Orangutangents

Words That Sit in a Corner 11

And so we reach the end of these for now. I've loved researching this, they've been great fun to do. And thank you for all your responses.

ulu - a short-handled knife with a broad crescent-shaped blade, used by Inuit women.

umbriferous - shady

uncinate - (of a part of the body) having a hooked shape

uniped - a person or animal with only one foot or leg (was it Voyage of the Dawn Treader that had the one footed fellas who slept under the shade of their toes?)

uroboros - a circular symbol depicting a snake (or a dragon) swallowing its tail, intended as an emblem of wholeness or infinity

ustad - Indian an expert or highly skilled person, especially a musician

vagarious - erratic and unpredictable in behaviour or direction

velleity - a wish or inclination which is not strong enough to lead one to take action (new year's resolutions for example)

verjuice - a sour juice obtained from crab apples or unripe grapes (meant to be great in cookery)

vicinal - neighbouring or adjacent

vidiot - N. Amer. informal a habitual, undiscriminating watcher of television or videotapes (probably also applies to Netflix these days, I can waste days of my life on there)

vomitous - N. Amer. nauseating or repulsive

wabbit - Scottish exhausted or slightly unwell (Elmer Fudd was feeling sick?)

waitron - N. Amer. a waiter or waitress

wakeboarding - the sport of riding on a short, wide board while being towed behind a motor boat

wayzgoose - an annual summer party and outing that used to be held by a printing house for all its employees

winebibber - a heavy drinker

wish book - N. Amer. informal a mail-order catalogue

wittol - a man who knows of and tolerates his wife's infidelity

woopie - an affluent retired person able to pursue an active lifestyle, from the initials of well-off older person (I quite like the sound of a lot of woopie when I hit retirement)

wowser - chiefly Austral./NZ a puritanical, prudish person or a killjoy

xenology - the scientific study of extraterrestrial phenomena

ylem - in big bang theory, the primordial matter of the universe

zetetic - proceeding by inquiry or investigation

zoolatry - the worship of animals

zopissa - a medicinal preparation made from wax and pitch scraped from the sides of ships (this sounds like the early version of 'take two of these and bugger off')

zorro - a South American kind of fox (usually armed with a sword)

Zyrian - a former term for Komi, a language spoken in an area of Russia west of the Urals; at present the last entry in the Oxford English Dictionary

Zzzzz....