Carlyle's Vocabulary

Word	Definition
culminant	Of a heavenly body: That has reached its greatest altitude, that is on the meridian; hence fig. that is at its greatest height.
whinstone	A name for various very hard dark-coloured rocks or stones, as greenstone, basalt, chert, or quartzose sandstone.
shaveling	A contemptuous epithet for a tonsured ecclesiastic. (Very common in 16th and 17th c.)
fingent	Given to fashioning or moulding.
losel	A worthless person; a profligate, rake, scoundrel; in weaker sense, a ragamuffin, ne'er-do-well.
edacity	The quality of being edacious; capacity for eating; good appetite. or Corrosive quality, destructive power. Obs.
gulosity	Gluttony, greediness, voracity.
eleutheromaniac	one possessed by a mad zeal for freedom
fremescence	An incipient roaring.
fremescent	Murmuring, growing noisy.
grunsel	groundsel OR ground-sill
tripudiation	the action of dancing or leaping, esp. in token of joy or excitement; exultation.
weasand	The œsophagus or gullet.
obtest	To call upon in the name of something sacred; to charge solemnly, adjure; to beg earnestly, beseech, entreat, or implore (a person). Freq. with infinitive or that-clause as complement.
spontoon	A species of half-pike or halberd carried by infantry officers in the 18th century (from about 1740).
furibund	Furious, raging, mad.
scorine	????
bando	A public proclamation. Obs.
divulsive	Tending to tear apart or asunder.
handsel	To give (a person) a gift at the beginning of the year or day, on a birthday, etc., as a token of good luck. Also more generally: to give a gift on any occasion. Formerly also in ironic use: †to present or greet with something unwelcome (obs.).
scission	Division of a previously united body of people into mutually opposing parties; a split, a schism.
passe-partout	Originally: †a person who may go anywhere (obs.). Subsequently: a thing giving a person the right or opportunity to go anywhere; spec. a key that opens any or many doors, a master key; (occas.) a passport. Freq. in extended use and fig.
footling	Trivial, pointless; (of a person) that footles or trifles.
adust	Originally: affected with, or having a temperament determined by, adust humours (see sense 1a). In later use: having a melancholy character or appearance; gloomy; sallow. Obs. or That is in a dusty condition; covered in dust. or To burn, to scorch; to desiccate by exposing to strong heat. Also fig.
demit	trans. To send, put, or let down; to cause to descend; to lower.
phasis	esp. any particular aspect of a thing of varying appearances. Obs.
bob-miner	????
mittimus	Law. A warrant issued by a justice of the peace, etc., committing a person to custody. Now hist. exc. in U.S. or trans. To commit to prison by a warrant. Obs. rare.
apophthegm	A terse, pointed saying, embodying an important truth in few words; a pithy or sententious maxim.
brayed ware	a confusion for braided ware = damaged or faded goods;
epicedium	A funeral ode; a lament over a dead person. Also in figurative contexts.
ferula	The giant fennel or From the use of the fennel-stalk in Roman times: A cane, rod, or other instrument of punishment, esp. a flat piece of wood (see ferule n. 2); fig. school discipline.
abutment	The point at which something abuts upon something else; a point of junction or meeting; a boundary. Also: a property or piece of land that abuts upon another; a description or record of how one property abuts upon another.
escarpment	Geol. ‘The abrupt face or cliff of a ridge or hill range’ (Page). Also attrib.
hodden	Woollen cloth of a coarse quality such as used to be made by country weavers on their hand-looms.
door-rabbet	A piece of stone (or occasionally timber) cut and shaped so as to form one side of an opening in a wall and accommodate a door, gate, window, or chimney;
fugle	To cheat, trick.
glen	A mountain-valley, usually narrow and forming the course of a stream.
shackly	Shaky, rickety; ramshackle.
hobbledehoy	A youth at the age between boyhood and manhood, a stripling; esp. a clumsy or awkward youth.
wynd	A narrow street or passage turning off from a main thoroughfare; a narrow cross-street; a lane or alley.
gillies	An attendant on a Highland chief. Now hist.
forehanded	That has made provision for the future; in easy circumstances, ‘well-to-do’. Now only U.S.
puncheon	A tool or machine for stamping a design on an object or A short upright piece of timber in a wooden framing to provide stiffening or support; a supporting post, spec. a post supporting the roof in a coal mine. or A split log or rough piece of timber with one smoothed surface, used esp. for flooring and corduroy roads, and formerly for buildings;
cheval-de-frise	A defensive appliance of war, employed chiefly to check cavalry charges, and stop breaches; a large piece of Timber pierc'd, and travers'd with wooden Spikes, arm'd or pointed with Iron, five or six Foot long.