fluted pillar tops

'THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES' by Ray Bradburyを読み始めました。
She watched the blue sky of Mars as if it might at any moment grip in on itself, contract, and expel a shining miracle down upon the sand.
Nothing happened.
Tired of waiting, she walked through the misting pillars. A gentle rain sprang from the fluted pillar tops, cooling the scorched air, falling gently on her.
楽器のフルートではない "flute" を以前（6/13/2016）取り上げましたが、上の引用個所に出てきた "fluted pillar tops" の "flute" はその "flute" の意味（a tall, narrow wine glass）ではないことは確かです。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Architecture n. An ornamental vertical groove in a column.; v. Make flutes or grooves in.: the wood has been fluted to resemble Greek columns:

・Collins Dictionary: n. a rounded shallow concave groove on the shaft of a column, pilaster, etc; v. to make long, rounded grooves in (a column, etc.)

・Cambridge English Dictionary: If an object, especially a round object, is fluted, its edges have many curves that go in and out: fluted columns/pillars

exploded diagram

仕事で、ある製品カタログを読んでいると興味のある表現が出てきました。
You can see from the exploded diagram that the 7340/7350 case protects the resistive elements and all shunt circuitry.
"exploded diagram" は初めて見る表現ですが、この文の近くに装置の分解図があるので分解図を指していることは間違いありません。辞書で確認します。
"exploded diagram" の項目は見当たりませんでしたが、Collins Dictionaryに "exploded drawing" の項があり、'another name for exploded view' とあり、次の説明がありました。
exploded view: a drawing or photograph of a complicated mechanism that shows the individual parts separately, usually indicating their relative positions

その他の辞書でも "exploded view/exploded-view drawing" などの項目はありました。
・Wiktionary: A view in a drawing showing how parts in an assembly fit together.: An exploded view will show the assembly details well.

institution

Reader's Digest 7/8月号 "America the TASTY" からの引用です。
Alabama
Signature dish: Chicken in white sauce.
During the 1920's Alabanians flocked to railroad worker "Big Bob" Gibson's backyard on the weekends for hickory-smoked chicken smothered in his own vinegar-and-manyonnaise sauce. His Decantur restaurant and his chicken and white sauce are still institutions.
3/7/2014 に取り上げた "institution" は人に対する言葉でしたが、上記の "institutions" は人ではありませんね。 "institutions" を辞書で再度確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: informal A well-established and familiar person or custom.: Dress codes are a British institution, and the British love their uniforms.

・Collins Dictionary: An institution is a custom or system that is considered an important or typical feature of a particular society or group, usually because it has existed for a long time.: I believe in the institution of marriage.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a custom or tradition that has existed for a long time and is accepted as an important part of a particular society: the venerable institution of marriage

the dog days

Reader's Digest 7/8月号 "World of Medicene" からの引用です。
HEAT CAN MAKE YOUR BRAIN SLUGGISH
If you find it hard to get your work done during the dog days of summer, blame the heat. In a Harvard University study, 20 students who lived in a dormitory with no air-conditioning had slower reaction times, 13 percent lower performance on basic arithmetic tests, and a nearly 10 percent reduction in the number of correct responses per minutes compared with students who lived in an air-conditioned building.
"the dog days" は猛暑の日だとは容易に推測できますが、何故「犬の日」が猛暑と関係があるのでしょうか？　犬は暑さに弱く、暑いと舌を出してハーハーと呼吸をするからでしょうか？　　疑問が湧き、由来が気になり調べました。
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms
The period in the summer often thought to be hottest, usually considered to be July 3 to August 11. In ancient times, people associated the heat during this period with the concurrent rising of Sirius, nicknamed "the dog star." The phrase is a translation of the Latin dies caniculares, meaning "dog star days."
・American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms:
Hot, sultry summer weather; also, a period of stagnation. For example, It's hard to get much work done during the dog days, or Every winter there's a week or two of dog days when sales drop dramatically. The term alludes to the period between early July and early September, when Sirius, the so-called Dog Star, rises and sets with the sun. The ancient Romans called this phenomenon dies caniculares, which was translated as "dog days" in the first half of the 1500s.
星の名前から来ているとは全く気が付きませんでした。

bootstrap

'Stop What You're Doing and Read This!' を読んでいます。
Will the presence of digital tools such as translations and definitions serve to enhance the reading experience, by acting as bootstraps when difficulties are encountered, or will they disprupt it? What will such directions mean to the intellectual autonomy of individuals?
"bootstraps" はコンピュータで使われる "booting/boot" の元になった言葉ですね。
・Dictionary.com:a means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something: He used his business experience as a bootstrap to win voters.
語源辞書のOnline Etymologyから "bootstrap" の項の説明を引用します。
Circa 1900, to pull (oneself) up by (one's) bootstraps was used figuratively of an impossible task (among the "practical questions" at the end of chapter one of Steele's "Popular Physics" schoolbook (1888) is, "30. Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his boot-straps?" and an excellent question it is). By 1916 the meaning of the phrase had expanded to include "better oneself by rigorous, unaided effort." The meaning "fixed sequence of instructions to load the operating system of a computer" (1953) is from the notion of the first-loaded program pulling itself (and the rest) up by the bootstrap. It was used earlier of electrical circuits (1946).

peopled

'Stop What You're Doing and Read This!' を読んでいます。
Thinking about it now, I can see that his Jaggers was probably based on a suburban head teacher from one of the schools he taught in; Uncle Pumblechook could have been derived from the strangely pompous shopkeepers and publicans who peopled the hardware stores and cafes of outer London, where we lived in the 1950s.
"1/24/2019" に受動態の "peopled by/peopled with" を取り上げましたが、今回は受動態ではありません。この用法を辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: [usually passive] to be the people who exist in a place, situation, or period of time: Hunters peopled these forests long ago.: a sparsely peopled area

・Vocabulary.com: fill with people: Stalin wanted to people the empty steppes.

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。