reveille

A MOMENT OF WARの主人公は今はトレーニングキャンプ地であるTarazona de la Manchaにいます。
After reveille came the brief luxury of lying awake, while those whose turn it was to do so brought round tin-drums of coffee brewed on fires in the snow outside. Ladled into our mugs, it had two cosy qualities: colour and warmth. Its flavour was boiler grease.
"ladle" が動詞にもなるのは便利ですね。さて、今日覚える単語は "reveille" です。
・Vocabulary.com: a signal to get up in the morning; in the military it is a bugle call at sunrise: Reveille sounded at four o'clock Monday morning, and the packing of saddles began at once.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a musical signal played to wake up soldiers in the morning, or the time when it is played
私の目覚まし時計の音もbugleの起床ラッパだと直ぐ起きれて良いかも。

sleazy giggle

A MOMENT OF WARを読んでいます。小説の会話文は訛りを表現している事があるので厄介です。
As Danny, my weedy Cockney friend from Figueras, was quick to point out: 'We all bin worryin' abaht you, son. Still are, if you get me.' He pulled his nose with a sleazy giggle. 'When 'telligence blokes get 'old of summick, they don't normly let go of it. We reckon you bin lucky, or sumpen, aincha?
"bin worryin' abaht" は難しくありませんが、"sumpen, aincha" の個所が "something, ain't you" の事だろうと気が付くには二三度読み直す必要がありました。
"sleazy giggle" と "summick" が分かりません。まず "sleazy" の意味を調べます。
・American Heritage Dictionary:
1.a. Shabby, dirty, and vulgar; tawdry: "sleazy storefronts with torn industrial carpeting and dirt on the walls" (Seattle Weekly).
b. Dishonest or corrupt; disreputable: Some sleazy characters hang around casinos.
2. Made of low-quality materials; cheap or shoddy.
3. Thin and loosely woven; flimsy: The coat has a sleazy lining.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: dirty, cheap or not socially acceptable, especially relating to moral or sexual matters: This part of town is full of sleazy bars and restaurants.
・Vocabulary.com:
Something that is sleazy is low and nasty. It’s a perfect word to describe characters like the sleazy door-to-door con men who cheat old ladies into selling them their jewelry at a deep discount.
Sleazy originally meant flimsy, but nowadays it’s only used to describe morally degraded people or places. Usually it refers to sexual behavior, but it is often associated with people trying to swindle others as well. It’s not as bad as perverse or criminal, which suggest that a line has been crossed. But sleazy people make you feel uncomfortable, for sure.
今回は小説で使われている以外の意味、ニュアンスも覚えたいと思ったので辞書に記載の意味を全部そのまま引用しました。
さて "summick" は厄介でした。やっと thedidectdictionaryと言う初めて見る辞書に次ぎの説明がありました。
Something: tell me summick I don't know
この単語は地方語と思われるので覚える必要はなさそうです。

squat

A MOMENT OF WARの主人公達は列車で前線に近い町についた様です。
We fell stiffly from the train and lined up raggedly on the platform, and were faced by a small brass band like a firing-squad. In the dead morning light they pointed their instruments at our heads and blew out a succession of tubercular blasts. Then a squat mackintoshed Commander climbed on to a box and addressed us in rasping tones.
"squat mackintoshed Commander" ですが、"mackintoshed" は以前取り上げた "mackintosh" の形容詞的な用法に違いありませんが、"squat" の方は何度か取り上げた "squat toilet" とそれに関係する動作の意味しか頭に浮かびません。 辞書を見ます。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: short and wide, usually in a way that is not attractive: a row of ugly squat houses: a heavily-built squat man
・Vocabulary.com: short and thick; as e.g. having short legs and heavy musculature: “a little church with a squat tower”
As an adjective, squat describes someone who is very short and thick. In the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the dwarfs are depicted as squat little men.
Vocabulary.comの解説は記憶するのに役立ちますね。

Go Slow

Teacher: Why are you late, Joseph?
Joseph: Because of a sign down the road.
Teacher: What does a sign have to do with your being late?
Joseph: The sign said, "SCHOOL AHEAD. GO SLOW!"
これから江戸川マラソン大会に行きます。
今年は特に練習量が少なかったので "Go Slow" で行きます。

pronunciamentos

スパイの疑いで主人公は取り調べられ危うく処刑されるところでしたが、なんとか処刑はされずに済み、前線に送られます。
Not that much of this was openly discussed among us, in spite of our long hours of idle chatter. Apart from the occasional pronunciamentos of the middle-Europeans, and the undergraduates' stumbling dialecties, I remember only one outright declaration of direct concern - scribbled in charcoal on a latrine wall:
The Fashish Bastids murdered my buddy at Huesca.
Don't worry, pal. I've come to get them.
(Signed) H A R R Y.
A MOMENT OF WARの舞台はもちろんスペインですが、主人公をはじめヨーロッパ、北米等の国からの義勇兵が集まって来ているせいか、英語以外の言葉も良く出てきます。だいたいの流れが分かる時はその様な外国語と思われる言葉は無視しています。　上の "pronunciamentos" も純粋な英語ではなさそうですが、意味を辞書で調べます。
・Collins Dictionary: (plural) -tos
1.an edict, proclamation, or manifesto, esp one issued by rebels in a Spanish-speaking country
2.an authoritarian announcement
・Vocabulary.com: a public declaration of intentions (as issued by a political party or government): Here, indeed, it is so bad as to resemble many of the current political and economic pronunciamentos!
スペイン語からきた言葉で単数形は "pronunciamento" ですね。

