Educated Guesswork

1. celt — unhafted bladed tool, usu. of stone or bronze, used as chisel or handleless axe

The similarity of celts found in Europe and the New World, however, has been claimed by some as evidence for earlier connections between the peoples found in the Americas and those of the Old World, or—as some would have it—the missing Lost Tribes of Israel.

 

2. anterior — occurring earlier in time, preceding; [biology] nearer the front, the head, or further from the mainstem

But this whole argument depends upon Lord Chillithane’s contention that the excursion to the mountains described by Antylus was anterior to the development of the structures discovered in the distant Novya Spletya colony, a doubtful logical leap at best.

 

3. chide — to rebuke, to find fault

“I won’t be chid for my dress by a man whose socks do not even match!”

 

4. sluff (also slough) — to shed; to ignore, to discard; to goldbrick

But Triers had sluffed off all the talk about Emma’s frivolities, and refused to hear any comments about her all evening.

 

5. troy weight — system of measurement with a pound of 12 ounces, an ounce of 20 pennyweights, with a pennyweight of 24 grains

Though one can be easily confused, remember always that the ‘grain’ is the same measure whether one uses avoirdupois or troy weight.

 

6. candid — frank, straightforward; unposed

The best attribute he brought to his profession was the candid expression in his honest face; from this, all the other ills followed.

 

7. otaku — obsessive fanboy, esp. of computers, anime, or manga

Otaku can be quite intelligent, experience pleasure and absorbing interest more easily, and are usually more focused and centered than the median in the societies in which they are found.

 

8. aspergillum — holy water sprinkler

We offer silver and gold aspergillums for all your sprinkling needs. (Note: not actual gold or silver.)

 

9. muslin — plain weave cotton fabric

How do I repair a book bound in green muslin-covered boards with tearing at the spine?

 

10. inselberg — monadnock, hill remaining on peneplain created by erosion

Most of the flora (taking the term in its most expansive meaning) found on these isolated inselbergs were acrocarpous mosses.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(historical)

Tityre-tu — member of criminal youth gang first seen in 1620s

More recent scholarship has cast doubt on the supposed anti-Catholic bent of most Tityre-tus.

 

1. recrudescence — reappearance, renewed outbreak, reoccurrence (esp. of something morbid or bad)

This recrudescence of simony, however, left most strata of society unconcerned, couched in this somewhat disingenuous language of sympathy.

  2. chirality — asymmetry of chemical compounds which cannot be superimposed upon its mirror image, ‘handedness’

The discovery of chirality among quarks, one of the smallest subatomic particles, shows how ‘deep’ is the deep structure of the universe.

  3. junket — cream cheese, or food made from sweet curds; pleasure trip, usu. one ostensibly for business purposes

The two senators on this junket were never actually seen by the press corps, it being assumed that they were tied up in important meetings with foreign dignitaries—and not, as rumor had it, fixed to the roulette wheel in the invitation-only back room at the local casino.

  4. lorn — forsaken; desolate

Emerging from the copse of trees we saw before us a lorn landscape of gloom, a meadow or marsh made from what had once been fruitful farmland, now returned to primeval mire.

  5. wuther — to blow, to bluster; to hurry

The frame of the one window had settled poorly, and the wind wuthered through the large gap all night.

  6. oriel — [architecture] bay window; protrusion from wall in which a bay window may be sited

Unusually, the oriel of the castle spans upwards across all four stories, with clever glasswork concealing each joint with the floors.

  7. turgor — swollenness; distention of plant cells

One assumes that his frequent headaches are due to the turgor of his self-confessed enormous brain.

  8. mootah — [slang] marijuana

“Billy,” she pleaded, “you said we’d smoke some mootah when I gave you the key.”

  9. lituus — curved military horn

The standards were held high, the troops assembled, and as soon as the signal was given and the lituii sounded the force would march forth from the besieged redoubt.

  10. agenesis — failed or anomalous development of body or part; sterility

Though a debilitating condition, the agenesis of the corpus callosum has proved a boon to research psychologists and other deep thinkers on the brain.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

spark out — entirely unconscious

I slipped on the first step, whacked my head on the bannister, and got knocked spark out.

 

1. turpitude — vileness, inherent wickedness

If you insist on demonstrating your turpitude before me, I shall have to absent myself, to take a turn or two abovedeck and try to erase these sights from my memory.

