Only a few more of these to go now, but they've been great fun, and my task this week is to try and work 'shallop' into conversation somewhere...
ragtop - a convertible car with a soft roof (a friend of mine had a duct tape top, as the rags had long disintegrated)
ratite - (of a bird such as the ostrich or emu) unable to fly because of having a flat breastbone, to which no flight muscles are attached
rawky - foggy, damp, and cold
razzia - a raid carried out by Moors in North Africa
rebirthing - a form of therapy involving controlled breathing and intended to simulate the trauma of being born (ooh, sounds like fun, book me a session. Not)
resurrection man - a person who, in past times, illicitly exhumed corpses from burial grounds and sold them to anatomists for dissection
retiform - resembling a net
rhinoplasty - plastic surgery performed on the nose (or patching up a hole in a rhino's horn)
rubiginous - rust-coloured (try using that description on your next visit to the garage)
rubricate - to add elaborate capital letters (typically red ones) or other decorations to a manuscript
rude boy - Jamaican a lawless or rebellious unemployed urban youth who likes ska or reggae music
rug rat - N. Amer. a child
rumpot - N. Amer. a habitual or heavy drinker (I prefer a whisky myself)
sangoma - a traditional healer or witch doctor in southern Africa
sarmie - S. African informal a sandwich (it's a sarnie here in the UK)
saucier - a sauce chef (or possibly something to do with 50 shades)
saudade - a feeling of longing or melancholy that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament
scofflaw - a person who flouts the law
screenager - a person in their teens or twenties who has an aptitude for using computers and the Internet
scrippage - one's baggage and personal belongings
selkie - Scottish a mythical sea creature like a seal in water but human on land
serac - a pinnacle or ridge of ice on the surface of a glacier
sesquipedalian - of a word, having many syllables, or of a piece of writing using many long words (like that one for example)
shallop - a light sailing boat used chiefly for coastal fishing (shalloping for scallops...)
shamal - a hot, dry north-westerly wind that blows across the Persian Gulf in summer and causes sandstorms
shavetail - US military slang a newly commissioned officer, or any inexperienced person
shippon - Brit. dialect a cattle shed
shofar - a ram's-horn trumpet used in Jewish religious ceremonies and, in ancient times, to sound a battle signal
skanky - N. Amer. informal revolting
YOU ARE READING
Orangutangents
RandomEverybody is somebody else's weirdo: I suspect I may be many people's. Consider this a brain dump, or indeed a Brian dump given the misspelled pseudo-entity who lives in my skull. Tangential thoughts, comments, ideas, and general Brianisms from the...
