Misc Words (2015)

Contumacious

(especially of a defendant's behavior) stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority.

ambo

(in an early Christian church) an oblong pulpit with steps at each end.

exfoliate

(of a material) come apart or be shed from a surface in scales or layers.

Bit role

A bit part is a role in which there is direct interaction with the principal actors and no more than five lines of dialogue (often referred to as a "five or less" in the United States). In British television, bit parts are referred to as under sixes. A bit part is higher than that of an extra and lower than that of a supporting actor. An actor who regularly performs in bit roles, either as a hobby or to earn a living, is referred to as a bit player, a term also used to describe an aspiring actor who has not yet broken into major supporting or leading roles.

Chopstick rest

A chopstick rest is tableware, similar to a spoon rest, used to keep chopstick tips off the table and to prevent used chopsticks from contaminating or rolling off tables. Chopstick rests are found more commonly in restaurants than in homes. They come in various shapes and are made from clay, wood, plastic, metal, glass, porcelain or precious stones such as jade. If the chopsticks come in paper sleeves, some people fold the sleeves into chopstick rests.[1][2]

picket line

A picket line is a horizontal rope, along which horses are tied at intervals. The rope can be on the ground, at chest height (above the knees, below the neck), or overhead. The overhead form usually is called a high line.

Stump speech (politics)

A political stump speech is a standard speech used by a politician running for office. Typically a candidate who schedules many appearances prepares a short standardized stump speech that is repeated verbatim to each audience, before opening to questions.[1]

Sugar mama

A woman (often an older woman) who holds her man/woman in nice standing with money, food, an apartment, etc. -- not always used in a derogatory fashion, or merely in exchange for sex, but because she can.

baiter

Agent noun of bait; one who baits, as with a fishhook. (Internet, slang) A troll who deliberately posts aggravating messages on a message board to elicit responses.

Armillary sphere

An armillary sphere (variations are known as spherical astrolabe, armilla, or armil) is a model of objects in the sky (in the celestial sphere), consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centred on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features such as the ecliptic. As such, it differs from a celestial globe, which is a smooth sphere whose principal purpose is to map the constellations. With the Earth as center, an armillary sphere is known as Ptolemaic. With the sun as center, it is known as Copernican. The flag of Portugal features an armillary sphere.

supermajors

Big Oil is a name used to describe the world's seven or eight largest publicly owned oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors.[1][2][3][4] The supermajors are considered to be BP plc, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Total SA and Eni, with ConocoPhillips Company also sometimes described as forming part of the group.[1][2] The term, analogous to others, such as Big Steel, that describe industries dominated by a few giant corporations, was popularized in print from the late 1960s.[5][6] Today it is often used to refer specifically to the seven supermajors.[7] The use of the term in the popular media often excludes the national producers and OPEC oil companies who have a much greater role in setting prices than the supermajors.[8][9][10] Two state-owned Chinese oil companies, CNPC and Sinopec, had greater revenues in 2013 than any of the supermajors except Royal Dutch Shell.[11] In the maritime industry, six to seven large oil companies that decide a majority of the crude oil tanker chartering business are called "Oil Majors".[12]

Bijective numeration

Bijective numeration is any numeral system in which every non-negative integer can be represented in exactly one way using a finite string of digits. The name derives from this bijection (one-to-one correspondence) between the set of non-negative integers and the set of finite strings using a finite set of symbols (the "digits"). Most ordinary numeral systems, such as the common decimal system, are not bijective because more than one string of digits can represent the same positive integer. In particular, adding leading zeroes does not change the value represented, so "1", "01" and "001" all represent the number one. Even though only the first is usual, the fact that the others are possible means that decimal is not bijective. However, unary, with only one digit, is bijective. A bijective base-k numeration is a bijective positional notation. It uses a string of digits from the set {1, 2, ..., k} (where k ≥ 1) to encode each positive integer; a digit's position in the string defines its value as a multiple of a power of k. Smullyan (1961) calls this notation k-adic, but it should not be confused with the p-adic numbers: bijective numerals are a system for representing ordinary integers by finite strings of nonzero digits, whereas the p-adic numbers are a system of mathematical values that contain the integers as a subset and may need infinite sequences of digits in any numerical representation.

