestnut stallion.

4. astonied — (archaic) stunned; dazed

The Green Knight was astonied to behold the two of them riding peaceably together upon Sir Spender’s gray charger, she riding sidesaddle behind the tall warrior.

5. enkindle — to make to blaze up; to set on fire

There was no single moment that enkindled her ardor, rather a succession of moments, a series of sweet kindnesses and fiery actions that built her passion into an unquenchable flame.

6. distaff — stave used to hold unspun fiber during spinning; women; female side of a family; female heir

The pretensions of the Soviet would have you believe that all were equal in the party, but I noted that the distaff side of the delegation were relegated to menial and clerical work while the men performed the hard labor of negotiation and attendance at working dinners.

7. eulogium — speech or writing praising some person or thing

Once more we were forced to endure a eulogium on the intelligence and correctness of our supervisor, which, as always, would have carried more weight had it been delivered by someone other than the supervisor himself.

8. nestle-cock — last or weakest hatchling in a brood; spoilt child

Dorian barely survived the whooping cough and had been doted upon by his mother since, becoming such a nestle-cock in consequence that he proved unable to endure any difficulty whatsoever.

9. sough — to sigh, to murmur, to make a rushing or murmuring sound

The wind soughed through the willows while I lay beneath its branches with my eyes closed listening to each shifting breeze playing through the leaves.

10. optative — of verb mood expressing wish or desire

I boldly asserted I would become a world-famous stenographer, showing my youthful grasp of optative expression, but little realizing that my lack of subjunctive mastery was already all too obvious.

1. pouter — domestic pigeon, noted for puffing out its crop

In contrast to Jack, whose beer belly could be seen before the man himself, Bert had an almost inverse shape, with a narrow waist and overlarge barrel chest, puffed up like a pouter in full distention.

2. fons et origo — source and origin

And that small accident, the tiniest dent made by the whisper of her bumper upon his new Honda, this trifle was the fons et origo of all the consequent nastiness that led to the dreadful disaster.

3. list — to be pleasing to

I shall do as me list, and no law nor force will stay me.

4. blent — past tense and past participle of blend

If you like your drinks blent—not to say turnt—you could do worse than the versatile daiquiri.

5. sodality — companionship, fellowship; an association; society for Catholic laypeople

Before joining the convent she had been quite active in her sodality, taking meals to poor homebound seniors and leading charitable drives during the Christmas season.

6. debauch — to seduce, to corrupt

His friends and their Bohemian lifestyle had debauched the high ideals he had held when first he came to the big city.

7. logomachy — contention or dispute about words

To insist upon the term ‘illegal alien’ versus ‘dreamer’ is not some logomachy but rather a beachhead upon the battlefield of political power.

8. refectory — dining hall in a college or religious house

The plates had all been cleared away yet Tom and Guy still argued in the refectory, each determined to win the day which—truth be told—was long since over.

9. stipe — (botany) stalk, esp. of a mushroom

Connoisseurs of psychedelia know that the potency of the stipe is the same as that of the cap, so don’t waste anything.

10. ramify — to spread out in branches; to separate into subdivisions

Petersen really felt that he had finally created the ultimate ontology, for his new software displayed all of human knowledge in three dimensions as each category ramified into further more particular subcategories, interconnecting them in a glorious structure he hoped would enable his perfect database.

1. procrustean — producing conformity or uniformity through severe means without regard to natural variation

The sentencing guidelines have created a procrustean nightmare which prevents state judges from exercising discretion in even the most egregious cases.

2. winklepickers — shoes with long pointed toe

The Leningrad Cowboys are known for their winklepickers and overlong quiff haircuts.

3. manqué — “That might have been but is not.” [Oxford]

Like some sort of scholar manqué he had substituted Internet bookmarks for books, Post-its® for research notes, opinions for articles, and food-stained t-shirts for tweed jackets with elbow patches.

4. vellus hair — short, almost invisible hairs covering most of the human body save for the head

Do not be fooled by the claims of this hair growth formula, as vellus hairs are often seen on the scalps of those suffering from male pattern baldness.

5. peg out — (British slang) to die; to be wiped out

He’s passed out in the back bedroom now, and he’ll be better in the morning, assuming he doesn’t just peg out before then.

6. cook-general — (British) servant performing both general housekeeping and cooking

In their straitened circumstances they were forced to let go all their servants save for Nancy, the old retainer who took on the duties of a cook-general in spite of her inaptitude in the kitchen.

7. benison — blessing, benediction

Secure in nature’s benison beneath the vault of distant stars in the clear sky, I slept soundly amidst the pines.

8. supercilious — contemptuously superior or disdainful

Her unfitness for parenting was shown by her supercilious comment when her visiting nephews disturbed her usually placid home: “Now I understand why animals eat their young.”

9. fungo — (baseball) soft fly ball hit for fielding practice

His hand-eye coordination is so bad he can’t even hit fungoes with a wiffle ball and bat.

10. charivari — mock serenade with kitchen implements for newly marrieds; clamor of noise

We are told that the Punk Jazz movement has quite serious antecedents, but the performance last night seemed merely a charivari of discord played by people we resist calling ‘musicians’.