• bight - 1 : a bend in a coast forming an open bay; also : a bay formed by such a bend 2 : a slack part or loop in a rope
  • hackamore - a bridle with a loop capable of being tightened about the nose in place of a bit or with a slip noose passed over the lower jaw
  • swale - a low-lying or depressed and often wet stretch of land; also : a shallow depression on a golf fairway or green
  • sprent - archaic : sprinkled over
  • bacca - short for tobacco
  • nave - the main part of the interior of a church; especially : the long narrow central hall in a cruciform church that rises higher than the aisles flanking it to form a clerestory (ALSO 2 - the hub of a wheel)
  • scantling - 1 a : the dimensions of timber and stone used in building b : the dimensions of a structural element used in shipbuilding —often used in plura 2 : a small quantity, amount, or proportion : modicum 3 : a small piece of lumber (as an upright piece in house framing)
  • weskit - vest
  • sutler - a civilian provisioner to an army post often with a shop on the post
  • felloe (var. of felly) - the exterior rim or a segment of the rim of a wheel supported by the spokes
  • cordillera - a system of mountain ranges often consisting of a number of more or less parallel chains
  • jornada - Spanish for day trip, working day
  • jacal - a hut in Mexico and southwestern United States with a thatched roof and walls made of upright poles or sticks covered and chinked with mud or clay
  • bistre (var. of bister) - a grayish to yellowish brown
  • purlieu - 1 a : an outlying or adjacent district b plural : environs, neighborhood 2 a : a frequently visited place : haunt b plural : confines, bounds
  • cantle - 1 : a segment cut off or out of something : part, portion 2 : the upward projecting rear part of a saddle
  • sotol - any of several plants (genus Dasylirion) of the agave family of the southwestern United States and Mexico that resemble a yucca
  • farrier - a person who shoes horses
  • kerf - a slit or notch made by a saw or cutting torch
  • anticline - an arch of stratified rock in which the layers bend downward in opposite directions from the crest
  • augury - 1 : divination from auspices or omens; also : an instance of this 2 : omen, portent (one of the few words I was already familiar with and just needed to remember the definition...jeez)
  • vadose - of, relating to, or being water or solutions in the earth's crust above the permanent groundwater level
  • ratchel - gravelly stone
  • squail - to throw anything about awkwardly or irregularly
  • ocotillo - a thorny scarlet-flowered candlewood (Fouquieria splendens of the family Fouquieriaceae) of the southwestern United States and Mexico
  • carreta - a simple two-wheeled oxcart
  • trace - 1 archaic : a course or path that one follows 2 a : a mark or line left by something that has passed; also : footprint b : a path, trail, or road made by the passage of animals, people, or vehicles
  • tenon - a projecting member in a piece of wood or other material for insertion into a mortise to make a joint
  • slear - "Climbing up through ocotillo and pricklypear where the rocks trembled and sleared in the sun" cha 5 page 62 - this word is not in any dictionary I can find. Someone else discusses this here
  • escopeta - Spanish for shotgun
  • rebozo - a long scarf worn chiefly by Mexican women
  • almagre - Spanish for red-brown
  • fusil (n) - a light flintlock musket p69
  • carboy - a large container for liquids p69
  • thews - muscle, sinew —usually used in plural p78
  • tapadero - "Westerners often wore and wear their stirrups with TAPADEROS, covers for the front part of the boot, open at the back" -Dictionary of the American West p80
  • azotea - Spanish for flat, terrace roof p88
  • bruit - in context, "the advent of the riders bruited by scurvid curs," seems to mean something like the verb definition given by Merriam Webster - report, rumor —usually used with about. Seems akin to "announced" p97
  • scurvid - scurvid is not in any dictionary; McCarthy seems to have made the word up himself with the (supposedly no longer active) suffix '-id' tacked on to 'scurvy.' So, scurvid probably means despicable and diseased, in context. (p97)
  • dolmen - a prehistoric monument of two or more upright stones supporting a horizontal stone slab found especially in Britain and France and thought to be a tomb: illustration p97
  • cresset - an iron vessel or basket used for holding an illuminant (as oil) and mounted as a torch or suspended as a lantern p99
