pinchbeck: something counterfeit; an imitation
Carley didn’t need an expert jeweler to tell her that her boyfriend’s engagement ring was a knock-off, as the “gold” turned her fingers green and the pinchbeck diamond started to melt in the humidity.
quantal: relating to, or having only two experimental alternatives
Daryl’s career, and quite possibly his survival, was quantal of him perfectly landing a fifty-foot jump over a shark tank full of rabid badgers on a specially modified, nitro-powered unicycle; the fact that he had agreed to do it while carrying a basket of poisonous snakes lead some to believe that this would probably be his last stunt either way.
malacissation: the process of making something soft and pliable
Gwen screamed as she scraped the grimy dish that she had left soaking all morning, as it did not seem to show any signs of malacissation to the two-week-old crust of petrified macaroni that lay clinging the sides of her favorite casserole dish like barnacles on a ship’s hull.
cacozelia: studied affectation in diction or style.
After learning that some of his former classmates had gone on to become doctors and lawyers, Nelson sought to impress everybody at his high school reunion with a speech that was an exercise in cacozelia and featured no less than ten obtuse allusions to pre-classical literature, a dozen phrases in Latin and Greek, and a peppering of incomprehensible acronyms and technobabble.
heterodox: Contrary to or differing from some acknowledged standard. Holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines.
James found himself ostracized from the rest of the Gilligan’s Island fan club because of his heterodox theories about the crew of the S.S. Minnow being abducted by aliens to be studied in an intergalactic space-zoo; also, he thought Mary Ann was hotter than Ginger.
alexipharmacon: an antidote for poison
Mario rifled through his refrigerator, searching for an
to the blistering heat from the Guatemalan insanity pepper that was currently threatening to peel off his taste buds.
seriatim: One after another; in a series
It was part of Randolph’s pre-game ritual to open a bag of gummy bears, sort them by color order in the spectrum of visible light, and eat the whole lot of them seriatim.
quidnunc : One who is curious to know everything that passes
Two weeks after Betty-June retired from her job at the Tresstaurant, the hairdressing quidnunc found herself returning daily to her former employ so she could catch up on the latest in scandals.
thaumaturgist: a performer of miracles ; especially : magician
As she circled the mall parking lot for the third time, Sandy wished she had a thaumaturgist on speed-dial who could conjure her up a parking spot somewhere in this zip code so she could get some last minute shopping done.
apricate: To bask in the sun.
After learning of the phenomenon of midnight sun, Johnson booked a trip to Greenland so he could apricate for three days straight while gorging himself on halibut and reindeer meat.