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Saturday, September 14, 2024

In other words, mountebanks mountweazeling esquivalience

  • abashed, adjective. Ashamed or embarrassed; disconcerted.
  • colporteur, noun. A peddler of devotional literature, religious books, etc.
  • connoisseur, noun. A person who is especially competent to pass critical judgments in art, or in matters of taste; a discerning judge of the best in any field.
  • dunny, noun. (Australian & New Zealand slang) An outside privy; outhouse.
  • esquivalience. A deliberate or willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities (but not really, since it is a “mountweazel,” a bogus entry in New Oxford American Dictionary; or perhaps so, since some people have found it defined in a dictionary and now use it in their writing).
  • funicular, noun. A cable railway system ascending a mountain or steep slope.
  • fylfot (also fylfot cross), noun. A cross associated with medieval Anglo-Saxon culture, having perpendicular extensions (usually at 90° or close angles) radiating in the same direction; a swastika (cf. gammadion).
  • gammadion (also gammate cross), noun. A cross figure made by four capital Greek gammas (Γ) radiating from a center; esp., a swastika (cf. fylfot).
  • glossa, noun. The tongue; a tongue-like structure, especially in an insect.
  • glossal, adjective. Of or relating to the tongue.
  • glossarist, noun. A linguist; wordsmith; someone who writes a glossary.
  • glossary, noun. A list of terms in a special subject, field, or area of usage, with accompanying definitions.
  • glossolalia, noun. Incomprehensible speech in an imaginary language, sometimes occurring in a trance state, an episode of religious ecstasy. (Cf. xenoglossia)
  • inane, adjective. Lacking sense, significance, or ideas; silly; empty; void.
  • kvetch, verb. (used without object) To complain, especially chronically.
  • mountebank, noun. A quack; any impudent and unscrupulous pretender; a charlatan.
  • mountweazel, noun. A bogus entry inserted in a reference work by a publisher, allegedly for the purpose of detecting plagiarism.
  • tourtière, noun. A pastry-covered pie containing minced pork or other chopped meat and various chopped vegetables.
  • trefoil, noun. (Latin, trifolium: a three-leaved plant) Any of various plants of the pea family, chiefly of the genera Trifolium and Lotus, having compound trifoliolate leaves; an ornament, symbol, or architectural form having the appearance of a trifoliolate leaf.
  • trifecta, noun. A set or combination of three things.
  • triquetra, noun. A triangular figure composed of three interlaced arcs, or equivalently three overlapping vesicae piscis lens shapes (sometimes called the “Celtic Trinity Knot”).
  • xenoglossia, noun. An ability to speak a known language with which the speaker or speakers are unfamiliar. (Cf. glossolalia)

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