Booz Allen Hamilton

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. is an American management consulting firm headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, in Greater Washington DC, with 80 other offices throughout the United States.

Cee-lo

Cee-lo is a gambling game played with three six-sided dice. There is not one standard set of rules, but there are some constants that hold true to all sets of rules. The name comes from the Chinese Sì-Wŭ-Liù (四五六), meaning "four-five-six". In America it is also called "See-Low," "Four-Five-Six," "The Three Dice Game," "Chinchirorin," and by several alternative spellings, as well as simply "Dice." In China it is also called "Sānliù Bàozi" (三六豹子), or "three-six dice". The constants include the number of dice used, which is always three. All rules describe certain winning combinations that can be rolled, and 4-5-6 is always treated as a winning combination for the first player who rolls it (though in some variants without a banker, it may be possible for several players to make a "winning combination," requiring a second shootout). Besides the winning combinations, all Cee-lo rules include certain rolls that establish a "point," and there are situations where two or more players will roll and compare their points to determine a winner. If for any reason the dice were to leave the playing area (ex: rolling off of the table and hitting the floor) the player would be deemed an automatic loss. The various sets of rules can be divided into two broad categories according to how betting is handled. In banking games, one player serves as a banker, who covers the individual bets of the other players, each of whom competes directly with the bank. In non-banking games, each player has essentially equal status, and rules must exist for the players to pool their bets and attempt to win from a common pot.

DRY code

Don't repeat yourself code

Aubergine

Eggplant (Solanum melongena) or aubergine is a species of nightshade grown for its edible fruit. "Eggplant" is the common name in North American and Australian English but British English uses "aubergine".[1] It is known in South Asia, Southeast Asia and South Africa as brinjal.[2][3][4][5] Other common names are melongene,[6] garden egg,[7] or guinea squash.[8] The fruit is widely used in cooking. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to both the tomato and the potato. It was originally domesticated from the wild nightshade species, the thorn or bitter apple, S. incanum,[9][10][11] probably with two independent domestications, one in the region of South Asia, and one in East Asia.[12]

Fielders choice

In baseball, fielder's choice (abbreviated FC) is a term used to refer to a variety of plays involving an offensive player reaching a base due to the defense's attempt to put out another baserunner, or the defensive team's indifference to his advance. Fielder's choice is not called by the umpires on the field of play; rather, it is recorded by the official scorer to account for the offensive player's advance without crediting him with an offensive statistic such as a hit or stolen base. Though there are several definitions of fielder's choice, the most common (and the only one commonly referred to as FC) involves a fielder fielding a fair ball and choosing to try to put out another baserunner, thereby allowing the batter-runner to safely reach first base. The defensive player may or may not have an opportunity to retire the batter runner. If a preceding runner is retired on a force out, the batter will not be rewarded with a hit and will be scored a Fielders Choice (FC). Other plays that fall under the definition of FC are usually referred to using other terms such as "defensive indifference" or "on the throw."

inversion of control

In software engineering, inversion of control (IoC) is a design principle in which custom-written portions of a computer program receive the flow of control from a generic framework. A software architecture with this design inverts control as compared to traditional procedural programming: in traditional programming, the custom code that expresses the purpose of the program calls into reusable libraries to take care of generic tasks, but with inversion of control, it is the framework that calls into the custom, or task-specific, code.

Hindus don't eat pork

Indians are, to put it simply, occasional meat eaters. Coastal Indians eat fish almost every day, but inland folks less often. Of the choices available, goat and chicken rank higher than buffalo or pig - beef being a taboo for the majority. Pigs are associated with unclean environments. Traditionally, owners of pigs left the pigs to their own bearings, rather than rearing them in a clean environment. As a result, pigs would rummage through whatever their noses led them to as food. In most cases the easiest to find was the neighborhood garbage dump! With their high body fat, pigs need mud to cool themselves. The combination of muddy body and association with garbage is repulsive for most Indians.

