Disambiguate

   
To disambiguate means to remove the ambiguity from; make unambiguous: In order to disambiguate the sentence “She lectured on the famous passenger ship,” you'll have to write either “lectured on board” or “lectured about.”

(Thanks to Dictionary.com for the example.)

Matutinal

   
I am always at my bestv in the matutinal hours.

Matutinal is an adjective meaning pertaining to or occurring in the morning; early in the day. It comes from the Latin matutinalis which meant early or beloning to the morning. Matut was a Goddess of the Dawn.

Matutemia or matutemea is mrning sickness or morning vomiting during pregnancy.

Goose

 
I guess most people are aware that a goose is a big fluffy, feathery thing that either floats around lakes or sits in gravy at Christmas. Technically - A large waterbird (esp. the genera Anser and Branta), with a long neck, short legs, webbed feet, and a short broad bill. Generally geese are larger than ducks and have longer necks and shorter bills.

Goose can be used specifically to mean the female of the bird whose male is called a gander.

But how many of its other meanings are you aware of?

A simpleton.

Anything that energizes, strengthens, or the like: to give the economy a badly needed goose.

A tailor's smoothing iron with a curved handle.

An obsolete board game played with dice and counters in which a player whose cast falls in a square containing the picture of a goose is allowed to advance double the number of his or her throw.

Goose are also a Belgian electro rock band. Bet you didn't know that one!

To goose (slang) - to poke someone between the buttocks.

To goose - to prod or urge to action or an emotional reaction.

To goose - to strengthen or improve (often followed by up ): Let's goose up the stew with some wine.

To goose - to increase; raise (often followed by up ): to goose up government loans in weak industries.

To goose - to give a spurt of fuel to (a motor) to increase speed.

Goose - an affectionate term for a close member of the opposite sex (or a younger member of one's own) - often meaning that they were silly but in a pleasant way.

Sayings:-

To cook someone's goose - to ruin someone's hopes, plans, chances, etc.: His goose was cooked when they found the stolen gems in his pocket.

All his geese are swans - he constantly exaggerates the importance of a person or thing.

A wild goose chase - an unsuccessful hunt for something.

Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs - to sacrifice future benefits for the sake of momentary present needs.

Goose step - originally (1806) was a military drill to teach balance; "to stand on each leg alternately and swing the other back and forth" (which, presumably, reminded someone of a goose's way of walking); in reference to "marching without bending the knees" (as in Nazi military reviews) it apparently is first recorded 1916.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - What is suitable for a woman is suitable for a man or, more broadly, what is good enough for one person is good enough for the other.

 

Guerdon

 
A guerdon (pronounced GURdn) is a present, reward for a service or an accolade. The word can also be used as a verb - "He guerdoned her a watch for her exam results".

It's a nasty word to come across in a crossword!

 

Postprandial

 

Postprandial means after eating a meal while preprandial is before a meal.


This term is used in many contexts. In an upper class Victorian household a postprandial glass of port or brandy and cigar was enjoyed by the gentlemen while the ladies had a postprandial coffee.

Nowadays it is more oftent to be found in relation to blood sugar (or blood glucose) levels, which are normally measured 2 hours after and before eating in a postprandial glucose test.
 

Long one hundred

 
In times gone by a long hundred or long one hundred was a phrase used tomean 120.

Thesmothete

 
A thesmothete was originally one of the six junior archons at Athens. Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. The word thesmothete has now come to mean someone who lays down the law, a lawgiver or a legislator.

Slow and aloft

   
The expression 'slow and aloft' appears in Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson - "Some's turned the chest out slow and aloft."

Slow, in this context, means bottom so this old expression was the equivalent of our modern 'top to bottom' - meaning throughout.
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Factoid

   
The term factoid is sometimes used to mean a trivial fact but its correct meaning is "an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact" (Oxford English Dictionary ).

A factoid, according to Wikipedia, is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement presented as a fact, but with no veracity. The word can also be used to describe a particularly insignificant or novel fact, in the absence of much relevant context.

Factoid was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper", and created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "similar but not the same". The Washington Times described Mailer's new word as referring to "something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact". CNN's Headline News incorporated factoids into its half-hour newscast in the early 1990s under the direction of Jon Petrovich.

Factoids may give rise to, or arise from, common misconceptions and urban legends.
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Pergola

   

A pergola (pronounced per-guh-ler) is an arbor formed of horizontal trelliswork supported on columns or posts, over which vines or other plants are trained.