Friday Vocabulary

1. passel — group of things of nonspecific number; bunch

Then somebody bumped the chair, and Laurie’s purse fell over, and a whole passel of cherry tomatoes rolled out of it onto the floor.

 

2. noetic — of or related to the mind

Although William James insists on the noetic quality of the mystical experience—and D. T. Suzuki agrees with him on this—many of the masters of Zen seem to doubt whether the ‘mind’ even exists at all.

 

3. precisian — Puritan, purist in religious matters; pedant, one adhering strictly to the rules

A precisian in all things, he would only smile and nod at those to whom he had not yet been formally introduced, but as he no longer had any friends or even acquaintances at the gatherings to which he was sometimes absentmindedly invited, he found himself unable to speak to anyone at all.

 

4. recision — act of cutting off; cancellation

The Plaintiff’s motion for recision of the debt failed because ‘lack of competency’ was not a valid cause of action, according to the court (and because the whole case was plain and simple fraud, said many court-watchers).

 

5. geodesy — science of measuring the earth and its geological and gravitational factors

While the deflections from vertical are much larger in the model than those actually observed by surveyors, this exaggeration seems to be quite common not only in the U.S. fieldwork, but around the world, as a glance at the literature of geodesy will confirm.

 

6. banty — small yet belligerent

Like many short men, he was a banty lad in his youth, quick to take offense and quicker to give it.

 

7. admix — to mix together, to commingle

They quickly learned they could admix cotton-seed oil with the olive oil to give it a darker, richer texture.

 

8. pathognomonic — specifically indicative of a particular disease or condition

Due to the severe consequences of the treatment, it is thought prudent to await pathognomonic symptoms of secondary syphilis before administering mercury.

 

9. musteefino — person with 1/16 black ancestry, child of a mustee and a white person

Apparently even these bigots had to give up at some point, and the child of a musteefino and a white person was deemed under Jamaican law to have all the rights and privileges of a ‘pure’ white.

 

10. icterine — yellowish color, jaundice yellow

Of course the icterine warbler will spend the winter abroad, taking its beautiful songs to Africa.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. Quinquagesima — final Sunday before Lent, beginning of Carnival

The first appearance of Quinquagesima as a pre-Lenten feast (there is some evidence for the term being used for an anticipatory fast) cannot be found in Italy earlier than the 6th Century.

 

2. bimble — [British] to walk about in a meandering way with no fixed purpose

After we’d taken care of the luggage, we bimbled about the city, or at least the rather scruffy part of it surrounding the bus station.

 

3. holland blind (sometimes capitalized) — window shade consisting of heavy fabric around a roller which is lowered or raised to cover or uncover the window

He’d hidden the dangerous document by rolling it up inside the holland blind in the bedroom, but of course the agents found it almost immediately.

 

4. defilade — protection in a military position from observation or direct gunfire

The lieutenant had selected the site because of its excellent defilade, but he hadn’t figured on the Jerry artillery already having targeted our location because of just those same supposed advantages.

 

5. cafard — overwhelming depression

When she was seized by the cafard, he’d learned that there was nothing he could do to help her, no word or suggestion or action on his part would make her melancholy any less, or any less lengthy.

 

6. mistrustless — unsuspecting, trusting

Like all of his mistrustless race he was easy prey for these first emissaries of so-called civilization.

 

7. strangury — painful and frequent urge to urinate, even when bladder is empty

While it is true that strangury frequently accompanies gonorrhea, the social disease is by no means the only cause of that painful complaint.

 

8. appulse — forceful movement towards or against; apparent nearness between astronomical objects, conjunction

The close appulse of the lips required for the ‘m’ sound being almost impossible for several weeks after the accident, he could sound only a guttural ‘Aaargh!’ sound whenever he wish to call Margaret.

 

9. recalcitrant — stubbornly defiant; refractory, unmanageable

Somehow Mrs. Srimamsadeva had managed to turn the most recalcitrant 10th grader in the school into a model student, and all of the other teachers were anxious to learn her secret.

 

10. spindly — long and thin, esp. someone or something seeming weak or fragile

Chaz was a spindly thing leaning always against the wall by the door, his left boot hooked into a chair as if he feared a sudden gust of wind might blow him away.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang, 1920s & 1930s, from popular brand of the time)

Merry Widow — condom

“Be sure to have a couple of Merry Widows handy, if you know what I mean.”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. bludge — [Australian slang] to shirk; to scrounge; to live off another’s earnings, esp. as a pimp

It was the first time I’d ever bludged school, so I was more nervous than I ever was after.

