What I learnt from reading Moby Dick

A lot. I learned a lot of obscure American slang words that I am never likely to use.

evinced: reveal the presence of (a quality or feeling); indicate.

aught: anything at all.

exulting: show or feel triumphant elation or jubilation.

bruited: spread (a report or rumour) widely.

aforethought: previously in mind : premeditated, deliberate. with malice

monomaniac: In 19th-century psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, meaning "madness" or "frenzy") was a form of partial insanity conceived as single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind.

lees: the most worthless part or parts of something.

corporal: relating to the human body.

laceration: a deep cut or tear in skin or flesh.

feline: relating to or affecting cats or other members of the cat family.

profundities: great depth of insight or knowledge.

caryatid: a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or Greek-style building.

entablatures: the upper part of a classical building supported by columns or a colonnade, comprising the architrave, frieze, and cornice.

enfeebled: make weak or feeble.

invunerable: impossible to harm or damage.

japonicas: an Asian shrub of the rose family, with bright red flowers followed by round white, green, or yellow edible fruits.

circumambient: surrounding

backwoodsman: an inhabitant of backwoods, especially one regarded as uncouth or backward.

legerdemain: deception; trickery.

phrensies: frenzies

remembrance: the action of remembering something.

charnel-house: a place associated with violent death.

cordon: prevent access to or from an area or building by surrounding it with police or other guards.

taffrail: a rail round a ship's stern.

peremptorily: putting an end to or precluding a right of action, debate, or delay; specifically : not providing an opportunity to show cause why one should not comply. a peremptory mandamus.

impetuously: of, relating to, or characterized by sudden or rash action, emotion, etc.; impulsive: an impetuous decision; an impetuous person. 2. having great impetus; moving with great force; violent: the impetuous winds.

jollity: lively and cheerful activity or celebration.

perfidious: deceitful and untrustworthy.

subaltern: of lower status.

cannikin: a small can; a wooden bucket

archiepiscopacy:  the form of episcopacy in which the chief power is in the hands of archbishops

prodromus: A prodromus ('forerunner' or 'precursor') aka prodrome is a term used in the natural sciences to describe a preliminary publication intended as the basis for a later, more comprehensive work. It is also a medical term used for a premonitory symptom, that is, a symptom indicating the onset of a disease.

skrimshander: Native peoples of Alaska and Canada have carved ivory for centuries, but when "scrimshaw" is used in modern English, it is most often associated with 18th- and 19th-century whalers of the ilk Herman Melville described as "examining ... divers specimens of skrimshander" in Moby Dick

galliot: a single-masted Dutch cargo boat or fishing vessel.

brit: Massive colonies of small crustaceans

piggin: a small wooden pail with one stave extended upward as a handle.

bailer: bailer (plural bailers) one who bails or lades. a utensil, as a bucket or cup, used in bailing; a machine for bailing water out of a pit.

windlass:  lifting device consisting of a horizontal cylinder turned by a crank on which a cable or rope winds

billows: a large undulating mass of something, typically cloud, smoke, or steam.

hyperborean: one of a people that the ancient Greeks believed lived in a warm and sunny land north of the source of the north wind

poniards: a small, slim dagger.

scaramouch: a stock character in commedia dell'arte depicted as a boastful coward

interregnum: the time between two reigns, governments

calomel and jalap: Laxative

quoin: a wedge or expanding mechanical device used for locking a letterpress forme into a chase.

doxology: a liturgical formula of praise to God.

acerbities: A lemon in your mouth, a mean-spirited neighbor, a roomful of sarcastic people: these are examples of acerbity, a type of harsh bitterness that can leave you stunned. The Latin word acerbus means “sour-tasting,” and that is acerbity in a nutshell: sour.

slobgollion: A sperm whaleman's term, roughly equivalent to the right whaleman's "gurry" which, according to Herman Melville, "designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or Right Whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan."(Melville 323) Derivation for this term likely originates with the word "slobgollion" which is, according to Melville's Moby Dick, "an appellation original with the whaleman, and even so is the nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured Membranes of the case, coalescing."

squilgee: A  blade of leather or rubber set on a handle and used for spreading, pushing, or wiping liquid material on, across, or off a surface (such as a window); also : a smaller similar device or a small rubber roller with handle used by a photographer or lithographer.

recondite: (of a subject or knowledge) little known; abstruse.

metempsychosis: the supposed transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species.

grandiloquent: pompous or extravagant in language, style, or manner, especially in a way that is intended to impress.

chirography: handwriting, especially as distinct from typography.

antichronical: Deviating from the proper order of time.

antemosaic: Before the time of Moses

ramifying: form branches or offshoots; branch out.

countersinkers: a worker that countersinks drilled holes.

sinecures: a position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit.

compendious: containing or presenting the essential facts of something in a comprehensive but concise way.

averred: state or assert to be the case.

orisons: a prayer.

imprecate: utter (a curse) or invoke (evil) against someone or something.

epaulets: an ornamental shoulder piece on an item of clothing, especially on the coat or jacket of a military uniform.

transom: the flat surface forming the stern of a boat.

mizen: a sail on the mizzenmast of a ship, in particular the lowest sail on the mizzenmast of a square-rigged sailing ship.

subtile: subtle, elusive; cunning, crafty; sagacious, discerning

halyards: a rope used for raising and lowering a sail, yard, or flag on a sailing ship.

monadnock: an isolated hill or ridge or erosion-resistant rock rising above a peneplain.

foreknew: be aware of (an event) before it happens.

brushwood: undergrowth, twigs, and small branches.

bethinking: come to think.

Ixion: In Greek mythology, Ixion (/ɪkˈsaɪ.ən/ ik-SY-ən; Greek: Ἰξίων, gen.: Ἰξίωνος) was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly, and a son of Ares, or Leonteus, or Antion and Perimele, or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas, whose name connotes "fiery".

comber: a long curling sea wave.

An inordinate proportion of the words were unlikely negations of more common words.

misdoubt: have doubts about the truth, reality, or existence of.

unensanguined: Not bloodied

unsullied: not spoiled or made impure.

unwonted: unaccustomed or unusual.

unexampled: having no precedent or parallel.

unintelligent: having or showing a low level of intelligence.

unlimbed: Amputee

ungodly: irreligious or immoral.

immitigable: unable to be made less severe or serious.

unaided: needing or having no assistance; without help.

unceasingly: without stopping

unrelieved: lacking variation or change; monotonous.

unsubduable: impossible to subdue

ungraduated: not graduated.

unsurrendered: early 15c., legalese, "a giving up" (of an estate, land grant, interest in property, etc.), from Anglo-French surrendre infinitive used as a noun, from Old French surrendre "give up, deliver over" (see surrender (v.)).

uncracked: Not cracked

incommoding: inconvenience (someone).

disinterred: Dig up something that has been buried, especially a corpse.