See also Emerson glossary
Alacrity - cheerful promptness
Alembic - purification device
Anodyne (N) - soothing medicine
Aporia - rhetorical pretense of not knowing where to begin
B
Bayardly - of blindness and self-confidence in one's ignorance
Benison - blessing, benediction (see the University of Chicago Alma Mater)
C
Captious - quibbling, sophistical
Caseous - cheesy
Commodious - handy
Cockade - hat ornament
Contumely; contumacious - stubbornly resisting authority (like America to Britain; see Lemay 886).
Cormorant - glutton (adj. = greedy, rapacious)
Corsair - pirate
Coxcomb - fop, dandy
Cyon - wild dog
D
Debouchure - opening out (of a river, or of a lake being drained; e.g. Claudius' of the Fucine Lake)
Depilate (V) - remove hair
Diffidence- shyness, as before critics
Debonair - affable, genial, jaunty
Dirempt - to separate with force
E
Emolument - profit, gain, wages
Encomium - panegyric, eulogy (see Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1367b25)
Engross (V) - make large, thicken
Enthymeme - an argument from probabilities (see Aristotle, Rhetoric); an implied premise or conclusion
Eristic - controversial, argumentative, disputatious
F
Factotum - handyman, jack-of-all-trades
Fealty - vassal's fidelity to feudal lord
I
Immure - to wall in, like Helen of Troy (Troilus and Cressida Prologue)
Itinerant (N) - a wanderer, esp. as a preacher or doctor
Ingenuous - candid, without guile, noble
J
Jobbing - turning public busines toward private profit; so money-jobbing; jobbers
L
Lese-nation - Fr.Rev. term for political crime, treason
Lubricious - slippery (physically, or slippery like the serpent in Genesis); lascivious
Lucubration - work done by candlelight; scholarly work, somewhat pedantic
M
Maculate - to stain, defile, blemish
Maniple - an arm vestment; small part of a Roman legion
Mephitic - smelly, noxious, poisonous
Meridian - at highest altitude
Moiety - a half, or any part
Mortmain - "the condition of property held inalienably by a corporation" (O'Brien, Burke's Reflections, p. 393)
N
Niter - saltpeter (used in gunpowder)
P
Palter - prevaricate, trifle, quibble
Parataxis - juxtaposition of related clauses, without connectives
Peccant - erring, guilty
Pelf - dishonest wealth
Pettifogger - unethical lawyer who uses dishonesty and trickery
Probity - virtue, trustworthiness
Protreptical - hortatory
Pule - whine, cry, whimper
Punctilio - precise etiquette
Pustule - pimple, or something that looks like one
Q
Quadrimanous - apelike ["four-handed"]
R
Remonstrate - present an objection
Revetment - a wall surface or a retaining wall
S
Sedulous - diligent, industrious, unrelenting
Sententious - pointed, pithy, aphoristic
Sinecure - "useless appointment [office]" (Franklin)
Solecism - grammatical error
Sortition - selection by lot
Supine - sluggish, lying on the back (like Britain, to Franklin, sort of)
Suppurate (V) - produce pus; rot
T
Theodolite - telescope for measuring angles
Torpid - dull, sluggish, numb (like President Grant, acc. to Henry Adams)
Trapan (V) - trepan, trick, trap
Truss (V) - bind tightly
Tufa - a kind of volcanic rock or a rock deposit
Turbid - cloudy, confused, muddled
Turgid - swollen, tumid, pompous
Tyro - tiro, novice, new soldier
V
Vizard (N) - visor, mask
Thanks to Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, the OED, and <dictionary.com> for help.
* Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (Lemay 1319).
** See Lemay 1554.