Last Wednesday, Second Laird played host to Fall festivities, welcoming English majors back to campus with seasonal pie and some word-nerdy fun. Headlining the event was the Dictionary Game, a venerable departmental tradition. Professor Peter Balaam put on his gamemaster hat and marshalled students and professors into four opposing teams, all competing for Honor, Knowledge, and Language Itself.
The rules of the Dictionary Game are simple: The gamemaster presents a list of arcane but real words. Every team has to make up a convincing dictionaryesque definition for each word. When teams are done composing their fake definitions, the gamemaster reads all of them, including the actual definition of the word, and teams have to choose the one they think is correct. Points are awarded both for choosing the correct answer, as well as having another team choose your submission.
Missed the event but still want to put your definitional discernment to the test? Now’s your chance! Here are all the words and definitions from the game for you to puzzle through yourself! (Answers available in your local dictionary.)
Gallimaufry
a) an ordered collection or set; a pair
b) hash; medley; jumble
c) the craft guild of sculptors that created the comic gargoyles that appear on French cathedral towers
d) a cream dessert typically made during Norwegian holidays
e) lollygagging; idling
Ostracod
a) a ritual girdle made from yak hide
b) small, active, mostly freshwater bivalve crustacean
c) (now obsolete) someone who lives separate from society
d) a small mallet used in shoemaking
e) beetle with inverted wings
Pavid
a) someone who appears sickly and distraught
b) slightly below room temperature
c) flighty
d) a state of recent impoverishment; temporary poverty or lack
e) fearful, timid
Rareripe
a) ripe before others or earlier than typical
b) someone who has just undergone puberty
c) a move used in fencing that consists of bending the arm to thrust a sword below the adversary’s knee
d) a rash of mild to moderate severity which typically affects the toes and feet
e) a person who’s moved to the country but had yet to adopt rural mannerisms
Paulownia
a) a hops master; undersecretary to the master brewer
b) genus of Chinese tree of the bignonia family cultivated for its panicles
c) a postmodern disease that is characterized by red sores on the tips of the fingers
d) the mental condition in which an office worker believes he is a farmer
e) a purple flower which blooms in late spring in the upper midwest region of the United States
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Shoutout to everyone who came to the party and made it such a blast (special mention to Team 1 for emerging as this year’s dictionary victors) and we hope to see you at the next department event!