Infix notation

Infix notation is the notation commonly used in arithmetical and logical formulae and statements. It is characterized by the placement of operators between operands - "infixed operators" - such as the plus sign in "2 + 2".

Koror

Koror is the state comprising the main commercial centre of the Republic of Palau. It consists of several islands, the most prominent being Koror Island (also Oreor Island). The state of Koror (population 14,000 as of 2004) contains about 70% of the population of the country. The nation's former capital and largest town, also called Koror, is located here. The town has a population of 11,200 and is located at 7°20′32″N 134°28′38″ECoordinates: 7°20′32″N 134°28′38″E.[1] On 7 October 2006, Ngerulmud replaced Koror as Palau's capital city.

Mojito

Mojito is a traditional Cuban highball. Traditionally, a mojito is a cocktail that consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar, lime juice, sparkling water, and mint

Capital outlay

Money spent to acquire, maintain, repair, or upgrade capital assets. Capital assets, also known as fixed assets, may include machinery, land, facilities, or other business necessities that are not expended during normal use. Capital outlays, also referred to as capital expenditures, are recorded by accountants as liabilities on company balance sheets.

draughtsman

One of the pieces used in draughts; a checker.

Pastrami

Pastrami (Turkish: pastırma, Romanian: pastramă, Bulgarian: пастърма) is a meat product usually made from beef, and sometimes from pork, mutton or turkey. The raw meat is brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. In the United States, although beef plate is the traditional cut of meat for making pastrami, it is now common to see it made from beef brisket, beef round, and turkey. Like corned beef, pastrami was originally created as a way to preserve meat before refrigeration.

Procyclical and countercyclical

Procyclical and countercyclical are terms used to describe how an economic quantity is related to economic fluctuations. Their meanings may vary with regard to business cycle theory and economic policy making. The terms are often used loosely to describe a government's approach to spending and taxation. A 'procyclical fiscal policy' can be summarised simply as governments choosing to increase public spending and reduce taxes during an economic boom, but reduce spending and increase taxes during a recession. A 'countercyclical' fiscal policy refers to the opposite approach: reducing spending and raising taxes during a boom period, and increasing spending/cutting taxes during a recession.[1]

Zizhuyuan

Purple Bamboo Park (Chinese: 紫竹院公园; pinyin: Zǐ Zhú Yuàn Gōngyuán; also called Zizhuyuan Park or Black Bamboo Park) is one of the seven largest parks in Beijing, China.[1][2] It is located in the Haidian District of northwestern Beijing. The park consist of three connecting lakes covering over a total area of 48 hectares. The lakes' eastern shores consist of several small hills, and they were formed with the earth dredged from the lakes, to balance the natural hills on the western shores of the lakes. There are five bridges connecting the lakes, islands and hills into a single integrated area. To the north of the lakes the Changhe River flows through.[3]

Scylla and Charybdis

Scylla and Charybdis, in Greek mythology, two immortal and irresistible monsters who beset the narrow waters traversed by the hero Odysseus in his wanderings described in Homer's Odyssey, Book XII. They were later localized in the Strait of Messina.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.[1] The magazine's editor feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde's knowledge, deleted roughly five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press, although he personally made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year. The longer and revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray published in book form in 1891 featured an aphoristic preface—a defence of the artist's rights and of art for art's sake—based in part on his press defences of the novel the previous year. The content, style, and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own right, as a literary and artistic manifesto. In April 1891, the publishing firm of Ward, Lock and Company, who had distributed the shorter, more inflammatory, magazine version in England the previous year, published the revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray.[2] The only novel written by Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray exists in several versions: the 1890 magazine edition (in 13 Chapters), with important material deleted before publication by the magazine's editor, J. M. Stoddart; the "uncensored" version submitted to Lippincott's Monthly Magazine for publication (also in 13 chapters), with all of Wilde's original material intact, first published in 2011 by Harvard University Press; and the 1891 book edition (in 20 Chapters).[3] As literature of the 19th century, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an example of Gothic fiction with strong themes interpreted from Faust.[4]

China Southern logo

The airlines's logo is a red kapok flower on a blue vertical tail fin. it is sometimes known as red silk-cotton; red cotton tree; or ambiguously as silk-cotton or kapok,[2] both of which may also refer to Ceiba pentandra. This Asian tropical tree has a straight tall tree and its leaves are deciduous in winter. Red flowers with 5 petals appear in the spring before the new foliage. It produces a capsule which, when ripe, contains white fibres like cotton. Its trunk bears spikes to deter attacks by animals. Although its stout trunk suggests that it is useful for timber, its wood is too soft to be very useful.