daft

A MOMENT OF WARの主人公はスペインの内戦に参加するために寒い冬のピレネー山脈を歩いて越えて来たのです。
How had we all got here? Some by boat, some by illegal train-shuttles from France, but most smuggled from Perpignan by lorry. I hadn't known, in my solitary ignorance, that there was this well-organized traffic for volunteers running from London through Paris into Spain. Which was why I'd done the daft thing and come on my own, and even chosen winter to do it. Nonetheless, I heard later that my progress had not gone altogether unnoticed.
インターネットの無い時代なので情報に疎い人間がいても不思議ではありません。文脈からすると、主人公がした "the daft thing" は馬鹿げた事と解釈できそうなので "daft" は "fool" の意味がある様ですが辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary:
1. silly and not sensible or reasonable: I think it's a daft idea.
2. crazy: I'm not daft you know. I do remember what it's like to be young.
・Vocabulary.com: Daft means "foolish, wacky, or nutty." like your daft idea of wearing flip-flops to hike through the snow so that you didn't ruin your boots.
When the adjective daft is used, you know something extremely silly or obviously goofy is involved - like setting all your money on fire to keep warm, instead of just using it to buy a coat. Some synonyms for daft are absurd, ridiculous, senseless and idiotic, so if someone calls you "daft," maybe you should rethink what you are trying to accomplish: Is there a better way to do it?
"daft thing" はもちろんしたくはないのですが、これまで何度かしていますね。

forage-cap

A MOMENT OF WAR by Laurie Leeを図書館から借りて読み始めました。例によってどんな話なのか全く知りませんが、前書きによると著者は英国人で１９歳の時に生まれ故郷のStroud Gloucestershireからロンドンまで歩き、それから更にスペインまでスペインの内戦に参加するために徒歩で行ったとあります。話を読むと主人公の名前と著者名は違いますが、やはり英国からスペインに徒歩で行くことが書かれています。自分の体験をモデルにした小説の様です。スペインに辿り着くと、連行されスパイではないかと疑われます。
I'd been standing propped against the wall and listening, and now that it was over I slumped back on the straw. My hand touched the deserter's forage-cap, which he'd left behind. It was damp with sweat and still warm from his head.
日本語の目出し帽もつい最近までどんな帽子か知らなかったくらいなので、上の文に出て来た "forage-cap" はどんな帽子か知りませんが、この後にも何度か出て来たのでこの際覚えておこうと思います。ところで目出し帽がどんな帽子か知らなかった理由が今日分かりました。実はニュースで犯人は目出し帽をかぶっていたと言っているのを私は「メザシボウ」と聞いていたのです。今回「メザシボウ」漢字でどう書くのか調べて初めて知ったのです。話が脱線しましたが、
"forage-cap" を辞書でみます。ほとんどの辞書は "forage cap" で掲載していました。
・Collins Dictionary: a soldier's undress cap: The ensemble was set off with a felt forage cap also in forest green.
・Infoplease Dictionary: (formerly) a small, low, undress cap.
・Wordnik: A small low cap worn by soldiers when not in full dress. Also called foraging-cap.

lapse

ASJの９月例会は天正少年使節についての話でした。その講演録からです。
After the boys' return to Japan in 1590, their confident demeanour contriuted to Hideyoshi's decision to allow his edict ordering all the missionaries to leave Japan to lapse. However, he remained wary of Christian missionary activity and of the loyalties of the Christian daimyo, and in 1597 ordered the execution of twenty-six Christians.
"lapse" は知っている単語ですが、ここで使われている意味は知りませんでした。
・Macmillan Dictionary: if an official document, decision, or right lapses, it is no longer effective: The permit was extended for another year before being left to lapse.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to end legally or officially by not being continued or made effective for a longer period: The association needs to win back former members who have allowed their subscriptions to lapse.
最初に知った "lapse" の意味から上記の意味を知るのに何十年も経っています。いかに英文を読んでいなかったを示していますね。
I learned the above meaning of lapse after a lapse of more than 40 years.

quarto and sago

Reader's Digest 9月号のPuzzlesの中の問題からです。
The missing link
What do these words have in common?
FLAMING
QUART
HELL
LIMB
SAG
難しいですね。頭が固い私には分からないので直ぐに答えを見てしまいました。
All the words can have O added to their end to make another word.
Oを足された単語の内、QUARTO、SAGOは知らない単語なので憶えたい。
QUARTO:
・Macmillan Dictionary:
1. a large size of paper used in printing that measures about 26 x 20 centimeters
2. a book with pages that are quarto size
・Vocabulary.com: the size of a book whose pages are made by folding a sheet of paper twice to form four leaves
SAGO:
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a dry granulated or powdered starch prepared from the pith of a sago palm and used in foods and as textile stiffening
・Vocabulary.com: powdery starch from certain sago palms; used in Asia as a food thickener and textile stiffener

fast rights

Reader's Digest 9月号のSmart Animalsにある猫の話がありました。
Our cat Merlyn was already fully grown when he came into our lives to take his rightful place as owner. On arrival, he gave the couch one look and immediately challenged it to a duel. After two minutes of fast rights, dainty footwork and a couple of headbutts, the couch lost the battle.
この "fast rights" が良く分かりません。私の英語の先生、英英辞書に相談します。
辞書には "right" の名詞にこんな意味が載っています。
・Macmillan Dictionary: a hit made with your right hand: right to: He was knocked out with a right to the jaw.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: right hand 1a; also : a blow struck with this hand: gave him a hard right on the jaw
・Infoplease.com: Boxing.a blow delivered by the right hand: a right to the jaw.
猫の話なので、handをpawと読めば、猫の右パンチですね。猫嫌いだったので猫を飼ったことが無く、猫が右パンチを放すのは見た事がありませんが、多分これで正解でしょう。