con artist

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 "All in a Day's WORK" からの引用です。

On the first day of school, I asked each of the kids in my first grade class to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. One boy said "artist."
"Oh, that's wonderful!" I gushed. "What kind?"
He replied, "Con."

"con" にペテン師/詐欺の意味があることは知っていましたが、"con artist" の表現があることは知りませんでした。

・Collins Dictionary: A con artist is someone who tricks other people into giving them their money or property.: ATM theft attracts both small-time con artists and large syndicates.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a person who deceives other people by making them believe something false or making them give money away: Art didn't say anything, just sat pat and waited, the way he did sometimes when con artists came into the shop with some kind of scam that they wanted him to play along with.

先生の勇み足でしたが、この少年の行く末が心配だ。

alpha male

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 "Humor in UNIFORM" からの引用です。
複数の犬がそれぞれの姿で描かれている漫画についていた台詞です。
"It's always easy to spot the alpha male."

・Oxford English Dictionary: the man or male animal in a particular group who has the most power: The alpha male was a large black wolf.
・Collins Dictionary: the dominant male animal or person in a group: Such individuals are alpha males, competitive by nature, who want to show off their prowess to any possible rival.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the most successful and powerful male in any group; a strong and successful man who likes to be in charge of others: Typically, a dominant male is referred to as the alpha male.

without missing a beat

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 "Life in these United States" からの引用です。

Back to School
In high school, a classmate responded to a teacher's question with a "yo mama" joke. Without missing a beat, the teacher said, "Leave my mother out of this. I don't make the fun of your parent and look what they produced."

慣用句の様な "Without missing a beat" を調べます。

・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: Without slowing down, pausing, or being distracted, especially in spite of a potential disruption.: Even when the hecklers started singing obnoxiously, the speaker continued without missing a beat.
・Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary: If someone says or does something without missing a beat, they continue to speak or do something without pausing.: `Are you jealous?' — `Only when I'm not in control,' he says, without missing a beat.

booby trap

Reader's Digest 9月号の記事 "Next Stop the After Life" からの引用です。

Ancient Egypt
We know more about how the ancient Egyptians died than about how they lived. Duat, their underworld, was full of obstacles, which could be navigated successfully only with the protective spells found in the Egyptians' famous Book of the Dead. Those obstacles comprise a full Indiana Jones temple of doom: There's a lake of fire torture chambers and even booby traps. But for the adventurous traveler, the iron walls and turquoise trees of Duat make for an afterlife unlike any other.

"booby traps" の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: a hidden bomb that explodes when the object that it is connected to is touched: Nobody went near the abandoned car in case it was a booby trap.
・Collins Dictionary: A booby-trap is something such as a bomb which is hidden or disguised and which causes death or injury when it is touched.: Police were checking the area for booby traps.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: something dangerous, especially a bomb, that is hidden inside somewhere that looks safe: The bodyguard was killed while checking the president's car for booby traps.

地雷（"land mine"）も "booby traps" の一種かな。

adipose issues

Nessa Careyの 'Junk DNA' を読んでいます。

When the researchers knocked out expression of the second gene in mice they found that, compared with control animals, the mice were lean, had low adipose tissues and increased baseline metabolic rate.

"adipose tissues" の　"adipose" の意味を調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: of, resembling, or containing fat; fatty: No significant changes in intermuscular adipose tissue volume or attenuation were found in any muscles.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: relating to animal fat: adipose tissue (= fat)

firmament

Nessa Careyの 'Junk DNA' を読んでいます。

But -- if you have access to a telescope, you realise that there is so much more in the firmament than you can detect with the naked eye. There are details like the rings of Saturn, and there are vastly more stars than we could ever imagine.

"firmament" の意味を調べます。
・Collins Dictionary: The firmament is the sky or heaven.: There are no stars in the firmament.
・Wiktionary: (usually uncountable, literary, poetic, also figurative) The vault of the heavens, where the clouds, sun, moon, and stars can be seen; the heavens, the sky.: On its far side, on the very horizon of the world, stood purple mountains, so tall and sharp that they bridged the firmaments.

文学的、詩的な単語なのですね。　次の辞書は由来にも触れています。
・Vocabulary.com:　The firmament is the curve of the sky, especially if you imagine it as a solid surface. You can describe the sky at night as a firmament shining with stars (if you're feeling poetic).
The word firmament comes from the Latin firmus, or "firm," and this description of the sky as something solid reflects ancient ideas of the way the universe was constructed. The first stargazers imagined the sky as a sphere, and it wasn't until the late 1500s that the idea of an infinite universe was seriously considered. Today the word firmament is mostly literary, used to poetically describe the visual curve of the sky.

senescence

Nessa Careyの 'Junk DNA' を読んでいます。

It's relatively easy to take a biopsy, for example from skin, and isolate the fibroblasts. These will grow and divide in culture. What the researchers discovered all those years ago was that the cells wouldn't keep dividing forever. There came a point when they stopped dividing, even when supplied with all the nutrients and oxygen they needed. The cells didn't die, they just stopped proliferating. This is known as senescence.