  • creosote - "the liquor was rank, sour, tasted faintly of creosote." p101 : a clear or yellowish flammable oily liquid mixture of phenolic compounds obtained by the distillation of tar derived from wood and especially from beech wood, also, a resinous desert shrub
  • huarache - a low-heeled sandal having an upper made of interwoven leather strips p101
  • surbated - bruised, as the feet by travel; harassed, fatigued. often said of a horse. p 104
  • talus - a slope formed especially by an accumulation of rock debris p104
  • apishamore - a saddle blanket made of buffalo hide p104
  • discalced - unshod, barefoot "sitting like a murdered anchorite discalced in ashes and sark" p107
  • sark - a shirt (not sure how that fits in context as quoted above...) p107
  • to quirt - to strike or drive with a a riding whip with a short handle and a rawhide lash p108
  • weft - Merriam Webster gives 1 a : a filling thread or yarn in weaving b : yarn used for the weft 2 : web, fabric; also : an article of woven fabric, but in the context of "the weft of things" it seems more to just mean "weave" p109
  • waney (adj) - waning; declining "waney whistle" p109
  • buskin - a laced boot reaching halfway or more to the knee, especially as worn by actors in a Greek or Roman tragedy p110
  • parfleche - a raw hide soaked in lye to remove the hair and dried: boots with "parfleche soles" p110
  • gastine - a Middle English word from old French that means: a wild or desolate region, a wasteland, wilderness, desert. Where did McCarthy get this one? p111
  • remuda - the herd of horses from which those to be used for the day are chosen p115
  • viga - one of the heavy rafters and especially a log supporting the roof in American Indian and Spanish architecture of the Southwest "sagging vigas above them" p117
  • dap - to dip lightly or quickly into water, as a bird does: the horses out in the rain would "dap their hooves" p117
  • withers - the ridge between the shoulder bones of a horse p126
  • vidette - var of vedette - a mounted sentinel stationed in advance of pickets p126
  • hobble (n) - something used to hobble an animal: "we cut at them with out hobbles" Not sure what exactly they would be cutting at these wild wolves with; maybe just any random blade can be considered a "hobble" when used in this way. p129
  • malpais - an extensive area of rough, barren lava flows (also Spanish mal + pais meaning bad country) p129
  • rimple - a fold or a wrinkle p130
  • coulee - 1 a : a small stream b : a dry streambed c : a usually small or shallow ravine : gully 2 : a thick sheet or stream of lava. In context, "In the blue coulees on the north slopes narrow tailings of old snow", probably 1c p136
  • gobbet - 1a piece or portion (as of meat) 2 : lump, mass p137
  • enfilade - a line or straight passage; specifically, the situation of a place, or of a body of men, which may be raked with shot through its whole length. The sense of describing a line of men, which McCarthy is using, only shows up in the Century Dictionary. Merriam Webster favors the "line of rooms" and "straight gunfire" definitions. p 139
  • rebate (v) - 1 to reduce the force or activity of : diminish 2 to reduce the sharpness of : blunt p139
  • acequia - Southwest : an irrigation ditch or canal p139
  • kiva - a Pueblo Indian ceremonial structure that is usually round and partly underground (Hopi etymology) p139
  • maguey - 1 : any of various fleshy-leaved agaves (as the century plant) p147
  • spancel - to tie or fetter with a noosed robe commonly used for tying or hobbling the legs of an animal; in context, "horse and rider spanceled to their shadows", seems merely "to tie", "to yoke" p151
  • legatee - one to whom a legacy is bequeathed or a devise is given p152
  • rowel - a revolving disk with sharp marginal points at the end of a spur "riders put rowels to their mounts" p 155
  • wickiup - a hut used by the nomadic Indians of the arid regions of the western and southwestern United States with a usually oval base and a rough frame covered with reed mats, grass, or brushwood (resembling a teepee); also : a rude temporary shelter or hut p155
  • fontanel - a membrane-covered opening in bone or between bones; specifically : any of the spaces closed by membranous structures between the uncompleted angles of the parietal bones and the neighboring bones of a fetal or young skull (this is from the passage in which the Delaware bashes babies' brains out) p 156
