trapdoor

Yoko Ogawaの "The Diving Pool" を読み始めました。

The foyer of the Light House leads to a maze of corridors that snake through the building and eventually to a hall on the second floor that looks down on the courtyard through a window. At the end of the hall, there is a trapdoor in the floor with a heavy iron handle. The door makes a dry creak when it's lifted. We would fasten it to a hook on the ceiling before going down the steep flight of stairs to the dining room and the kitchen.

"trapdoor" とは忍者屋敷の話の様ですが、何でしょう？　辞書で確認します。

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a small door in a ceiling or floor:　There's a trapdoor into the attic.
・Merriam-Webster: a lifting or sliding door covering an opening (as in a roof, ceiling, or floor): The old trapdoor in the dining area opens to a 400-bottle wine and food cellar.

なるほど。床にあるドアの取っ手を上に持ちあげて、開けたら下に降りる階段があるのですね。

apropos & rapport

Reader's　Digest ６月号の単語クイズ "WORD POWER" は発音しない文字を含む単語が問題でした。難しいスペルの単語も多く（例　coxswain, chthonc）, 15問中９問しか正解できませんでした。　その中に、意味は知っているのに発音を間違えて覚えていた単語が二つあったので、今回はその二つの単語の正しい発音をしっかりと覚えたいと思います。
下記はReader's　Digestに記載の二つの単語の意味と例文です。単語に付けたリンク先はMerriam-Websterの各単語の項で発音も実際の音で確認できます。"apropos" の "s" と "rapport" の "t" は発音されないスペルでした。

apropos: suitable: Nora's somber black outfit was more apropos for a funeral than a wedding.
rapport: friendly relationship: I didn't like my new boss at first, but we've developed a rapport.

poo-bah

Reader's　Digest ６月号の記事 "Horror Stories" からの引用です。

The man behind the brand was just as ubiquitous, a chamber of commerce leader, Kiwanis bigwig and Shriners poo-bar. He donated a scoreboard to the town gymnasium, presented the police with a trained German shepherd, sponsored a semipro baseball team and gave away banana splits to children for their civic spirit or academic success, or just for being kids.

"poo-bar" も "bigwig" と同類の身分の高い人の気がしますがどうでしょう？　辞書を見ます。

・Merriam-Webster: 1) a person holding many public or private offices 2) a person in high position or of great influence
この辞書には珍しく詳しい語源の説明もありました。
The original Pooh-Bah was an arrogant, buffoonish bureaucrat introduced in the 1885 Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado. In that show, the character Pooh-Bah, whose title is "Lord High Everything Else," very "humbly" agrees to accept several important government offices (and their salaries) after a series of officials resign. He'll do anything if the bribe is big enough, and he loves to strut and show off to anyone who might be impressed by his grandeur. It didn't take English speakers long to adopt pooh-bah as a term for someone who holds either many offices or a high position, and the word still often carries a suggestion of pompousness.

Alternative forms: pooh bah, pooh-bah, poobah, poo-bah, Poo-Bah, Pooh-Bah

"poo-bar" は偉い人には違いないでしょうが、日本語の「お偉いさん」よりもっと皮肉がこもっている響きを感じます。

saddle with

Reader's　Digest ６月号の記事 "Horror Stories" からの引用です。

And any issue that can't be settled between the homeowner and HOA board will eventually end up in court, which can be a lose-lose proposition. In Maryland, a conflict over a fence that crossed 8 inches into a conservation zone ballooned into five-year battle that left homeowner Betty Hooker saddled with $40,000 in legal costs.

HOAはHome Owner's Associationの略です。最後の文に出てきた "saddle with" を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: to give somebody/yourself an unpleasant responsibility, task, debt, etc.: The company was saddled with debts of £12 million.
・Collins Dictionary: If you saddle someone with a problem or with a responsibility, you put them in a position where they have to deal with it.: The war devastated the economy and saddled the country with a huge foreign debt.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to give someone a responsibility or problem that they do not want and that will cause them a lot of work or difficulty: The company is saddled with debt.

duke it out

Reader's　Digest ６月号の記事 "The Scoop on Streaming" からの引用です。

This January, NBCUniversal aired an NFL playoff game exclusively on streaming for the first time in history. In most of the United States (other than the two home cities), if you wanted to watch the Kansas City Chiefs duke it out with the Miami Dolphins in the AFC wild-card game, you forked over the $5.99 Peacoc monthly subscription fee.

"duke it out" は文脈からすると戦う意味だと思いますが、辞書で確認します。

・Collins Dictionary: to fight, esp. with the fists; do battle: The adversaries were prepared to duke it out in the alley
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to fight with fists (= closed hands): In the opening scene, Bond and his adversary are duking it out on top of a train.
・Dictionary.com: to fight, especially with the fists; do battle: The adversaries were prepared to duke it out in the alley.

The Head

Reader's　Digest ６月号の記事 "Humor in Uniform" からの引用です。

The Navy has a language you won't see in civilian life. Case in point, this sign in a latrine at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field: "All Hands Must Wash Hands Before Leaving the Head!"

この意味での "the Head" は以前も "Humor in Uniform" の記事にありました。兵隊さんが使う俗語なのですね。覚えなくてもよい単語なのに何故か記憶に残っています。

efflorescent

Kobo Abeの小説 "The Woman in the Dunes" を読んでいます。

The surface of the moon was like a grainy, powder-covered scar...cheap, dried-out soap...a rusty aluminum lunchbox. Then as it came into focus, it assumed an unexpected form: a white skull--the universal symbol for poison...white, powdercovered tablets at the bottom of his insect bottle...an amazing resemblance between the texture of the moon's surface and that of the efflorescent tablets of potassium cyanide.

"efflorescent tablets" の "efflorescent" とは何でしょう？　辞書を見ます。

・Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary：Denoting a crystalline body that gradually changes to a powder by losing its water of crystallization on exposure to a dry atmosphere.
・Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health: becoming powdery by losing the water of crystallization.

何か専門的な言葉ですね。 多くの辞書は形容詞の "efflorescent" ではなく、covered with or forming an efflorescence（Collins Dictionary）とかthe process or product of efflorescing chemically (Merriam-Webster)と説明しているので "efflorescence" を見ます。 

・Oxford English Dictionary: (chemistry) the powder that appears on the surface of bricks, rocks, etc. when water evaporates
・Collins Dictionary: the changing of certain crystalline compounds to a whitish powder or powdery crust through loss of their water of crystallization 

英語では専門用語の様ですが、原文の日本語は何なのか気になります。