- A highly aperitive notice (flyer for a chamber music concert) – a highly appealing break from the duties of normal life sort of thing.
- Ratafia biscuits – small round macaroon-type biscuits
- Leadbetter – type of car but couldn’t find a pic
- Midden – old dump for domestic waste (such as a compost pile)
- “…To switch on the lights, shut the windows, and admit that Christmas Day had insidiously but definitely begun…” – they slept with the windows open? In England? In December?…
- Straw palliasses – large bag made of canvas (or similar) and stuffed with material such as straw, horse hair. Used as a bed at times.
- Eating his tangerine, pig by pig – pig = slices?
- Dissyllable – a word for two syllables
- Meiosis – process when cell divides from one into two into four etc.
- Boak (describing person you’re not very fond of) – from verb to vomit or burp. This was in reference to some people that Mrs. Miniver did not like…
- Skirling plover (bird doing something) – making a shrill wailing sound
- Prognathous – upper or lower jaw is abnormally forward
(Words taken from Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struthers who has quite the vocabulary!)
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If I had come across “dissyllable” I would have thought someone was making it up because a) I have never heard it before and b) it just sounds made up!
I know. It’s strange how some words seem to pop up out of the blue sometimes. Imagine if you’re trying to learn English. Phew.
With the pigs of the orange, I think they’re supposed to look like piglets’ backs lined up along a sow. I did know all of these except the car – not sure what that really means.
Interesting, Liz. That does make sense in the context of the word. I haven’t heard this expression before though. Maybe it’s a regional dialect. I still don’t know about the car word though! It may be a mystery that I take to the grave. 🙂