 

2. chukka — period in game of polo, lasting from 7 to 7-1/2 minutes of play

While Larry was meeting with Harry I went back to the stands to catch a chukka or two of the game.

 

3. tractable — easily led or managed; malleable

Perry was a tractable sort of lad—or so I thought at that time—and thus I had no hesitation in asking the Chief to make him my number two on the Swanswell project.

 

4. tenebrosity — darkness, gloominess, obscurity

With the sunset, the shadows seemed to reach out from the very branches of the surrounding woods, as we felt ourselves bound in the sullen tenebrosity of the forest.

 

5. upas-tree — Javanese tree of myth so toxic that it killed all surrounding life at a large distance; tree of Java producing poisonous milky sap, used to empoison arrows

The combination of the new mall and new bypass had devastated the once vibrant shopping district, leaving the shuttered storefronts near the old courthouse facing streets empty of all save dust, as if some baleful upas-tree had killed the village itself along with its former marketplace.

 

6. catasterize — (in mythology) to transform a creature or person into a star or other celestial object

The strange myth of the wounded rainbow in the Thomas Covenant books brings a new look at the idea of a god losing his children, catasterized by their curious exploration of the hole in the universe subsequently repaired by the father deity.

 

7. fontange — high headdress formed of starched cotton and ribbons, worn by upper classes in 17th and 18th Century Europe

The costly and increasingly ridiculous fontanges of the court ladies could not be stopped even by order of King Louis, but finally were thrown aside because of the whimsically turning wheel of Fashion.

 

8. gaud — showy bauble or trinket

Prewston drew duty the day after the final parade, spending his shift sweeping up the cast-aside gauds of the wild youth who’d drunkenly welcomed in the Mad King on the last day of his revels.

 

9. stammtisch — [German] usual table

Soon we were regulars at the place, at least on Thursday nights, with our own stammtisch in the back corner by the rear entrance.

 

10. recrement — dross, waste matter

Sprawled beneath the bed with my flashlight, I saw the missing piece in the far corner, amidst a pile of cat hair and nail clippings and other recrements of Jonesie’s abysmal bachelor lifestyle.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. super — [informal] supernumerary

I thought those NPCs were just supers in the adventure after the opening, so I didn’t bring their characters sheets or figures with me for this session.

 

2. desuetude — disuse, discontinuance of practice

His words came croaking and halting, as if his very power of speech had fallen into desuetude during his long sojourn as a silent hermit.

 

3. bantling — [archaic] young child; bastard child

“Aye! Let the bantling lead the army, and watch his father’s hopes and plans fall into ruin as the lad’s untested steel shatters against Lord Henry’s battle-hardened soldiery!”

 

4. kalsomine — calcimine, whitewash

An attempt to spruce up the appearance of the hut by applying a thin layer of kalsomine had failed utterly.

 

5. lute — sticky clay

Jerry slathered lute at the joint to prevent another such accident from happening the next time the downstairs fireplace was used.

 

6. lute — to attach or to fix with lute

Of course each of these joints must be well luted or the apparatus will allow air into your mixture, likely ruining all your hard efforts.

 

7. divaricate — to spread apart, to diverge

Their focus upon these strange fancies caused their beliefs and rituals to divaricate farther and farther from the true faith.

 

8. concupiscence — overwhelming desire, esp. sexual

But for this concupiscence of his youth he had substituted a lust for fame, which, once it was gained, led him into the still greater sin of pride.

 

9. parure — jewelry set designed to be worn as an ensemble

This was good news indeed, but the most important piece of the parure, the large black diamond pendant originally the centerpiece of the necklace, still had not been found.

 

10. dindle — to tingle; to tremble

My left leg had ‘fallen asleep’ (as they say) from being folded beneath the other for so long, and as we staggered through the darksome woods it began to ‘wake up’, and the strange aching and dindling running down my calves into my ankle so plagued me that I almost (almost!) forgot our loathsome pursuers.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(psychology)

hyperekplexia — condition characterized by overlarge startle response to unexpected stimuli

His anxious overreacting to everything—which he claims is diagnosed hyperekplexia and I think is simply histrionics—means that you have to ever so gently enter the room and murmur his name in a bare whisper until he deigns to respond to your mild call.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. crupper — strap looped around horse’s tail attached to saddle to prevent the saddle or harness from moving forward

Sir Lee was unsaddled by the black knight’s lance, sent right over the crupper by the mighty blow.

