Answer: Oily liquid distilled from bitumen containing fossil fish
It's used to relieve inflammation. Not often that the medicine is older than the body it's applied to...
2. Forel:
Answer: Parchment used for covering books
A Morel is a rather horrible looking but delicious fungus. Where I come from, the fishermen do use very narrow bladed spades for digging lug worms for bait. They're lug spades. Don't know why.
3. Jacent:
Answer: Lying stretched out
Ad-jacent is lying next to.
4. Zygite:
Answer: Rower in the middle bank of a trireme
Yes, well. Interesting, isn't it? Go on, get this one into your conversation at the next cocktail party. A trireme, by the way, was a fast powered boat in ancient times. Not steam or diesel - people powered. Three banks of oars on each side, one above the other. How did they not get entangled? I haven't found out yet what they called the rowers in the other banks. Your homework tonight is....
5. Snath:
Answer: The handle of a scythe
Now I know what it is I trip up over in my front room.... (Well, I've got to keep the scythe somewhere. Can't get it in the coalplace - too much in there already what with a portable fridge, a Calor heater, a broomstick and a dead trombone, not to mention the Chez Baloo cider store). Prehistoric coppermines are interesting. (OK, if your world revolves round the latest Paris fashions, then perhaps not). If you get near Llandudno, there's a good one up on the Great Orme. I didn't see any snaths there. Weevils are all little vegetarians, which tends to make me stay omnivorous (as most bears are). Snath comes from an Old English (or thereabouts) word which means snath.
This is a replacement question substituted after a good friend pointed out that the correct answer for its predecessor was 'Doesn't exist' even though the word could be found in dictionaries. (It shouldn't have been there - people copied a mistake.)
6. Mattoid:
Answer: A mixture of genius and fool
Don't you dare... From Italian matto - means mad. A mattock is a pick with one point used for breaking up soil, so a ditch digger could use one of those, but that's not what I asked, was it? I don't think aardvarks are particularly noted for scent glands, anyway. Could be wrong.
7. Cratchkin:
Answer: Doesn't exist
All fairly convincing, I think. The clown one sounds good spoken (with a good rolling rrr).
8. Woobut:
Answer: A hairy caterpillar
Also spelt 'oubit'. From Old English wibba meaning insect. Another one for the cocktail party? Can't stop those aardvarks getting in.
9. Paxwax:
Answer: Tendon in neck of a large quadruped
Do they have Easter candles? Comes from feax meaning hair and weax meaning growth (Old English again). A quadruped is a four legged animal, so a large one in this case is something like an 'orse. Probably IS an 'orse.
10. Matamore:
Answer: A swaggerer
This French word which has English use, albeit archaically, comes from the Spanish matar - to kill, so a matamoros was a killer of Moors. There is a word mattamore (two t's - with milk and sugar please) that means an underground dwelling or store, but I wasn't rotten enough to use this as a trap.
Not this time, I wasn't rotten enough... The carpet suggestion - more is large in anglicised Scottish words like claymore (big sword), but rather silly as a suggestion here.
11. Propaedeutics:
Answer: Preliminary training
Preliminary comes from before the threshold. No comments about educational systems. Someone from my place of work might read this.... (NO, I am NOT a teacher!)
12. Rickers:
Answer: Stems of young trees less than two and a half inches in diameter
The name comes from the fact that these were formerly used to create hayricks, frames to hold hay. They are also used as spars or staves on boats. So there. I wonder if there is an International Standard for rickers, or are they just approximate?
13. Porrect:
Answer: Stretching out horizontally
So next time you're on the beach, just lying there flat, you will know that you are porrect. You could be supine as well. Or prone. Yes, well.... It actually doesn't mean it that way. It's more scientific. They like words like this. It stops the plebs knowing what they're talking about. But not US, not now... The one about leeks came from a word porraceous meaning leek coloured.
14. Retrorse:
Answer: Bending backwards instead of forwards (of feathers)
There probably is a word for the back of a statue. No further comments.
15. Whipjack:
Answer: A vagabond pretending to be a sailor
When sailors were discharged from the old time navy, they often had to beg their way home. It wasn't uncommon for ordinary beggars to pretend to be sailors in order to get better results from their begging. Well, that's it for now. If you didn't like the first one of these, you won't have liked this one either. Don't care. Might well do another one anyway, just to spite you. Plenty more of the words. Hard part is making the non-existent ones up.
Interesting point - if they are made up and put in here, does that mean that they now exist? Don't answer that!
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Bruyere before going online.
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