  • caul - 1 : the large fatty omentum covering the intestines (as of a cow, sheep, or pig) 2 : the inner fetal membrane of higher vertebrates especially when covering the head at birth. In context, closer to 2, because McCarthy is describing freshly skinned heads. p157
  • whang - 1 dialect a : thong b : rawhide p 159
  • chaparral - a thicket of dwarf evergreen oaks; broadly : a dense impenetrable thicket of shrubs or dwarf trees p161
  • peltries - pelts, furs; especially : raw undressed skins —often used in plural p163
  • dandling - 1 : to move (as a baby) up and down in one's arms or on one's knee in affectionate play 2 : pamper, pet. The judge "was dandling [the Apache child] on one knee" p164
  • shoat - a young hog and especially one that has been weaned p169
  • skiffle - American jazz or folk music played entirely or in part on nonstandard instruments (as jugs, washboards, or Jew's harps); also : a derivative form of music formerly popular in Great Britain featuring vocals with a simple instrumental accompaniment p170
  • debouch - 1 : to march out into open ground 2 : emerge, issue p170
  • toper - one that drinks liquor to excess; especially : drunkard p171
  • scapple - To work roughly, or shape without finishing, as stone before leaving the quarry p 173
  • argosy - 1 : a large ship; especially : a large merchant ship 2 : a fleet of ships 3 : a rich supply. In context, a fleet of men: "They watched the passing of that bloodstained argosy through their streets" p175
  • shako - a stiff military hat with a high crown and plume shako illustration p182
  • caparison (v) - to provide with or as if with a rich ornamental covering : adorn p182
  • arrant - being notoriously without moderation : extreme p183
  • jokin - "joke" (v) is a variant of "jouk," which means: Of birds, a. To perch, sit (upon branches). b. Falconry. To roost, to sleep upon its perch. McCarthy uses this verb in a pretty intense sentence: "Mad jackhares started and checked in the blue glare and high among those clanging crags jokin roehawks crouched in their feathers or cracked a yellow eye at the thunder underfoot." The word "jokin" or "joke" is not listed in Merriam-Webster (or any other online dictionary, for that matter) in this sense, but I found the answer on Cormac-McCarthy.com, where someone had written that it's a variant of jouk. On the OED, there is no listing under "joke (v)" as being a variant of "jouk," but "jouk" was listed and that is the definition I give above. In a further note on that sentence, "roehawk" is not any particular type of hawk, but a word that McCarthy created by combining "roe" (a description of coloration) and "hawk." p186
  • gentian - 1 : any of numerous herbs (family Gentianaceae, the gentian family, and especially genus Gentiana) with opposite smooth leaves and showy usually blue flowers p187
  • serried - 1 : crowded or pressed together : compact 2 [by alteration] : marked by ridges : serrate "serried rimlands" p187
  • tectite - this one again is not even in the OED...turns out it's McCarthy's variation of "tektite," which is a glassy body of probably meteoritic origin and of rounded but indefinite shape. "In pockets on the north slopes hail lay nested like tectites among the leaves" p 188
  • withy (adj) - flexibly tough, as if made of a flexible branch of willow p189
  • ristra - Ristras are arrangements of drying chile pepper pods (also not in M-W or OED, but on Wikipedia) p189
  • pulque - a Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of various agaves (as Agave atrovirens) p189
  • charivari - a shivaree, which, pronounced phonetically, is the pronunciation of charivari : a noisy mock serenade to a newly married couple p190
  • to drub - 1 : to beat severely 2 : to berate critically 3 : to defeat decisively p190
  • catafalque - 1 : an ornamental structure sometimes used in funerals for the lying in state of the body 2 : a pall-covered coffin-shaped structure used at requiem masses celebrated after burial p190
  • stripling - youth p192
  • ciborium - a goblet-shaped vessel for holding eucharistic bread ciborium illustration p192
  • posada - an inn in Spanish-speaking countries p193
  • fusil - a light flintlock musket "When the company rode out thirty minutes later they ran a gantlet of ragged fusil fire and rocks and bottles and they left six of their number behind" this is the noun definition of "fusil", but I'm assuming that rather than the adjective sense of "liquified by heat," it makes more sense that the company's only weapons are fusils, rocks, and bottles. p194