 

2. superlunary — celestial or heavenly as opposed to worldly

Maimonides here points out that, though human beings are far and away the best creation formed from this base matter, we humans are still perhaps infinitely far from the superlunary beings and realms upon which this chapter focuses.

 

3. brawn — [British] head cheese

Raffala never got used to the diet of his fellow students, which appeared to consist of little more than brawn and ale, with emphasis upon the latter.

 

4. canted — leaning, inclined, sloping; angled

Cherry held her cup so weakly that the coffee canted sharply towards the rim, almost spilling, but these places are always wise to the needs of their patients, and never fill the cups or bowls more than half full.

 

5. preterist — one who believes Apocalyptic prophecies in the Bible refer to events which have already occurred; devotee of the past

Gerry had done much research on the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD as a firmly convinced preterist who saw all of Isaiah as referencing the horrific siege of Jerusalem and its aftermath.

 

6. nyctalopia — night blindness, inability to see clearly in dim light or at night

Yes, nyctalopia may be merely a consequence of aging, but it may also be a symptom of vitamin A deficiency.

 

7. patronymic — family name, surname, patronym

Usually, the Russian standard of using the two initials with the patronymic is sufficient to avoid confusion, although in this case it obviously failed.

 

8. hippomania — enthusiasm for horses

He inherited his father’s hippomania, but without that man’s fine ability to know when to cut his losses at the track.

 

9. dight — [archaic] to dress

As he stood in particolored livery dight he seemed almost as much a fool as he truly was.

 

10. exiguously — meagerly, scantily

She appeared before him so exiguously clad that he quite forgot why he had summoned her.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(India, from Hindi)

keep chup — to keep quiet, to stay silent

But Paulie was wise to these sort of schemes, and knew he’d better keep chup or he’d find himself out on the street, no longer allowed into the hallowed halls where the Masterful Eleven made their home.

 

1. blench — to flinch, to quail

Do not stare at me so, lest I blench under your steely gaze that I would rather looked lovingly upon my face.

 

2. conation — mental facility directed towards striving, will, desire, volition

Reichholz claimed that an internal focus upon conation had unintended negative consequences, that the awareness of desire might cause a subsequent reduction in the mind’s power to achieve that very desire.

 

3. loc (also ‘loc; usu. plural) — dreadlocks

Kenny showed up bald as Annie’s sugar daddy, and we all wondered what had made him shave off his glorious locs.

 

4. lazzarone (usu. plural) — beggar, wretched person; member of poorer class in Naples

But if we allow these horrid lazzaroni to dictate how public moneys are spent, what shall become of these beautiful works of triumphant art? Those wretches prefer rough food to spiritual sustenance.

 

5. lornly — forlornly, in a pitifully sad or lonely manner

“But you must go,” she said lornly as she wiped the tears with her maunch, “before the break of dawn and Sir Reggie’s return.”

 

6. amphisbaena — mythic serpent with head at either end; genus of American lizards

And when the sixth trumpet sounded, horses set upon men who had the same peculiarity as the amphisbaena, and the horses’ tails had heads which also injured with their teeth and sulfurous breath.

 

7. aerodyne — heavier-than-air aircraft which fly through use of aerodynamic forces

The ministry added to the very pressing question of right of aerial way the strange allowance that henceforth women shall be granted license to fly aerodynes under the same restrictions and qualifications as men.

 

8. chingle — [Scots] gravel

The homestead was not even good for sheep, for not enough grass could grow on the thin soil laying upon the chingle that ran all the way down to the very shore.

 

9. runcible — nonsense word meaning nothing invented by Edward Lear

Always a leader of fashion in his runcible trousers and spliffy shirts, the new MP removed his puce gloves to take a pinch of snuff.

 

10. runcible spoon — spoon with fork tines and a cutting edge, proto-spork

His ‘tactical spork’ turned out to be merely a runcible spoon made from ‘ballistic’ plastic—whatever that might be.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(UK slang)

hand s.o. his cards (also give s.o. his cards) — to fire, to lay off, to give someone their walking papers, to make redundant

She was handed her cards the moment she complained about that strange stain in the ladies’ bathroom, so you know how concerned that firm are with worker safety.

 

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.”

 

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.

 

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!”