tendering an allotment

'Stop What You're Doing and Read This!' を読んでいます。
This, I think, does a disservice both to readers and to the books themselves. Partly because of the snobbery implicit in the phrase 'good books' -- meaning, of course, the ones that you and I enjoy reading. Partly because there are so many things that can change lives: boxing, learning to play the piano, tendering an allotment... And partly because it's not true. Visit a prison library and you'll meet good people whose lives have been saved by potboilers, and psychopaths reading Jane Austen,
"tendering an allotment" の "tender" と "allotment" も知らない単語では無いのですが、"boxing" や "learning to play the piano" と並列の意味となると分かりません。"allotment" の意味を辞書で見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: In Britain, an allotment is a small area of land in a town which a person rents to grow plants and vegetables on.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: UK a small piece of ground in or just outside a town that a person rents for growing vegetables, fruits, or flowers
なるほど、私も区民農園で野菜を栽培していますが、その事ですね。やはりこれもイギリス英語ですね。

bit my biros

タイトルにつられて 'Stop What You're Doing and Read This!' を読むことにしました。
11人のイギリス人がそれぞれの観点から本を読むことの意義、良さについて書いた本でした。
当然の事ながら、私には若干馴染みの薄いイギリス英語が頻出します。
Still, it's important not to overly romanticise these things. Willesden Green Library was not to be confused with the British Library. Sometimes whole shelves of books , would be missing, lost, depressingly defaced or torn. Sometimes people would come in just to have a conversation, while I bit my biros to pieces in frustration. Later I learned what a monumental and sacred thing a library can be.
図書館で "biros" を噛むとは何でしょう。
・Oxford English Dictionary: British trademark: A kind of ballpoint pen.: She also took a biro and notebook as her ‘luxuries’.

・Collins Dictionary: A Biro is a pen with a small metal ball at its tip which transfers the ink onto the paper. [British, trademark]
商標名から一般名になった単語ですか。ボールペンを指先でくるくる回す人は時々見かけますね。

simpleton

Reader's Digest 7/8月号の記事 'Laughter the Best Medicine' からの引用です。
A broke guy walks past a pub. He looks at the door longingly, but since he has no money, he walks on. Just then, he spots a lamp lying in the gutter. He picks it up and rubs it, and a genie emerges. "I will grant you three wishes," intones the genie.
"Give me a bottomless mug of beer," the guy says. A mug of beer appears in his hand. He takes a sip, then another. With each chug, the mug magically refills. "And for your other two wishes?"
Between swallows, the lucky guy shouts, "Give me two more just like this one!"
おめでたい人ですね。
でも、よく考えたら余分なマグは売ることもできますよね。

vape

The Japan Timesの8月4日付けOPINIONコラムに掲載された記事のタイトルです。
Trying to cut cigarette use by banning vaping might backfire
タバコは全く吸わないのでこの "vaping" が何のことか分かりません。とりあえず記事の内容を読むと、その意味が分かる個所が次の様に出てきました。
The building is the headquarters of Juul, a large company that markets vaping products — electronic cigarettes — that has been running full-page ads in major newspapers ostensibly attempting to limit sales of its product: “Youth vaping is a serious problem” that justifies “cracking down on underage sales at retail stores” and removing from stores “flavored products.”
最近見かける様になった電子タバコでタバコを吸う事ですね。新しい物なので "vaping/vape" が辞書に載っているか確認します。OneLookの検索では普通の辞書で "vape" を掲載しているのはMerriam-Webster's Online Dictionaryだけでした。
vape: to inhale vapor through the mouth from a usually battery-operated electronic device (such as an electronic cigarette) that heats up and vaporizes a liquid or solid
Wikipediaは "vape" で検索すると "Electronic cigarette" の項に転送され、電子タバコの詳しい説明がありました。

追記　電子タバコとは別に加熱式タバコがある様で、日本で見かけるのはどちらなのか私には分からないが、いずれにせよ興味はありません。

hamstringing

無料のEmailサービスで毎日受け取っているThe Japan TimesのToday's top news（8/1/2019）に次の記事がありました。
The overstretched system of dealing with child abuse
Limited manpower and a surge in the number of abuse cases are hamstringing efforts to adequately protect vulnerable children.
"hamstringing" はよく見かける単語ですが、腱とか筋を意味する "hamstringing" ばかり連想して、それ以外の意味が直ぐに出てきません。とりあえず記事の詳細を読みます。
Some prefectures and cities polled reportedly noted that limited manpower and a surge in the number of abuse cases make it tough to observe the 48-hour rule, while others said there’s a limit to putting only child welfare centers in charge of dealing with all suspected cases of child abuse — suggesting that some cases that appear to be of low urgency could be handled by local municipalities instead.
記事の本文では "are hamstringing" を "make it tough" と言い換えていますね。
英英辞書の説明を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Severely restrict the efficiency or effectiveness of.: we were hamstrung by a total lack of knowledge