 

2. Very light — flares used for signaling or illumination, fired from a special pistol

Now the Very lights showed the entire field and the robbers could hide no more.

 

3. homologate — to ratify, confirm, approve; to register a car model for international racing

The appeals court determined that in signing over his rights to the mill, the young Lord Jeremy, despite his minor status, had indeed homologated the transfer of his interest even in the absence of his guardian’s approval.

 

4. debile — [obsolete] feeble

Here again we see the paradoxical nature of these beliefs, by which the conspirators are adjudged to be all-puissant and yet in the next instant so debile that they must utilize the most hidden and underhand means of effecting any action at all.

 

5. whyever — why; for what reason

“Whyever would you want to substitute margarine for real butter?”

 

6. tortuous — twisty

Following the caretaker on a tortuous path through the warehouse filled with the detritus of a lifetime of bad business deals and failed inventions, we finally arrived at the garishly painted ice cream wagon, looking more like an exploded hurdy-gurdy than a treats cart, in which we now believed the missing carbuncle had been hidden.

 

7. torturous — excruciating

His days were filled with boredom and endless minutes of inactivity at the dying office, while his evenings were disturbed by the torturous attempts of his upstairs neighbor to teach himself the violin.

 

8. puckerbrush — scrubland

Beau nearly lost most of this land when it got entangled in some scheme to make paper out of all the puckerbrush lying between the church and the creek.

 

9. charlotte — sweet or savory dish contained in bread, consisting of custard or fruit or other filling

Jenny cleverly reused the leftover ratatouille by making a small charlotte for Aunt Selma’s visit the Saturday after.

 

10. belap — to enfold, to surround

She sat there, lonely amidst the crowd, belapped in ribbons and the hideous dress and the pinafores her mother insisted were fashionable, and she kept her gloved hands in her lap, trying not to too obviously watch the clock’s hands make their slow way around the dial.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(UK, Australian, New Zealand slang or baby talk)

biccy — biscuit (i.e., cookie)

“She treats him like he was six years old, instead of a grown man; ‘Fancy a biccy, Barry?’ indeed!”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. columbary — dovecote

Indeed, even such a medical luminary as Sir Thomas Browne sees fit to mention the important role played by the guano (so to speak) found at the floor of columbaries for its use in the production of saltpeter.

 

2. columbarium — vault or structure built with many niches for placement of funerary remains, such as urns containing cremated ashes; such a niche in such a building

And so, to steal Nietzsche’s phrase, the latest plans for the ‘new education’ enshrine the most foolish, dangerous, and defeated ideas of the last century in a columbarium of wacko ideas.

 

3. ling — long slender fish used for food, usu. either salted or dried

The fleet was setting sail for the massive schools of ling found at this time of year in the Atlantic just off the western coast of Ireland.

 

4. descry — to discern, to see, usu. from a distance; to discover

Only then did we descry that the pennant we’d taken for the falcon of Marlbarg was actually the double-headed eagle of the Polish king.

 

5. schrecklichkeit — [German] terrorizing the enemy and esp. civilians as military strategy; overarching atmosphere of badness or dread

Helicoptering over the barren desert towards the dusty city that would shine so brightly once the sun fell beneath the horizon, Evans was struck once again with the futile schrecklichkeit of the time as he mused that soon all cities would be the same as this Arabian metropolis, shining beacons of steel and light at night, surrounded in daylight by endless swathes of dead land extending as far as the eye could see.

 

6. cepe (also cep) — edible mushroom, porcini

I had my cepes simmering already when I discovered that someone had made off with my shallots.

 

7. disherison — [archaic] act of disinheriting

Sir Gage was displeased to learn that his patron’s marriage to the young widow became also the occasion for the disherison of all the old members of Lord Carlo’s fighting band, of whom Gage had not been the least.

 

8. chelicera — one of the pair of claws before the mouth of certain arachnids and horshoe crabs

The tick binds itself to its victim with these chelicerae, which may be left in the skin if the woodland pest is merely plucked off.

 

9. erstwhile — formerly

Now these two, who erstwhile had fought so bitterly, transformed themselves into the truest of friends, and ofttimes the villagers would see them strolling side by side throughout the province, deep in discussion of any of their numerous mutual interests.

