May 16, 2006

balmy

1. Having the quality or fragrance of balm; soothing.

2. Mild and pleasant: a balmy breeze.

3. Slang Eccentric in behavior.

but for the most part we had balmy summer weather and nights that were even finer than the days.

vermin

1. Various small animals or insects, such as rats or cockroaches, that are destructive, annoying, or injurious to health.

2. Animals that prey on game, such as foxes or weasels.

We walked up the middle of the principal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all sides and glared upon us

prodigious

1. Impressively great in size, force, or extent; enormous: a prodigious storm.

2. Extraordinary; marvelous: a prodigious talent.

3. Obsolete Portentous; ominous.

The Portuguese pennies, or reis (pronounced rays), are prodigious.

swindle

1. To cheat or defraud of money or property.

2. To obtain by fraudulent means: swindled money from the company.

Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never, never stand it.

veritable

Being truly so called; real or genuine: "Her tea ... was set forth with as much grace as if she had been a veritable guest to her own self" Mary Wilkins Freeman.

We visited a Jesuit cathedral nearly two hundred years old and found in it a piece of the veritable cross upon which our Saviour was crucified.

vagrant

1. One who wanders from place to place without a permanent home or a means of livelihood.

2. A wanderer; a rover.

3. One who lives on the streets and constitutes a public nuisance.

vociferous
Making, given to, or marked by noisy and vehement outcry.

vehement

1. Characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction; fervid: a vehement denial. See Synonyms at intense.

2. Marked by or full of vigor or energy; strong: a vehement storm.

every vagrant of them was more vociferous, and more vehement and more frantic in gesture than his neighbor