・Collins Dictionary: If you hamstring someone, you make it very difficult for them to take any action.: If he becomes the major opposition leader, he could hamstring a conservative-led coalition.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: to limit the amount of something that can be done or the ability or power of someone to do something: The company was hamstrung by traditional but inefficient ways of conducting business.
"hamstringing" が切れる事を連想すれば良いのですね。

gauntlet

'Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google'からの引用です。
This is one way of hiring for that subject of companies that can pull it off. The coolness ensures that the company will get dozen of applicants for every opening and that those applicants will submit to a gauntlet of interview puzzles, stunts, tests, and hazings. At the end, the interviewers skim the most dazzling talent off the top and reject everyone else (most of whom may be perfectly well qualified). It's not hard to understand why companies do this. The mystery is why so many job seekers are mesmerized by corporate mystiques.
"gauntlet" はよく見かける単語で、以前（3/16/2018） "run a gauntlet" を取り上げていますが、 上の引用文に出てきた "gauntlet" は "throw down the gauntlet" の慣用句からの方が意味を連想し易いですね。上の "gauntlet" に合う説明を辞書で見ます。
・Collins Dictionary: a testing ordeal; trial

・Wiktionary: (figuratively) Any challenging, difficult, or painful ordeal, often one performed for atonement or punishment
・V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary: 1. a challenge issued; 2. a long glove that extends up the forearm; 3. a form of punishment; 4. any trial, difficulty, or obstacle
Tips: Gauntlet is often heard in the phrases "to run the gauntlet," meaning to face criticism from several sides or fronts, "to throw down the gauntlet," meaning to issue a challenge, or "to take up the gauntlet," meaning to accept a challenge.

register too low or too refined

In Other Words（Jhumpa Lajiri著）を読んでいます。
Yet the impulse to track down the right word remains irrepressible, so even in Italian I try. I check the thesaurus, I leaf through my notebook. I put in a new word, just read that morning in the newspaper. But my first readers often shake their heads, saying simply, "It doesn't sound right." They say the word I'd like to use is now considered dated, that it belongs to a register too low or too refined, that it sounds either precious or too coloquial (thus I learned the adjective aulico, lofty).

"register" はこれまでに2度（9/6/2011、5/31/2008） 異なる意味の "register" を取り上げていますが、今回の "register" は又別の意味・用法の様です。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A variety of a language or a level of usage, as determined by degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax, according to the communicative purpose, social context, and standing of the user.: Written language is often a special register, distinct from most styles of speech, and the information conveyed by writing and by speech is not identical.
・Collins Dictionary: In linguistics, the register of a piece of speech or writing is its level and style of language, which is usually appropriate to the situation or circumstances in which it is used.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the style of language, grammar, and words used for particular situations: People chatting at a party will usually be talking in (an) informal register.

gestation

In Other Words（Jhumpa Lajiri著）を読んでいます。
I've been writing since I was a child in order to forget my imperfections, in order to hide in the background of life, In a certain sense writing is an extended homage to imperfection. A book, like a person, remains imperfect, incomplete, during its entire creation. At the end of the gestation the person is born, then grows, but I consider a book alive only during the writing. Afterward, at least for me, it dies.
"gestation" は以前（9/8/2012）取り上げていますが、男は直接に実感しないせいか、私はどうも忘れる単語です。

gnawing fever

GOTCHA!というWebサイトに「英語多読できるようになるコツまとめ＆おすすめ洋書71選」の記事を見つけ、これから読む本の参考にしたいと思いました。その中の一つ、In Other Wordsを早速買って読むことにしました。これはインド系米国人作家のJhumpa Lajiriがイタリア語で書いた本ですが、面白い事に英語の個所は本人ではなく別の人による翻訳で、イタリア語と英語の両方で併記されている本です。私はイタリア語は全く読めないので英語の個所しか読みませんが、息子の嫁さんがイタリア語を解するので、私が読んだらあげるつもりで買いました。
その中から引用します。
I'm reminded of a passage in Verga, whom I recently discovered: "To think that this patch of ground, a sliver of sky, a vase of flowers might have been enough for me to enjoy all the happiness in the world if I hadn't experienced freedom, if I didn't feel in my heart a gnawing fever for all the joys that are outside these walls!"

"gnawing" うろ覚えですが、何かの漫画で犬が骨をかかじっている、あるいはビーバーが木をかじっている絵を見て憶えた単語です。しかし、それでは "gnawing fever" の意味は分かりません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Persistently worrying or distressing.: that gnawing pain in her stomach
・Collins Dictionary: a sensation of dull, constant pain or suffering
・Cambridge English Dictionary: continuously uncomfortable, worrying, or painful: After three days, we felt an agonizing, gnawing hunger.
なるほど、痛みとか何日も食べれなかった後の空腹を形容する言葉にもなるのですね。

graduated meter

AsimovのI, ROBOTを読んでいます。
It was in the last room, the one nearest the nose, that the monotony broke. A curving window of non-reflecting glass was the first break in the universal metal, and below it was a single large dial, with a single motionless needle hard against the zero mark.
Donovan said, "Look at that!" and pointed to the single word on the finely marked scale.
It said, "Parsecs," and the tiny figure at the right end of the curving, graduated meter said "1,000,000."
"graduate" では卒業することしか思い浮かばないのですが上の個所は別の意味に違いありません。辞書を見ます。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: marked with lines for measuring: a graduated cylinder [=a tall, narrow container used for measuring liquids]; a graduated thermometer

・Collins Dictionary: Graduated jars are marked with lines and numbers which show particular measurements.: ...a graduated tube marked in millimetres.
なるほど。辞書によっては "graduated cylinder" の項目で説明がありました。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a glass cylinder that has lines printed on the side of it showing how much it contains, used by scientists: Pour exactly 100 ml of sulphuric acid into a graduated cylinder.