Words! Words! Words!

On this day in 1871, journalist Henry Morton Stanley began his famous search through Africa for the missing British explorer Dr. David Livingstone. If you think you might be lost in the wilderness some day, be sure to pack a good pocket dictionary and magnifying glass in your pack. You can learn new words in your down time, and the pages will come in handy for starting signal fires with the glass. Meanwhile, let’s see how much of an explorer you are when it comes to strange, new words.

1. skirr:

1. the byproduct of a search;
2. the object of a search;
3. to search about in;
4. not a real word.

2. muckrake:

1. to make or publish a libel against;
2. to utter slander against;
3. to search out and publicly expose real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business;
4. an implement equipped with projecting prongs to search for and gather oysters in shallow water.

3. catechize:

1. to examine especially for diagnostic purposes;
2. to make a careful or detailed search for information;
3. to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group;
4. to question systematically or searchingly.

4. bioprospect:

1. to search for substances that are produced by living organisms and may be of medicinal or commercial value;
2. a finite part of a statistical population whose properties are studied to gain information about the whole;
3. something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter;
4. an ecological community searching for a self-regulating unit. 

5. kestrel:

1. a person who breeds, trains, or hunts with hawks;
2. any of various small chiefly Old World falcons (genus Falco) that usually hover in the air while searching for prey;
3. a fishing and hunting guide;
4. a barbed spear or javelin used especially in hunting large game.

6. battue:

1. the beating of woods and bushes to flush game;
2. a charge of wrongdoing;
3. a hunting call sounded on a horn to assemble the hounds;
4. a slender hardwood spear or light javelin usually tipped with iron and used in southern Africa.

7. spelunker:

1. wanderer;
2. one that explores untraversed regions to mark out a new route;
3. one who makes a hobby of exploring and studying caves;
4. a person who travels without destination or purpose.

8. modernism:

1. a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression;
2. a philosophy based on the belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless and that the search for order brings the individual into conflict with the universe;
3. a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe;
4. a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them.

9. ferret:

1. to consume as browse;
2. to find and bring to light by searching;
3. to search (a person) for something (as a concealed weapon) by running the hand rapidly over the clothing and through the pockets;
4. to pick over in search of relevant material.

10. mycophile:

1. one whose hobby is hunting wild edible tea leaves;
2. one whose hobby is hunting wild edible onions;
3. one whose hobby is hunting wild edible mushrooms;
4. one whose hobby is hunting wild edible truffles.
   
   

Correct Answers:

1c; 2c; 3d; 4a; 5b; 6a; 7c; 8a; 9b; 10c

How far off the beaten path are you?