gwynhefar | Definitions

coddle: (v) 1. To boil gently, parboil, stew (esp. fruit).
2. To roast (apples, peas, etc.) in the oven.

parboil: (v) 1. To boil thoroughly. (obsolete)
2. To boil partiall, half-boil.
3. In figurative or hyperbolical use, usually in reference to overheating.

I find it amusing that the same word can mean both to over-boil and to under-boil.

lenticular: (adj) Having the form of a lens or a lentil; resembling a lens or lentil in form; double convex.

fictile: (adj) 1. Capable of being moulded, suitable for making pottery.
2. Moulded into form by art; made of earth, clay, etc. by a potter.
3. Of or pertaining to the manufacture of earthenware, etc.; having to do with pottery.

caravansarai, caravansary: (n) A kind of inn in Eastern countries where caravans put up, being a large quadrangular building with a spacious court in the middle.

crotchet: (n) A whimsical fancy; a perverse conceit; a peculiar notion on some point (usually considered unimportant) held by an individual in opposition to common opinion.

Hence, "crotchety". Wonderful how these things make sense.

oakum: (n) Originally, the coarse woody fibres (hurds or tow) separated from the finer fibres of flax or hemp; clippings, trimmings, shreds; later esp. loosely twisted fibres obtained chiefly by untwisting and picking old hemp rope; such fibres or the like, used as a caulking material for the seams of wooden ships, the joints of pipes, etc. and formerly sometimes in dressing wounds.

hurds, hards: (n. pl) The coarser parts of flax or hemp separated in hackling.

tow: (n) 1. The unworked stem or fibre of flax, before it is heckled.
2. The fibre of flax, hemp, or jute prepared for spinning by some process of scutching.
3. More strictly, the shorter fibres of flax or hemp, which are separated by heckling from the fine and long-stapled, called line.
4. A bundle of untwisted natural or manmade fibres.

Hence, "tow-headed" -- with hair resembling flax or hemp fibres, either in colour or in general disarray.

hackle, heckle: (v) To dress (flax or hemp) with the hackle, whereby the fibres are split, straightened, and combed out, so as to be in condition for spinning. Also used of dressing the hair in wigmaking.
(n) An instrument set with parallel steel pins for splitting and combing out the fibres of flax or hemp; a flax-comb.

scutching: (v) the action of dressing fibrous material (flax, hemp, cotton, silk, wool) by beating; the process of beating flax stalks to get rid of the straw and prepare the fibre for hackling; the similar operation applied to hemp, cotton, silk, etc.

plectrum: (n) A small instrument of ivory, horn, quill, or metal, with which the strings of the cithara or lyre were plucked; now used for playing wire-strung instruments, as the zither, guitar, or mandolin.

cithara: (n) A musical instrument of triangular shape with from seven to eleven strings, not unlike the lyre or phorminx.

phorminx: (n) A stringed instrument of the harp class; a kind of cithara or lyre used by the ancient Greeks as an accompaniment to the voice.

somerset: (n) somersault.

epaulet: (n) 1. A shoulder-piece; an ornament worn on the shoulder as part of a military, naval, or sometimes a civil uniform.