Twelve Words for a Word Searcher’s Vocabulary #8

Gracious speech is like clover honey—good taste to the soul, quick energy for the body. ~ Proverbs 16:24 (MSG)

When I can’t sleep at night, I get up and read a couple of chapters of whatever book I’m enjoying. After that, I try to bore myself to sleep by doing a few word search puzzles. 

This usually does the trick–until I come across words I don’t know. Here’s a list of them. Do you know their meaning? 

1. bismuth – a) gray and overcast; b) brittle, grayish-white metallic element; c) standing ovation; d) grandiose
2. coeval – a) equally old; b) architectural detail; c) hut built over a mine shaft; d) wide and shallow
3. drupe – a) ancient alphabet; b) to doubt; c) to hang on or over; d) any fruit with an outer skin, pulpy middle, and hard inner shell
4. fipple – a) indecisive; b) block that forms a flue in wind instruments; c) type of dwarf tree; d) public disturbance
5. jaggery – a) sharp protrusion; b) sugar made from the sap of a date palm; c) unrestrained indulgence; d) latest Rolling Stones album title
6. muntin – a) aged; b) flesh of a mature sheep used for food;) playfully mean or cruel; d) strip separating panes of glass in a sash
7. nitid – a) idiot-like; b) handmade; c) bright and lustrous; d) infected by the egg of a louse or other parasitic insect
8. piggin – a) small wooden pail; b) newborn pigs; c) type of fastener; d) type of English pudding
9. rondelle – a) type of French cheese; b) vegan casserole; c) circular jewel; d) type of saw
10. scow – a) look of disapproval; b) jurisdiction over a territory or over people; c) large flat-bottomed boat with broad square ends; d) fist fight
11. twite – a) beyond a shadow of a doubt; b) small finch; c) stomach of a ruminant; d) to flutter about
12. valgus – a) essential amino acid; b) earthly or mortal; c) not easily discerned; d) knock-kneed or bowlegged

Have you chosen the correct definition? Can you use the words in a sentence? Scroll down to see how you did.

1. b) Bismuth: a brittle, grayish-white, red-tinged, metallic element used in the manufacture of fusible alloys and in medicine
2. a) Coeval: of the same age, date, or duration; equally old
3. d) Drupe: any fruit, as a peach, cherry, plum, etc., consisting of an outer skin, usually a pulpy and succulent middle layer, and a hard and woody inner shell, usually enclosing a single seed
4. b) Fipple: a wooden block that forms a flue at the mouth end of certain musical instruments
5. b) Jaggery: a coarse, dark sugar, especially that made from the sap of East Indian (date) palm trees
6. d) Muntin: a strip separating panes of glass in a sash
7. c) Nitid: bright and lustrous
8.  a) Piggin: a small wooden pail with one stave extended upward as a handle
9. c) Rondelle: a circular object; especially a circular jewel or jeweled ring
10. c) Scow: a large flat-bottomed boat with broad square ends used chiefly for transporting bulk material (as ore, sand, or refuse)
11. b) Twite: a small finch, Carduelis flavirostris, of northern Europe, having streaked brown plumage and, in the male, a pink breast
12. d) Valgus: an abnormally turned position of a part of the bone structure of a human being, especially of the leg. Bowlegged, knock-kneed, or the like

Jumping for joy over your score?

10-12  May I call you in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep?

07-09 When you speak, do blank faces stare back at you?

04-06 My kind of person!

00-03  I don’t think you’re trying very hard.