Alright, you wordsmiths, let's see how many of these you get!
1. Badmash
a) A hooligan or evildoer. Brought to the UK from India.
b) Treacherous or boggy conditions found on moorland.
c) The spoil from a potato crop.
2. Bashment
a) A large dance or party, originated in the West Indies.
b) A severe or prolonged physical attack. First used in Elizabethan England.
c) The area of turf or underbrush trampled by advancing troops. Now exists as the phrase for marching practice “square bashing”.
3. Boffola
a) The offspring of domesticated cattle that have mated with North American buffalo or European bison.
b) A bribe offered in return for a boxer or wrestler to throw a bout.
c) A joke which gets a loud or hearty laugh.
4. Burnsides
a) Hot-tasting pod of the Capsicum anuum first imported to the UK in the 17th Century and soon becoming fashionable in the cooking of that era.
b) A moustache and whisker combination popularised by General Ambrose Burnside (1824-81).
c) The brick steps built into grand Victorian chimneys to give footing to child sweeps.
5. Flocculent
a) An extreme state of distress and anger.
b) To suffer from excessive generation of mucus or phlegm.
c) An object made from, having or resembling tufts of wool.
6. Gyre
a) A small grey-headed member of the crow family, greatly prized on the Tudor dinner table. Now more commonly called a Jackdaw.
b) To whirl or “gyrate”. Eg: “The slithy tothes did gyre and gimble.” L. Carroll, Jabberwocky.
c) The heap of combustible material used as a base for Norse funeral fires.
7. Inunct
a) The act of applying an ointment to something or someone.
b) To restore or resurrect an obsolete, broken or “defunct” item or custom.
c) To garble or mispronounce a word.
8. Oxter
a) A spit or skewer to cook meat. From the Norse “oxen turn”.
b) The Old English for armpit. The word’s use persisted in Scotland and northern England.
c) A 19th Century ne’r do well or ruffian, originating in London’s East End.
9. Patulous
a) A comment, quip or putdown obviously prepared in advance. Supposedly coined by Oscar Wilde’s protégé Lord Alfred “Bosie" Douglas.
b) A rare and poetic adjective for ‘spreading’. Eg: “Underneath the patulous chestnut tree.”
c) To be bulky or corpulent. Eg: “Augustus Snodgrass is as gouty and patulous a fellow as I,” said Mr. Pickwick. C. Dickens, The Pickwick Papers.
10. Wabbit
a) To feel exhausted or ever so slightly unwell. Of uncertain origin, but used mostly in Scotland.
b) A North American rodent hunted to extinction in the 1950s. Eg: “Sssh! I’m hunting wabbit.”
c) A popular dance of the 1920s which combined waltz steps with a small jump on every fourth beat.
Answers:
1:A
2:A
3:C
4:B
5:C
6:B
7:A
8:B
9:B
10:A
How did you do?:
0-3: I hope you’re erubescent at such a nescient performance.
4-6: You require adscititious study if you are to escape being branded a hoddy-noddy.
7-10: Your grasp of the arcane is coruscant, but don’t get too orgulous about it.
Source: BBC
Expatbrit