細胞が分裂（増殖）しなくなることを "senescence" と言う専門用語の様ですが、辞書を見ます。

・Wiktionary:
(biology) The state or process of ageing, especially in humans; old age.
(cell biology) Ceasing to divide by mitosis because of shortening of telomeres or excessive DNA damage.
(gerontology) Old age; accumulated damage to macromolecules, cells, tissues and organs with the passage of time.
(cytology, of a cell) Condition when the cell ceases to divide.
・Vocabulary.com: Do your stiff knees make it harder and harder to get out of that cozy chair? It may be that senescence is at work, meaning you’re getting older.
Senescence is a fancy way to describe the process of aging. If you don’t want to admit straight out that old age made you lose that tango contest, blame it on senescence — it sounds mysterious and exciting. Senescence is sometimes used in a scientific context to describe cells in your body that can no longer grow and divide, which can affect your ability to dance like you did when you were 20.

まさに私はこの状態に近いのですが、英語では "old age" とは言わず、 "senescence" とか "senescent"(形容詞)を使った方が 'it sounds mysterious and exciting' なのですね！　日本語にもそんな表現があるといいですね。

loft insulation

A large room containing 50 rolls of loft insulation, each roll being 5m in length and 20cm deep, and you can hide the watch deep in any one of the 50 rolls.

勤めている会社は電気計測器器を扱っているので、"insulation" を見ると直ぐに電気的な絶縁を連想するのですが、引用文では電気の絶縁体の意味ではなさそうです。深く考えずに辞書を見ました。

・Oxford English Dictionary: the act of protecting something with a material that prevents heat, sound, electricity, etc. from passing through; the materials used for this: Better insulation of your home will help to reduce heating bills.
・Collins Dictionary: Insulation is a thick layer of a substance that keeps something warm, especially a building.: A wet suit provides excellent insulation.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: material that is used to stop heat, sound, or electricity from escaping or entering: Glass fibre is often used as roof insulation.

"insulation" は電気だけではなく、熱や音にも使われるのでした。　"loft insulation" ではなく、最後に引用した辞書の例の様に "roof insulation" なら気が付いたと思います。

interloper

Nessa Careyの 'Junk DNA' （副題 'A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome'）を読み始めました。

Other regions of junk DNA are genetic interlopers, derived from the genomes of viruses and other microorganisms that have integrated into human chromosomes, like genetic sleeper agents. These remnants of long-dead organisms carry potential dangers to the cell, the individual and sometimes even to wider populations.

"interloper" を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: a person who is present in a place or a situation where they do not belong or are not wanted: She felt like an interloper in her own family.
・Collins Dictionary: If you describe someone as an interloper, you mean that they have come into a situation or a place where they are not wanted or do not belong.: She had no wish to share her father with any outsider and regarded us as interlopers.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: someone who becomes involved in an activity or a social group without being asked, or enters a place without permission: Security did not prevent an interloper from getting onto the stage at the opening ceremony.

引用文では "interloper" を擬人化して使っていますね。

lentor

今日もChatGPTで調べた単語 "lentor" を紹介します。　この単語はthe novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokovに次の様にでてきました。

She stepped up to it, lifting her rather high-heeled feet rather high, and bending her beautiful boy-knees while she walked through dilating space with the lentor of one walking under water or in a flight dream.

ChatGPTの回答です。
In the context of the sentence from the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, "lentor" refers to the quality or sensation of moving slowly or with a certain viscosity, as if walking underwater or in a dream-like state of flight. It suggests a sense of slowness, heaviness, or resistance in the act of walking.

なるほどと思いましたが、今回は追加質問として「一般の米国人はこの単語を知っているのか？」と尋ねてみました。

The term "lentor" is not commonly used in everyday language and is a more poetic or literary expression. In this passage, Nabokov uses it to describe the peculiar way in which the character moves, emphasizing the dreamlike or otherworldly quality of her motion.
You're correct that the word "lentor" is not commonly found in standard dictionaries. It is indeed a more obscure and poetic term. As such, it is not part of everyday vocabulary for most people, including ordinary Americans.
Vladimir Nabokov was known for his rich and intricate language, often incorporating uncommon or inventive words to create vivid and evocative descriptions. "Lentor" appears to be a word that Nabokov coined or adapted to suit his desired imagery and aesthetic in the passage you provided. While it may not be familiar to most readers, it adds a unique and specific flavor to his writing style.

Nabokovが創った単語なら、文学の苦手な英語を母国語としている米国人にもLolitaは難解と感じるのでしょうか？