Words That Sit in a Corner 3

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I'm probably enjoying doing these odd word skits a little too much, but I can't help myself. The Scots in particular in G and H seems to have provided a glut of wonderful words...

gaberlunzie - Scottish archaic a beggar

galligaskins - a type of loose breeches worn in the 16th and 17th centuries (your gallis always need room to swing after all)

gasconade - extravagant boasting

glabrous - (of skin) hairless or (of a leaf) having no down (well there we are, I never knew I was glabrous)

glaikit - Scottish & N. English stupid, foolish, or thoughtless

gnathic - having to do with the jaws

gobemouche - a gullible or credulous listener

guddle - Scottish to fish with one's hands by groping under the stones or banks of a stream (the English seem to tickle fish)

habile - deft or skilful (particularly when guddling)

hallux - Anatomy the big toe

haruspex - a religious official in ancient Rome who inspected the entrails of sacrificial animals in order to foretell the future (presumably you need your spex on to see the future, you ain't gonna get those at Specsavers...)

hoddy-noddy - a foolish person (I prefer numpty)

hoggin - a mixture of sand and gravel, used especially in road-building (not the porcine version of doggin')

hongi - a traditional Maori greeting or salutation made by pressing or touching noses (which I still think is one of the sweetest greetings in the world, no exchange of saliva, merely a mutual bogey session)

howff - Scottish a favourite meeting place or haunt, especially a pub (how to try and describe a pub, or anything else for that matter, after drinking to much Whisky)

humdudgeon - an imaginary illness (like man flu)

hunt-and-peck - using only one or two fingers on a computer keyboard 

hwyl - a stirring feeling of emotional motivation and energy which is associated with the Welsh people (only prounouncable properly if you're Welsh)

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