Distaff.
1. A cleft staff about 3 feet long, on which, in the ancient mode of spinning, wool or flax was wound.
2.The staff or ‘rock’ of a hand spinning-wheel, upon which the flax to be spun is placed.
3. As the type of women’s work or occupation. Hence, symbolically, for the female sex, female authority or dominion; also, the female branch of a family; a female heir.
Image: William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), Girl with spindle and distaff. (Spindle on left, distaff on right.)
Purlicue.
1. Space between extended forefinger and thumb.
2. Flourish at end of a handwritten word.
3. A discourse, especially its summary.
Numpty.
1. A stupid person; an idiot.
2. A bumbling fool or one who is intellectually challenged.
3. Someone who (sometimes unwittingly) demonstrates a lack of knowledge or misconception of a subject or situation to the amusement of others.
4. A reckless, absent minded or unwise person.
5. A good humoured admonition, a term of endearment.
Originally Scots dialect.
In 2007 numpty was voted Scotland’s favourite word.
Chimera.
1. A fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail, killed by Bellerophon.
2. A grotesque monster, formed of the parts of various animals.
3. An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere wild fancy; an unfounded conception.
4. An organism (commonly a plant) in which tissues of genetically different constitution co-exist as a result of grafting, mutation, or some other process.
5. A horrible and fear-inspiring phantasm, a bogy.
6. Any fish of the family Chimæridæ.
Circumbendibus.
(noun) A roundabout process or method; a twist, turn; circumlocution.
[A humorous formation from circum- + bend, with the ending of a Latin ablative plural. The first quoted use given by the OED is by Dryden is 1681.]
Zariba or Zareba.
In the Sudan and adjacent parts of Africa, a fence or enclosure, usually constructed of thorn-bushes, for defence against the attacks of enemies or wild beasts.
A fenced or fortified camp.
A formation of troops for defence against attack.
Cundy.
[Northern England and Scottish dialect]
A conduit, covered drain or culvert.
Persiflage
Light banter or frivolous talk; a frivolous manner of treating any subject.
Also a variety of modern cultivated lily.
Dzong.
A religious and/or governmental centre in one of the Buddhist kingdoms of the Himalayas (Bhutan and Tibet). A Buddhist monastery. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of courtyards, temples, administrative offices and monks’ accommodation.
Palimpsest.
A parchment or other writing-material written upon twice, the original writing having been erased or rubbed out to make place for the second; a manuscript in which a later writing is written over an effaced earlier writing.