Gymnosperm, hairy darling peas, and being horny-handed

I'll bring you the "G" and "H" words from this book that Jon and Harmony got me for my birthday. This is from Butt Rot and Bottom Gas: A Glossary of Tragically Misunderstood Words (Eric Groves, Sr.)


G

gas cock: a device for turning on and off a flow of natural gas

gas cracker: a device that electrically separates the molecules of a liquid into their constituent atoms, usually resulting in a gas (a gas cracker is used to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen; such gases can then be stored in casks and sold commercially)

gentianella: a plant that grows in mountainous regions and is characterized by glossy green leaves and beautiful bell-shaped flowers, which range from lilac to deep blue

girlcott: a type of boycott by women of a company or an event for political reasons

give him his head: to let someone do what he wants

give suck: to breast-feed a baby

goat sucker: any of several large-billed birds of the family Caprimulgidae, including the whippoorwill, that come out at night to feed

gofuku: [Japanese word] traditional Japanese clothing

go off half-cocked: to do something reckless or violent without thinking

grease cock: a machine cock containing grease that serves as a lubricator

great tit: the largest member of the tit, or Paridae, family of passerine songbirds found throughout Asia and Europe, having a black-and-white feathered head and a yellow breast dissected by a blank line [the great tit will build its nest in virtually any available hole, making it a widespread and successful species]

grind organ: a mechanical musical instrument that produces sounds by turning a cylinder lined with pegs

groundnuts: an alternative term for peanuts; used chiefly in Great Britain

gymnosperm: [From the Greek word gumnospermos, meaning "naked seeds"] a member of a group of flowerless seed-bearing plants, the seeds of which appear on the bare edges of cones, such as the Douglas fir pinecone


H

hairy darling pea: a rare perennial flowering shrub with pink or purple pea flowers that grows primarily in southern Australia

hairy tongue: a growth on the tongue, sometimes caused by antibiotic use

hairy woodpecker: a type of woodpecker with black and white feathers

hand pump: a device used in containers to manually pump high-viscosity liquids

hand tool: a manually operated, as opposed to power-operated, tool

hard black: usually written HB on pencils to denote a hard lead

harden your vehicle: to make your car more difficult for thieves to burglarize

hard up: to be very poor or temporarily out of funds

headbutt: in boxing, a powerful (albeit illegal) strike with your cranium to an opponent's head

headmaster: the male principal or lead teacher of a school ["To sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision... in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand... is the most abject treachery." - Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own]

headmistress: the female principal or lead teacher of a school

heavy whipping cream: a cream with a measured butterfat content of approximately 36-40 percent [supermarkets today generally carry only light whipping cream, with a lower butterfat content, but heavy whipping cream is often available upon request]

heterogametic sex: the male gender, which has two different chromosomes

high sticking: in the game of hockey, to carry your stick well above regulation height

hoar: a coating of frosty white ice crystals on any surface; ALSO, (having) grey hair

hoe: a tool with a sharp flat blade for digging in the earth ["At the end of the row, I stepped on the toe of an unemployed hoe." - Robert Frost, The Objection To Being Stepped On]

hoecake: cornbread originally baked on the blade of a hoe by enslaved Africans during the Civil War, and possibly much earlier [Southern slaves sympathetic to invading Union troops often served fresh-baked hoecakes to the hungry soldiers]

hoedown: a happy, energetic dance

hole punch: a device for punching holes in multiple sheets of paper

homeomorphism: in topology, the similar or identical nature of different structures

homo: in biology, the genus that includes modern humans

Homo erectus: an evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens, or modern humans

homogamy: a union or marriage between two individuals who share a similar culture

homograph: a word spelled like another word, but different in meaning or pronunciation (as in, a SOW is a female pig, but to SOW seeds)

homologate: to offer approval, to sanction

homolographic: a type of projection in which all components of a map or diagram are accurately depicted in terms of their relative shapes and sizes

homology: a similarity or correlation between differing systems, particularly systems of human belief

homophone: a word pronounced like another word, but different in spelling and meaning (as in SUN and SON)

honeypot: a beeswax container made by a queen bumblebee to store honey [the queen bee feeds from the honeypot while caring for her eggs]

horehound: an aromatic Eurasian plant of the mint family

Hor Fun: a thick broad Chinese rice noodle, originally created in Shahe, China, which is now part of Guangzhou, China; also known as shahe fen and ho fun [Hor Fun noodles are generally stir-fried in hot oil and added to eggs, shrimp, and vegetables to produce the world-famous entrée Pad Thai]

hornist: a musician who plays a brass horn, particularly the French horn

horny frog: in zoology, any of several types of insectivorous (insect-eating) lizards found in the remote deserts of the United States

horny goat weed: a type of herbaceous plant of the genus Epimedium

horny-handed: the condition of a person whose hands are calloused from hard physical labor

horny layer: the outermost layer of the epidermis (skin)

hot rod: a homebuilt performance-enhanced car, usually an older model

hot sauce: a chili pepper-based sauce used for making foods spicier

huggermuggering: to act in a secretive manner

humbuggery: the act of imposing on someone or something; also, to defraud someone