carrow: (n) Irish itinerant gambler; a kind of people that wander up and down to gentlemen's houses, living only upon cards and dice.
fossick: (v) 1. To search for gold by digging out crevices with knife or pick, or by working in washing-places and abandoned workings in the hope of finding particles or small nuggets overlooked by others.
2. To rummage or hunt about; to search.
3. To dig out, to hunt up (something).
tumulus: (n) An ancient sepulchral mound, a barrow.
pinery: (n) 1. A place in which pineapples are grown.
2. A plantation or grove of pine trees.
prandial: (adj) Of or relating to dinner or dining; relating to or occurring during a meal.
kistvaen: (n) A sepulchral chest or chamber excavated in rock or formed of stones or hollowed tree-trunks; esp. a stone-coffin formed of slabs placed on edge, and covered on the top by one or more horizontal slabs.
clitter: A mass of loose boulders or shattered stones; so called on Dartmoor. Also called a 'clatter'.
scurf: (n) 1. A morbid condition of the skin, esp. of the head, characterized by the separation of branny scales, without inflammation; also A similar condition in animals.
2. The scales or small laminæ of epidermis that are continually being detached from the skin; esp. such scales detached in abnormally large quantity as a consequence of disease, or forming accumulations at the roots of the hair or elsewhere. Formerly also, a single scale or lamina of this kind.
3. Minute scales found on the leaves of certain plants.
4. Any incrustation upon the surface of a body; rust, a scab (obs.); a saline or sulphurous deposit, mould, or the like.
5. A deposit of coke on the inner surface of a gas retort.
6. A thin layer of turf.
7. The ‘scum’ of the population; also contemptible person, esp. a miser, skinflint. Also spec., an employer who pays less than the usual rate of wages; a labourer who accepts less than the usual rate;
macadamise: (v) 1. Originally: to make or repair (a road) according to McAdam's method. In modern use: to cover (an unmade road, etc.) with tarmacadam. [McAdam's method for repairing roads used a consolidated subsoil, only slightly cambered, on which were laid two layers of cleaned, uniformly small pieces of broken stone. The first layer was to be consolidated (originally by the passage of traffic) before the next was put down. He did not approve of the placing of any kind of foundation under the layers of stone, of the use of sand or gravel as binding material, or of the smoothing of the surface by heavy rollers; the term ‘macadamizing’, however, is now used for methods involving some or all of these practices.
Thomas Telford, McAdam's contemporary and fellow Scot, was active in road-building at the same time. His methods were generally superior, but McAdam's were less costly to implement. McAdam also publicized his system very effectively.]
2. To make (a way, etc.) level, even, or smooth; to raze.
3. To break up (stone) into small pieces suitable for use as road metal; fig., to break up (something hard or stony) into pieces.
tarmacadam: (n) A mixed material for making roads, consisting of some kind of broken stone or ironstone slag in a matrix of tar alone, or of tar with some mixture of pitch or creosote.
NOTE: Hence, TARMAC. Amazing. You learn something new every day.
shallop: (n) 1. A large, heavy boat, fitted with one or more masts and carrying fore-and-aft or lug sails and sometimes furnished with guns; a sloop.
2. A boat, propelled by oars or by a sail, for use in shallow waters or as a means of effecting communication between, or landings from, vessels of a large size, a dinghy.
varlet: (n) (Apparently a corruption of 'valet') 1. A man or lad acting as an attendant or servant; a menial, a groom.
2. An attendant on a knight or other person of military importance.
3. A person of a low, mean, or knavish disposition; a knave, rogue, rascal.
4. Employed as an abusive form of address.
5. The knave in cards.
gibbet: 1. Originally synonymous with GALLOWS n., but in later use signifying an upright post with projecting arm from which the bodies of criminals were hung in chains or irons after execution.
2. The punishment of death by hanging.
3. A short beam projecting from a wall, having a pulley fixed at the end.
4. The projecting arm of a crane; also called JIB.
5. In Scotland, A chimney crane for hanging a pot over the fire.
6. A cudgel.
potboiler: (n) 1. A person who boils a pot;
2. An artistic, literary, or other creative work produced solely to make the originator a living by catering to popular taste, without regard to artistic quality; esp. such a work produced by an artist, writer, etc., of otherwise recognized merit.
3. An artist, writer, etc., who produces such works.
4. A stone heated in a fire and then placed in a container of water to boil it.
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