Mind body problem

The mind-body problem is the problem of explaining how mental states, events and processes—like beliefs, actions and thinking—are related to the physical states, events and processes, given that the human body is a physical entity and the mind is non-physical.[1] The problem was addressed by René Descartes in the 17th century, resulting in Cartesian dualism, and by pre-Aristotelian philosophers,[2][3] in Avicennian philosophy,[4] and in earlier Asian traditions. A variety of approaches have been proposed. Most are either dualist or monist. Dualism maintains a rigid distinction between the realms of mind and matter. Monism maintains that there is only one unifying reality, substance or essence in terms of which everything can be explained. Each of these categories contain numerous variants. The two main forms of dualism are substance dualism, which holds that the mind is formed of a distinct type of substance not governed by the laws of physics, and property dualism, which holds that mental properties involving conscious experience are fundamental properties, alongside the fundamental properties identified by a completed physics. The three main forms of monism are physicalism, which holds that the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way; idealism, which holds that only thought truly exists and matter is merely an illusion; and neutral monism, which holds that both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of them. Several philosophical perspectives have been developed which reject the mind-body dichotomy. The historical materialism of Karl Marx and subsequent writers, itself a form of physicalism, held that consciousness was engendered by the material contingencies of one's environment.[5] An explicit rejection of the dichotomy is found in French structuralism, and is a position that generally characterized post-war French philosophy.[6] The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between the non-physical mind and its physical extension has proven problematic to dualism and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body.[7] These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, particularly in the fields of sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology, and the neurosciences.[8][9][10][11]

Gender symbol

The two standard sex symbols denoting male ♂ and female ♀ are derived from astrological symbols, denoting the classical planets Mars and Venus, respectively. These symbols have been in use since the Renaissance[1] also denoting elements in alchemy, specifically the metals iron and copper. They were first used to denote the effective sex of plants (i.e. sex of individual in a given crossbreed, since most plants are hermaphroditic) by Carl Linnaeus in 1751.[2] They are still used in scientific publications to indicate the sex of an individual, for example of a patient.[3] Pedigree charts published in scientific papers now more commonly use a square for male and a circle for female.[4] The shape of the Mars symbol has been likened to an iron-tipped spear (i.e. a weapon mainly used by men) and shape of the Venus symbol to a bronze mirror or a distaff (stereotypically associated with women in former centuries).[citation needed]

sponge off

To wipe or clean the surface of someone or something with or as if with a sponge; To live by relying on the generosity of someone else

Backward integration

Type of vertical integration in which a consumer of raw materials acquires its suppliers, or sets up its own facilities to ensure a more reliable or cost-effective supply of inputs.

Issey Miyake

a Japanese fashion designer and fragrance connoisseur. He is known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances, most notably the "L'eau d Issey" brand scent which became his most iconic product worldwide.

Tag Heuer

a Swiss manufacturing company that designs, manufactures and markets watches and fashion accessories as well as eyewear and mobile phones manufactured under license by other companies and carrying the Tag Heuer brand name.

Brocade

a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and with or without gold and silver threads.

Degustation

a culinary term meaning a careful, appreciative tasting of various foods and focusing on the gustatory system, the senses, high culinary art and good company. Dégustation is more likely to involve sampling small portions of all of a chef's signature dishes in one sitting.