 

10. fractious — unruly; quarrelsome

Now these fractious youths had their hands upon the levers of power, and they began to pull at them willy-nilly, with the frantic energy of the tail of a dog with stolen bacon in its mouth.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. hythe (also hithe) — [British] river landing spot, small port or harbor

Originally, Jackson’s Inn had been a rude hythe on the river, and there are some who still say it was smuggling which gave him the ready cash to build his first hostelry.

 

2. opopanax — gum resin made from various plants, some used for medicine and others for perfume

The pungent scent of Lili’s opopanax hung in the air like the memory of a much regretted evening.

 

3. windlestraw — [British] grass used for plaiting or making ropes

Duncan made Molly a sort of sun hat with some windlestraw growing by the stream, so as to keep the bright sun off of her fair complexion.

 

4. impropriate — to transfer Church property to a layperson; to take or claim for private use

Of course the revenues for these Andalusian fields had long ago been impropriated by bankers and tax farmers, though usually from the same families as the prelates themselves.

 

5. falchion — slightly curved broadsword

He pulled his falchion up over his head and yelled, “For the last time, man, yield or die!”

 

6. dross — worthless matter, refuse

Gresham’s Law seems to indicate that the dross will take over money if it is not removed from circulation, which bodes ill, perhaps, for cryptocurrencies and that ilk.

 

7. tintamarre — ruckus, brouhaha; Acadian tradition of marching through village while using noisemakers and voices to make a stir

Gone are the days when political conventions decided anything save things that aren’t fit for TV nor print, and even the ‘spontaneous’ tintamarres which ‘break out’ on the convention floor are fully scripted events worthy of a Stalin or a Mao.

 

8. lustrine — glossy fabric of silk; lutestring

This quarter saw a sharp increase in the amount of lustrine imported from the Orient, doubtless because of the late changes in Paris fashion.

 

9. temerity — overconfidence, recklessness

“First you have the temerity to go ahead with your scheme after I’ve given you specific instructions not to, and now I find you’ve involved my daughter in this foolish and possibly actionable ploy.”

 

10. tignon — woman’s headcovering using a cloth to make a sort of turban, first worn by Creoles in Louisiana

From the folds of her tignon she pulled a very small card of thick blue paper, and handed it to me.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Christian)

Eutychus — youth who fell asleep (from boredom?) during one of Paul’s long sermons, fell out a 3rd-story window, died, and was brought back to life by Paul [Acts 20:7-12]

During Fidel Castro’s lengthy homilies, many a Eutychus struggled to stay awake, or at least to appear so, lest eternal rest be given as a fatal reward.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. traduce — to speak of someone in a malicious and false way, to slander; [archaic] to transmit (from one person or generation to another)

Truly he was a very unpleasant individual, and so though one cannot condone it, one can understand why the villagers traduced their parson so.

 

2. oeillade — amorous look or stare

These shopgirls with their flirty oeillades dream themselves attendants at the court of Old Queen Bess, and those shameless construction workers noble courtiers in tight-fitting hose.

 

3. orichalcum — metal prized by Ancient Greeks and Romans, of debated composition (or even existence)

Perhaps these artifacts shining amber at the bottom of the cistern were made from the fabled orichalcum of the Homeric Hymns.

 

4. dolven — [obsolete] past participle of delve

Had dolven he so deep within his fancied imaginings that overtopped he was by this simple maid in her dirty wimple.

 

5. dislimn — to efface the outlines of, to make indistinct

The shadows of the deep electrical box and his aging eyesight conspired to dislimn the contacts he was testing, and Jackson accidentally shorted out the relay.

 

6. lustre — chandelier; cut glass object hung pendant from a chandelier

The lustre was lighted in expectation of the master’s visit, and a cheery glow suffused the usually dark room.

 

7. volta — [rhetoric] turn or change in tone, thought, or emotion (esp. in poetry and more esp. in a sonnet)

It’s always like that talking to ‘Noid and following his frequent voltas in conversation is hard and it was a few minutes before I realized he was talking now about the murder and not the trip we’d taken through Kansas and Nebraska fifteen years earlier.

 

8. fantail — [nautical] overhanging deck at stern of a ship

She lost her fantail attempting to cross the bow of the freighter.

 

9. chacma — Cape baboon

Only a strange whirring grunting noise alerted me to the sudden attack of the hidden chacma and I was knocked to the ground and into the fight of my life.

