run aground

Natsuo Kirinoの "OUT" を読んでいます。
刑事はパラバラ殺人事件の被害者の妻、Yayoiが殺人し、誰かに死体を切断させた可能性を検討しています。

Had she been planning to use that? Maybe she'd told them about it to get them to go along with the scheme. But then why had they cut up the body? In order to get the insurance money, they needed a positive ID on the victim. Another dead end. And then there was the problem of a motive; his pet theory seemed to run aground on that reef as well. He remembered how shocked Yamamoto had looked when they'd shown her the photos of her husband's body.

"run aground" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: if a ship runs/goes aground, it touches the ground in shallow water and cannot move: The oil tanker ran/went aground off the Spanish coast.
・Collins Dictionary: If a ship runs aground, it touches the ground in a shallow part of a river, lake, or the sea, and gets stuck.: The ship ran aground where there should have been a depth of 35ft.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: If a boat or ship is aground, it is unable to move because it is touching ground or in a place where there is very little water: The ship is currently aground off the Brittany coast.

"run aground" は比喩で、その前に使われている表現 "dead end" と同じ意味ですね。

swamp

Natsuo Kirinoの "OUT" を読んでいます。
Masakoは昔働いていた会社で、Kunikoに金を貸していた、Jumonjiも働いていたのを思い出し、当時の自分の境遇を回想しています。

They stopped inviting her to the monthly dinner at which all the women got together, and she found herself completely isolate. The men, on the other hand were constantly after her, making sure she was the only one asked to serve tea when guests came to the office, and swamping her with copying. As a result, she found it difficult to get her own work done and ended up putting in even more overtime.

"swamping" は動名詞ですが、名詞の沼の意味の "swamp" しか知りません。　動詞の "swamp" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: to make somebody have more of something than they can deal with: The department was swamped with job applications.
・Collins Dictionary: If you are swamped by things or people, you have more of them than you can deal with.: He is swamped with work.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: If something swamps a person, system, or place, more of it arrives than can be easily dealt with: I'm swamped with work at the moment.

snot running down his cheek

昨日のラグビー早明戦は、前週の早慶戦と違って、素晴らしい試合でした。点の取り合いで、敗れた明治もロストタイムのギリギリまで逆転を狙う良い試合で満足しました。
さて、Natsuo Kirinoの "OUT" を読んでいます。

The girl's dyed brown hair fell straight down almost to her waist, and tugging at the ends of it was a small boy who was staring up at Yoshie. This must be the child she'd heard rumors about a couple of years ago, her first grandchild. He looked exactly like his useless father, and none too cute at that. He was thin and pale, with a line of snot running down his cheek. The boy's dad was a loser who had hung around the neighborhood, never able to hold down a regular job; and now his child was watching her with a knowing sort of look, as if he'd guessed what she was thinking.

"snot" は知らない単語ですが、"a line of snot running down his cheek" とあるので鼻水と分かりますね。一応辞書の説明を見ます。

・Collins Dictionary: Snot is the substance that is produced inside your nose. [informal, rude]: She was crying now and clear snot ran in channels from her nose.
・Vocabulary.com: Snot is the discharge that comes from your nose when you have a bad cold. You'll want to carry tissues or a handkerchief with you when you're sneezing, to keep the snot contained.
There are two meanings of the noun snot: the first, mucus, can be unpleasant. The second meaning, an irritatingly arrogant person, is also unpleasant. If a little kid acts like a snot, his babysitter is definitely not going to let him stay up past his bedtime. If you're a snot to your best friend, she might not speak to you the next day. Snot comes from the Old English word gesnot, or "nasal mucus," from a Germanic root.

rigor mortis

Natsuo Kirinoの "OUT" を読んでいます。

深夜の弁当工場で働く仲間のYoshieが夫を殺し、その死体を処分することをMasakoが約束します。

Next she used her knife to cut around the hip joints. Watching the blade slip through the layers of yellow fat, she heard Yoshie mutter that it looked "exactly like a broiler." When she reached bone, she braced her foot on top of Kenji's leg and began sawing the femur just the same way as one would cut through a log. Though it took a bit of time, in the end the legs came a way easily as well. The shoulders, however, were more difficult, and she had trouble deciding where to make the incisions. The fact that rigor mortis had set in didn't make things any easier in this case. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and Yosie was beginning to grow impatient.

ラテン語らしい "rigor mortis" は多分死後硬直を示していると思いますが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: the process by which the body becomes stiff after death: Rigor mortis had already set in.
・Collins Dictionary: In a dead body, when rigor mortis sets in, the joints and muscles become very stiff.: There was also early rigor mortis.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the stiffness of the joints (= places where two bones are connected) and muscles of a dead body: Rigor mortis usually sets in between two and four hours after death.

ちょっと信じがたい話です。