Peach Melba

a dessert of peaches and raspberry sauce with vanilla ice cream. The dish was invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London, to honour the Australian soprano Nellie Melba.[1][2] In 1892, Nellie Melba was performing in Wagner's opera Lohengrin at Covent Garden. The Duke of Orléans gave a dinner party to celebrate her triumph. For the occasion, Escoffier created a new dessert, and to display it, he used an ice sculpture of a swan, which is featured in the opera. The swan carried peaches which rested on a bed of vanilla ice cream and which were topped with spun sugar. In 1900 Escoffier created a new version of the dessert. For the occasion of the opening of the Carlton Hotel, where he was head chef, Escoffier omitted the ice swan and topped the peaches with raspberry purée. Other versions of this dessert use pears, apricots, or strawberries instead of peaches and/or use raspberry sauce or melted redcurrant jelly instead of raspberry purée.[1]

Dhal

a dried pulse (lentil, pea or various types of bean) which has been split. The outer hull is usually stripped off; dal that has not been hulled is described as chilka (skin), e.g. chilka urad dal, mung dal chilka.[1][2] The word dal is also used to name the thick stew prepared from these pulses, an important part of Indian, Nepali, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi cuisine. Dal or lentils is staple food eaten with rice and roti or chapati (wheat-based flat bread) throughout India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal where Dal Bhat (literally: dhal and rice) is the staple food for much of the population. Dal is a ready source of proteins for a balanced diet containing no meat.

Paratha

a flatbread that originated in the north of the Indian Subcontinent. It is still quite prevalent in the north of India, where wheat is grown and is the traditional staple of the area. Paratha is an amalgamation of the words parat and atta which literally means layers of cooked dough.[1] Alternative spellings and names include parantha, parauntha, prontha, parontay, porota (in Bengali), palata (pronounced: [pəlàtà]; in Burma), and farata (in Mauritius, Sri Lanka and the Maldives).

Millet

a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger), with 97% of millet production in developing countries.[1] The crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high-temperature conditions. The most widely grown millet is pearl millet, which is an important crop in India and parts of Africa.[2] Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are also important crop species. In the developed world, millets are less important. For example, in the United States, only proso millet is significant, and it is mostly grown for bird seed.[1] While millets are indigenous to many parts of the world, it is believed that they had an evolutionary origin in tropical western Africa, as that is where the greatest number of both wild and cultivated forms exist.[3] Millets have been important food staples in human history, particularly in Asia and Africa. They have been in cultivation in East Asia for the last 10,000 years.[4]

Garuda

a large bird-like creature, or humanoid bird that appears in both Hinduism and Buddhism. Garuda is the mount (vahana) of the Lord Vishnu. Garuda is the Hindu name for the constellation Aquila. The brahminy kite and phoenix are considered to be the contemporary representations of Garuda.[1] Indonesia adopts a more stylistic approach to the Garuda's depiction as its national symbol, where it depicts a Javanese eagle (being much larger than a kite).[2]

chavismo

a left-wing political ideology that has grown to be described as a cult[1][2][3][4] that is based on the ideas, programs and government style associated with the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.[5] It combines elements of socialism, left-wing populism, patriotism,[6] internationalism,[7] bolivarianism,[8] feminism,[9] green politics,[10] and Caribbean and Latin American integration.[11]

Clarion

a medieval trumpet with clear shrill tones

Apparatchiks

a member of a communist party apparat.

Wallah

a person concerned or involved with a specified thing or business.

spendthrift

a person who spends money in an extravagant, irresponsible way.

Bromide

a phrase or platitude that, having been employed excessively, suggests insincerity or a lack of originality in the speaker.[1] The term "bromide" derives from the antiquated use of bromide salts in medicine as mild tranquilizers and sedatives. Administration of a "bromide" (such as the original Bromo-Seltzer before 1975 in the U.S.) would relieve anxiety and make the patient drowsy.

Legume

a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for their grain seed called pulse, for livestock forage and silage, and as soil-enhancing green manure. Well-known legumes include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupins, mesquite, carob, soybeans, peanuts and tamarind. A legume fruit is a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces (opens along a seam) on two sides. A common name for this type of fruit is a pod, although the term "pod" is also applied to a few other fruit types, such as that of vanilla (a capsule) and of radish (a silique). Legumes are notable in that most of them have symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in structures called root nodules. For that reason, they play a key role in crop rotation.