 

10. yadder — to talk meaninglessly, to speak of trivialities; to brace with a stake

Denise would sneak out of bed to hide behind the couch and listen to the grownups talking late into the night with their fancy drinks and arch tones, but inevitably she could not stay awake longer than a few minutes while they yaddered on and so she never discovered what made her parents’ weekly cocktail parties so exciting to all the neighbors.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British)

shout the odds — to talk loudly and boastfully, often in a belligerent manner

And so Stew’s shouting the odds at these scouses and we’re just trying to cool him down, get him to shut it so’s we can get to the station, y’know, when suddenly this crazy painted fellow, red all over and him only wearing shorts and trainers, like a woad-covered warrior if woad was red instead of blue, y’know, this red demon just appears from a corner and begins wailing on poor Stewie and so, what could we do?

 

1300 Books — Aaargh!

Welp. I had thought that I’d just finished Book #1300 in my Great Book Tracking Project only this past Friday. However.

Well, I came to find out, as I did my silly little analyses on the last tranche of One Hundred Books that … well, erm … I’d once again made a dumb mistake as I entered this nonsense into my database, had gone from Book #1231 backwards to Book #1222, and … d’oh! Anyway, so I learn that my actual Book #1300 was not the Solar Pons novel Mr. Fairlie’s Final Journey (which I’d only read quickly so as to avoid having Ayn Rand’s travesty The Fountainhead as my 1300th Book Read), but instead the pretty decent entry in Penguin’s series of modern poetry, Penguin Modern Poets 7 Murphy Silkin Tarn, pictured here.

I also know now, to my chagrin (having made a similar mistake in the last tranche of 100 books), and to quite a number of weary sighs, that I have to go back and correct some 70 odd book entries in my database and in the spreadsheets I use to generate the data for this nonsense that I present to you on this almost entirely unread blog. Meaning … what, exactly? Meaning I’ll be back in a bit with the deets on this last 100 books read, perhaps a little wiser (We’ll see.). At least I’m ahead of the game on the next set of a hundred books.

Friday Vocabulary

1. vestryman — council member of the local parish

Caught in flagrante delicto, as it were, Humber cooly placed the rubber balls in his trouser pockets and wished the vestrymen a good day.

 

2. ghyll — [UK] ravine, gully

Few go to Piers Ghyll now for the hiking, though once this was an important stop in the ‘English Switzerland’.

 

3. mereological — of or related to the study of relations between the whole and its component parts

This sort of mereological analysis can be useful in limited cases, as when the dissected parts reveal the paucity of ideas which gave rise to a movement such as that we have been considering.

 

4. bromide — chemical compound based upon bromine; medicament from such a compound, esp. lithium bromide, formerly used as antidepressant at beginning of 20th C.; platitude; dullard

But these are just the bromides of our modern age, on everyone’s lips and meaning almost nothing.

 

5. lenify — to soothe; to soften

Thus a kind word gently offered may lenify the searing pain of loss and mollify the injured heart.

 

6. foreland — headland, promontory; land adjacent to mountains where material has been deposited from the peaks by action of plate tectonics

His first major contract was for the construction of warning lights to be placed upon the foreland of the Presompter Peninsula, twenty miles south of Barnhumble.

 

7. chouse — [obsolete] to cheat, to swindle

It’s all very well and good to say that the whole rigamarole was jolly fun, but the fact remains that I’ve been choused out of two horses, a rooster, and a pot of my best marmalade.

 

8. scammony — bindweed of eastern Mediterranean; resin made from its root, used as a purgative

Though of course scammony can be dangerous in high doses, it is singularly effective against roundworm, exhibiting anthelmintic powers against tapeworm as well.

 

9. rorqual — baleen whale of the largest taxonomic family

A stately rorqual—a blue whale—swam unconcernedly next to the ice shoals, unaffected by the freezing water that had nearly ended the life of our clumsy cabin boy.

 

10. haviour (also haveour) — [obsolete] countenance, demeanor

Show not the haviour of your desperate need, but resolve right well to unconcerned appear.

 

11. venifice — [obsolete] poisoning

Because the murder was attempted by venefice it was felt to be particularly heinous.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

deus otiosus — deity which no longer interacts at all with humans after once creating the world and starting it in motion

But Staney’s argument is merely the same idea of a deus otiosus who has left the field for other, lesser divinities—’divinities’ which may, as he expresses it, merely be human-created facets of hopes for the divine, rather than any overarching power itself.