I can’t believe I keep finding words that I don’t know, especially since they seem common enough…

  1. Ret – “to soak (as flax) to loosen the fiber from the woody tissue” (ok, that one’s not so common!)
  2. Pylon – “a post or tower marking a prescribed course of flight for an airplane” (it has a LOT of other meanings, but this is the one from the crossword puzzle)
  3. Newel – “an upright post about which the steps of a circular staircase wind”
  4. Campestal – “of or relating to fields or open country”, rural
  5. Argot – “an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group”
  6. Awn – “one of the slender bristles that terminate the glumes of the spikelet in some cereal and other grasses”
  7. Schlemiel – “an unlucky bungler”, chump
  8. Paradiddle – “a quick succession of drumbeats slower than a roll and alternating left- and right-hand strokes in a typical L-R-L-L, R-L-R-R pattern” (I like this one!)
  9. Tantara – “the blare of a trumpet or horn»
  10. Coot – “a harmless simple person”

All definitions are from Merriam-Webster online.

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