Autoclave

a pressure chamber used to carry out industrial processes requiring elevated temperature and pressure different from ambient air pressure. Autoclaves are used in medical applications to perform sterilization and in the chemical industry to cure coatings and vulcanize rubber and for hydrothermal synthesis. They are also used in industrial applications, specially regarding composites, see autoclave (industrial). Many autoclaves are used to sterilize equipment and supplies by subjecting them to high pressure saturated steam at 121 °C (249 °F) for around 15-20 minutes depending on the size of the load and the contents.[1] The autoclave was invented by Charles Chamberland in 1879,[2] although a precursor known as the steam digester was created by Denis Papin in 1679.[3] The name comes from Greek auto-, ultimately meaning self, and Latin clavis meaning key, thus a self-locking device.[4]

Parsons School of Design

a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is one of the seven colleges of The New School. Parsons was the first school in the United States to offer programs in fashion design, advertising, interior design, and graphic design.[1] Parsons offers 13 undergraduate bachelor's programs and 17 graduate master's programs, and it is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious art and design schools in the world.[2] It is currently ranked as the #1 art and design school in the United States and #2 in the world, just behind the Royal College of Art in London.[3]

Crest (feathers)

a prominent feature exhibited by several bird and other dinosaur species on their heads.

Boogie

a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm,[2] "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded boogie-woogie song was in 1916.[citation needed] By the 1930s, Swing bands such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Louis Jordan all had boogie hits. By the 1950s, boogie became incorporated into the emerging rockabilly and rock and roll styles. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s country bands released country boogies. Today, the term "boogie" usually refers to dancing to pop, disco, or rock music.

Pot shot

a shot aimed unexpectedly or at random at someone or something with no chance of self-defense. a shot at a game bird or other animal purely to kill it for food, without regard to the rules of the sport.

coterie

a small group of people with shared interests or tastes, especially one that is exclusive of other people.

Androcracy

a social system ruled or dominated by men.

Dacoity ("duh-koy-tee")

a term used for "banditry" in Bengali, Hindi, Kannada and Urdu. The spelling is the anglicized version of the Hindustani word and as a colloquial Anglo-Indian word with this meaning, it appears in the Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases (1903).[1] Banditry is criminal activity involving robbery by groups of armed bandits. The East India Company established the Thuggee and Dacoity Department in 1830, and the Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts, 1836-1848 were enacted in British India under East India Company rule. Areas with ravines or forests, such as Chambal and Chilapata Forests, were once known for dacoits.

Distaff

a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly used to hold flax, and sometimes wool, but can be used for any type of fiber. Fiber is wrapped around the distaff, and tied in place with a piece of ribbon or string. The word comes from dis in Low German, meaning a bunch of flax, connected with staff. As an adjective, the term distaff is used to describe the female side of a family.

Shamisen

a traditional Japanese three-stringed lute with a square body, played with a large plectrum.

Vermicelli ("verm-uh-chell-ie")

a traditional type of pasta round in section similar to spaghetti.[1] In Italy vermicelli is slightly thicker than spaghetti but in the United States it is instead slightly thinner.

Boudoir

a woman's private sitting room or salon in a furnished accommodation usually between the dining room and the bedroom, but can also refer to a woman's private bedroom. The term derives from the French verb bouder to sulk, or boudeur sulk or sulking, and originally was a room for sulking in, to put away or withdraw to.[1] The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) in his literary works helped develop a reputation in this small room dedicated to the privacy of female talks. Since the success of his book Philosophy in the Bedroom, the small sitting room or salon has a sulphurous and scandalous reputation combined with those of all exchanges and frolics.

Twinings

an English marketer of tea, based in Andover, Hampshire. The brand is owned by Associated British Foods. It holds the world's oldest continually-used company logo, and is London's longest-standing rate-payer, having occupied the same premises on the Strand since 1706.[1]

vermouth

an aromatized wine, a type of fortified wine flavored with various botanicals (roots, barks, flowers, seeds, herbs, spices). An aromatised wine (also spelled 'aromatized') is a fortified wine or mistelle that has been flavoured with herbs, spices, fruit or other natural flavourings. It must have a minimum alcohol content of 14.5% by volume and a maximum alcohol content of 22% by volume according to EU law Council Regulation (EEC) No 1601/91.[1] The majority of older brands come from France and Italy but there are now a range of small 'craft' producers around the world.

