Balzac cock-a-leekie cockchafer dongle futtock puckfist

[underpants]

assonance
A crappy rhyme where only the vowels match, like "poop chute."

Balzac
A 19th-century French novelist.

cock-a-leekie
A Scottish soup made with capons and leeks. Usage: "I certainly had my fill of cock-a-leekie that day."

cockchafer
A maybug, or May beetle. One of those words, when you find out what it means, you try to work into every conversation, as in, "I think there's a cockchafer on that windowsill." Because it appears in the English translation of an Aloysius Bertrand poem (which is itself inspired by a line in Faust) on which Ravel set a piano piece, I got to use this word in program notes for my second semester piano recital in undergrad. Martha Argerich's recording of this piece is amazing.

dongle
An early copy protection hardware device, required by some games in order to play. Nowadays, just about any stupid little accessory needed for a peripheral to function correctly, like a special connector.

futtock
A curved piece of wood that makes up the bottom of a ship.

hairy woodpecker
A woodpecker with a large, long beak.


puckfist
An arrogant jerk, or a puffball of spores. Somehow this word reminds me of that story on the Onion about the mom who is just learning to curse, but occasionally screws up. Also, I can't seem to find the "arrogant jerk" definition on the web, but that's the first definition I learned, and I'm sticking with it.



quondam
Former.

[redqueen]

1. futtock is my new favorite word

thanks :)