  • guttapercha - a tough plastic substance from the latex of several Malaysian trees (genera Payena and Palaquium) of the sapodilla family that resembles rubber but contains more resin and is used especially as insulation and in dentistry in temporary fillings "guttapercha flasks" p194
  • stoker - one employed to tend a furnace and supply it with fuel "faces black as stokers with gunsoot" p194
  • paroquet - any of numerous small slender long-tailed parrots: parakeet p197
  • suzerain - a superior feudal lord to whom fealty is due : overlord p198
  • criada - Spanish for female maidservant p200
  • sutler - a civilian merchant who sells provisions to an army in the field, in camp or in quarters p201
  • wallowed - from the verb "wallow," "wallowed" doesn't seem to be a used adjective form in the way that McCarthy uses it: "the wallowed places in the sane where the men had slept." With "wallowed places" he means "places where someone has wallowed," so it makes sense, but it still threw me. p 206
  • frog - 2 : the triangular elastic horny pad in the middle of the sole of the foot of a horse p209
  • chine - backbone, spine "naked chines of rock blown bare of snow" p213
  • whinstone - basaltic rock : trap; also : any of various other dark resistant rocks p213
  • scurf - something like flakes or scales adhering to a surface p214
  • solpuga - A venomous ant or spider p215
  • vinegarroon - A large whip scorpion which is native to southern North America and Mexico, emits a secretion smelling like vinegar when alarmed, and is often wrongly believed to be venomous p215
  • mygale - A spider of the New World genus Mygale (family Theraphosidae); any mygalomorph spider p215
  • fulgurite - an often tubular vitrified crust produced by the fusion of sand or rock by lightning p215
  • scrog - A stunted bush; usually pl., brushwood, underwood p215
  • surmise (n) - a thought or idea based on scanty evidence : conjecture (I didn't know surmise was also a noun) p215
  • javelina- peccary: any of several largely nocturnal gregarious American mammals resembling the related pigs p215
  • centroid - center of mass "Glanton's eyes in their sockets were burning centroids of murder" p218
  • bajada - In the south-west of N. America, a descent or slope; spec. that section of a piedmont slope formed by aggradation and composed of rock debris (detritus) p219
  • grama - any of several pasture grasses (genus Bouteloua) of the western United States p219
  • chorine - chorus girl "a pair of buzzards began to trot off across the sane with their wings outheld like soiled chorines" p220
  • miquelet - a Spanish or French irregular soldier during the Peninsular War p220
  • alameda - a public promenade bordered with trees p221
  • guisado - a stew with tomato paste and garlic p221
  • peloncillo - A type of coarse brown sugar, often moulded into a hard cone or block, produced esp. in Mexico. CF penuche p221
  • boss - has 9 different noun definitions in the OED. the best match is 1d: the big bulk of an animal : "one [wild bull] buried its horns to the boss in the ribs of a horse" p224
  • shuttle - An instrument used in weaving for passing the thread of the weft to and fro from one edge of the cloth to the other between the threads of the warp "They were skewered through the cords of their heels with sharpened shuttles of green wood" p226
  • esker - a long narrow ridge or mound of sand, gravel, and boulders deposited by a stream flowing on, within, or beneath a stagnant glacier p227
  • lemniscate - a figure-eight shaped curve whose equation in polar coordinates is ρ2=a2 cos 2θ or ρ2=a2 sin 2θ p229
  • tiswin - a North American Indian alcoholic beverage brewed from corn p231
  • demiculverin - a medium cannon similar to but slightly larger than a saker and smaller than a regular culverin developed in the early 17th century p231
  • revetment - 1 : a facing (as of stone or concrete) to sustain an embankment 2 : embankment; especially : a barricade to provide shelter p231
  • solarium - a glass-enclosed porch or room; also : a room (as in a hospital) used especially for sunbathing or therapeutic exposure to light p231
  • holothurian - sea cucumber p243
  • nacre - mother-of-pearl p244
  • chamfer - 1 : to cut a furrow in (as a column) : groove 2 : to make a chamfer on : bevel p246
  • scoria - 1 : the refuse from melting of metals or reduction of ores : slag 2 : rough vesicular cindery lava p247
  • shacto - some kind of coat produced by the Hudson Bay company
may 18 2010 ∞
dec 28 2014 +