Terrace

an external, raised, open, flat area in either a landscape (such as a park or garden) near a building,[1] or as a roof terrace on a flat roof.[2]

Imbroglio ("im-bro-lee-oh")

an extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation.

Barmy

another term for balmy

Kolhapuri chappal

are Indian hand-crafted leather slippers that are locally tanned using vegetable dyes. Kolhapuri Chappals or Kolhapuris as they are commonly referred to are a style of open-toed, T-strap sandal which originated from Kolhapur, a southern district in the state of Maharashtra.

At loggerheads

at loggerheads, which usually functions as a predicate adjective, means in a dispute. Its origins are mysterious. Loggerhead originally referred to a stupid person, and in the 17th century it took a new definition—thick-headed iron tool. When at loggerheads came about soon thereafter, it may have referred to the use of loggerheads as weapons in fights. In any case, at loggerheads (loggerheads is always plural in the idiom) now implies harsh disagreement but not necessarily violence. The idiom is likely British in origin, and it is used most frequently in British English, but it does appear in all major varieties of English.

By way of

by way of; by the route of; through; via.

guava

common tropical fruits cultivated and enjoyed in many tropical and subtropical regions. Psidium guajava (common guava, lemon guava) is a small tree in the Myrtle family (Myrtaceae), native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. Although related species may also be called guavas, they actually belong to other genera, such as the "pineapple guava" Acca sellowiana.

comity ("come-ity")

courtesy and considerate behavior toward others.

Cretaceous

defined as the period between 145.5 and 65.5 million years ago,* the last period of the Mesozoic Era, following the Jurassic and ending with the extinction of the dinosaurs (except birds).

Parlous

full of danger or uncertainty; precarious.

plenipotentiaries

has two meanings. As a noun, it refers to a person who has "full powers." In particular, the term commonly refers to a diplomat fully authorized to represent a government as a prerogative (e.g., ambassador). As an adjective, plenipotentiary refers to something—an edict, assignment, etc.—that confers "full powers."[1]

In hock

having been pawned.

Monads

in cosmogony (creation theories) to the first being, divinity, or the totality of all beings. The concept was reportedly conceived by the Pythagoreans and may refer variously to a single source acting alone and/or an indivisible origin. The concept was later adopted by other philosophers, such as Leibniz, who referred to the monad as an elementary particle. It had a geometric counterpart, which was debated and discussed contemporaneously by the same groups of people. In functional programming, a monad is a structure that represents computations defined as sequences of steps: a type with a monad structure defines what it means to chain operations, or nest functions of that type together. This allows the programmer to build pipelines that process data in a series of steps (also called actions), in which each action is decorated with additional processing rules provided by the monad.[1] Monads allow a programming style where programs are written by putting together highly composable parts. As such, monads have been described as "programmable semicolons"; a semicolon is the operator used to chain together individual statements in many imperative programming languages,[1] thus the expression implies that extra code will be executed between the statements in the pipeline. Monads have also been explained with a physical metaphor as assembly lines, where a conveyor belt transports data between functional units that transform it one step at a time.[2] They can also be seen as a functional design pattern to build generic types.[3] Purely functional programs can use monads to structure procedures that include sequenced operations like those found in structured programming.[4][5] Many common programming concepts can be described in terms of a monad structure without losing the beneficial property of referential transparency, including side effects such as input/output, variable assignment, exception handling, parsing, nondeterminism, concurrency, continuations, or domain-specific languages. This allows these concepts to be defined in a purely functional manner, without major extensions to the language's semantics. Languages like Haskell provide monads in the standard core, allowing programmers to reuse large parts of their formal definition and apply in many different libraries the same interfaces for combining functions.[6] A monad is created by defining a type constructor M and two operations, bind and return (where return is often also called unit): The return operation takes a value from a plain type and puts it into a container using the constructor, creating a monadic value: M a. The bind operation ">>=" takes as its arguments a monadic value M a and a function (a → M b) that can transform the value. The bind operator unwraps the plain value a embedded in its input monadic value M a, and feeds it to the function. The function then creates a new monadic value M b that can be fed to the next bind operators composed in the pipeline. With these elements, the programmer composes a sequence of function calls (the "pipeline") with several bind operators chained together in an expression. Each function call transforms its input plain type value, and the bind operator handles the returned monadic value, which is fed into the next step in the sequence. Between each pair of composed function calls, the bind operator can inject into the monadic value some additional information that is not accessible within the function, and pass it along. It can also exert finer control of the flow of execution, for example by conditionally calling the function only under some conditions, or executing the function calls in a particular order. For example, the following code defines a binary operator x//y as safe division that avoids dividing by zero, using the constructors of the Maybe monad Nothing and Just.[a] The monadic values x and y are extracted into the plain values a and b, which are processed by the plain division operator "/" only when b is not zero.

