{"id":5162,"date":"2026-01-09T11:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/?p=5162"},"modified":"2026-01-09T11:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:29:16","slug":"friday-vocabulary-378","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/?p=5162","title":{"rendered":"Friday Vocabulary"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. davit<\/strong> \u2014 [nautical<\/em>] small crane used on a boat, esp. in pairs for lowering and raising a lifeboat or launch<\/p>\n

Sudden panic overcame me as I came out of the gangway and saw the lines blowing free in the gale and the <\/em>davits emptied of the only seaworthy lifeboat on the ship.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. grimdark<\/strong> \u2014 bleak, dark, violent, dystopian genre fiction, esp. fantasy<\/p>\n

Even in her latest <\/em>grimdark novel, Jolene cannot resist throwing in a taste of her life-affirming crystal-waving ‘We Are All One’ quasi-Buddhist quasi-Taoist beliefs she apparently acquired from her hippie mother.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. diener<\/strong> (also deaner<\/strong>) \u2014 orderly in morgue charged with cleaning and moving corpses<\/p>\n

I noticed we were working without a <\/em>diener tonight, and when I asked him where Sparks (our usual assistant) was, Hadley grunted that the fewer eyes the better on this particular case.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. pessary<\/strong> \u2014 vaginal suppository; prothesis inserted in vagina for therapeutic purposes<\/p>\n

The procedure is even enjoined by the original version of the Hippocratic Oath, where doctors swear never to insert a <\/em>pessary to induce abortion.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5. mackerel<\/strong> (often plural) \u2014 suggestive of fish scales<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful <\/em>mackerel sky, though the rich pink color of the sunset made me think more of salmon.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. blowzy<\/strong> (also blowsy<\/strong>) \u2014 ruddy, rude, and dirty<\/p>\n

She was a <\/em>blowzy old wench who had no place in this refined coffee house, but she insisted upon a doctor, at once, so\u2014to avoid further derangement to the convivial company\u2014I agreed to accompany her to see what promised to be a nonpaying patient.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7. sassenach<\/strong> (often capitalized) \u2014 [Scots<\/em>] English person<\/p>\n

Duncan dismissed Hardy as just another <\/em>sassenach fool come to see the credulous men in kilts who still believed in monsters and fairies.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8. hippopotamoid<\/strong> \u2014 animal similar to a hippopotamus; animal in the family of Hippopotamidae<\/p>\n

Buried in the mud we thought we had rousted a <\/em>hippopotamoid, but it turned out to be a buried clothes chest.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9. wrappers<\/strong> \u2014 outer cover of paper-covered book<\/p>\n

Some foxing may be seen on the inside of the <\/em>wrappers, but the exterior is unmarked and the cover illustration is still bright in the original colors.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10. fanlight<\/strong> \u2014 [architecture<\/em>] small semicircular window over a door or larger window, often decorated so as to resemble a fan<\/p>\n

The metal framework of what had once been a gorgeous Victorian <\/em>fanlight could be seen in the debris, all that remained to suggest what a wonderful house this pile of rubble had once been.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bonus Vocabulary<\/h4>\n

(UK informal)<\/p>\n

panda car<\/strong> \u2014 police car, from original black-and-white coloring <\/p>\n

At half past nine the first <\/em>panda car arrived on the scene and less than three minutes later the patrolman called for an ambulance and a team from CID.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. davit \u2014 [nautical] small crane used on a boat, esp. in pairs for lowering and raising a lifeboat or launch Sudden panic overcame me as I came out of the gangway and saw the lines blowing free in the gale and the davits emptied of the only seaworthy lifeboat on the ship.   2. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Friday Vocabulary”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[112,69],"class_list":["post-5162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocabulary","tag-bonus-word","tag-vocabulary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5164,"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions\/5164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educatedguesswork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}