zany ("zay-nee")

ludicrously or whimsically comical; clownish.

Auditory

of or relating to the sense of hearing.

Jarawa (Andaman Islands)

one of the Adivasi indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands in India. Their present numbers are estimated at between 250-400 individuals. Since they have largely shunned interactions with outsiders, many particulars of their society, culture and traditions are poorly understood. Their name means "people of the earth" or "hostile people" in Aka-Bea. Along with other indigenous Andamanese peoples, they have inhabited the islands for at least several thousand years[citation needed], and most likely a great deal longer. The Andaman Islands have been known to outsiders since antiquity; however, until quite recent times they were infrequently visited, and such contacts were predominantly sporadic and temporary. For the greater portion of their history their only significant contact has been with other Andamanese groups; the experience of such a lengthy period of isolation almost completely lacking in external cultural influences is equalled by few other groups in the world.[citation needed] There is some indication that the Jarawa regarded the now-extinct Jangil tribe as a parent tribe from which they split centuries or millennia ago, even though the Jarawa outnumbered (and eventually out-survived) the Jangil.[2] The Jangil (also called the Rutland Island Aka Bea) were presumed extinct by 1931.[3]

Exigent

pressing; demanding.

Kapos

prisoner functionary (German: Funktionshäftling, see § Etymology) was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp who was assigned by the SS guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks in the camp.

Kibosh ("kai-bosh")

put an end to; dispose of decisively.

Depilate ("dep-uh-late")

remove the hair from

Crestfallen

sad and disappointed; having a drooping crest or hanging head

Doddering

shaky or trembling, as from old age; tottering:

Daft

silly; foolish.

Dilatory ("dill-uh-torie")

slow to act.

prim

stiffly formal and respectable; feeling or showing disapproval of anything regarded as improper.

Denude

strip (something) of its covering, possessions, or assets; make bare.

obloquy ("awb-lah-kwee")

strong public criticism or verbal abuse.

specious

superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

arrogate

take or claim (something) without justification.

Protean

tending or able to change frequently or easily. able to do many different things; versatile.

Turbidity

the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality

Sahel

the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south. Having a semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The Arabic word sāḥil (ساحل) literally means "shore, coast", describing the appearance of the vegetation found in the Sahel as being akin to that of a coastline delimiting the sand of the Sahara. The Sahel covers (from west to east) parts of northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger, the extreme north of Nigeria, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and extreme north of Ethiopia.[2]

Grand mufti

the highest official of religious law in a Sunni or Ibadi Muslim country. The Grand Mufti issues legal opinions and edicts, fatāwā, on interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases. The collected opinions of the Grand Mufti serve as a valuable source of information on the practical application of Islamic law as opposed to its abstract formulation. The Grand Mufti's fatāwā (plural of "fatwā") are not binding precedents in areas of civil laws regulating marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In criminal courts, the Grand Mufti's recommendations are generally not binding either.

Frugality

the quality of being economical with money or food; thriftiness.

Rapine ("rap-in")

the violent seizure of someone's property; plunder

callback hell

when you have a bunch of nested callback functions