beribboned cats

O.Henryの短編 'The Enchanted Kiss' からです。

A pleasant note of singing in his ears reinforced his opinion. High, sweet, holy carolling, far and harmonious and uprising, as of sanctified nuns at their responses. At what hour did the Sisters sing? He tried to think—was it six, eight, twelve? Tansey leaned his back against the limestone wall and wondered. Strange things followed. The air was full of white, fluttering pigeons that circled about, and settled upon the convent wall. The wall blossomed with a quantity of shining green eyes that blinked and peered at him from the solid masonry. A pink, classic nymph came from an excavation in the cavernous road and danced, barefoot and airy, upon the ragged flints. The sky was traversed by a company of beribboned cats, marching in stupendous, aërial procession. The noise of singing grew louder; an illumination of unseasonable fireflies danced past, and strange whispers came out of the dark without meaning or excuse.

"beribboned cats" の "beribboned" を "berib" と "boned" でできた単語と読んだので意味が分かりませんでした。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Decorated with many ribbons.: ‘beribboned straw hats’

・Collins Dictionary: adorned with ribbons: Props had been set up in the dark during the ringmaster's introduction: a row of beribboned hoops topped with scarlet balloons.

・Dictionary.com: adorned with ribbons: The gingham dress was such as a daughter of the people might have worn, and the straw hat, though beribboned, was not impressive.

"be" と "ribboned" に分けて読めば意味が分かったのでした。

four-in-hand

O.Henryの短編 'A Retrieved Reformation' からです。

The clerk was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He, himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying to figure out Jimmy's manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially gave information.

"four-in-hand" はネクタイの結び方の一つに違いありませんが、どんな形の結び方でしょうか？
・Oxford English Dictionary: A necktie tied in a loose knot with two hanging ends, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.: ‘The choice appears to be four-in-hand, Windsor, cross knot, half-Windsor, Prince Albert, Ascot, or small knot.’

・Collins Dictionary: a necktie tied in a slipknot with the ends left hanging: From somewhere, he had unearthed a black silk suit, black shirt and deep purple four-in-hand tie.

・Wiktionary: A slip knot with one end hanging in front of the other; a simple necktie.: He wore a black frock coat and light trousers, his cravat a gray four-in-hand.

最後に引用した辞書(Wiktionary)には "four-in-hand" の写真が載っていました。
辞書では結び方は分かりませんが、ネット上には色々な形のネクタイの結び方が載っています。私はネクタイの結び方は一つしか知りませんが、どうもそれが "four-in-hand" の様です。

canvass

O.Henryの短編 'Springtime a la Carte' からです。

The gentleman who announced that the world was an oyster which he with his sword would open made a larger hit than he deserved. It is not difficult to open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever notice any one try to open the terrestrial bivalve with a typewriter? Like to wait for a dozen raw opened that way?
Sarah had managed to pry apart the shells with her unhandy weapon far enough to nibble a wee bit at the cold and clammy world within. She knew no more shorthand than if she had been a graduate in stenography just let slip upon the world by a business college. So, not being able to stenog, she could not enter that bright galaxy of office talent. She was a free–lance typewriter and canvassed for odd jobs of copying.

最後の文に出てきた "canvassed" を調べます。

・Cambridge English Dictionary: to go through (a district) or go to (persons) in order to solicit orders or political support or to determine opinions or sentiments: canvassed the neighborhood to solicit magazine subscriptions
・Oxford English Dictionary: Try to obtain; request.:

・Collins Dictionary: to solicit votes, orders, advertising, etc, from

意味には "solicit orders" も出ていますが、例文はほとんど遊説関係ですね。

dextral

O.Henryの短編 'Schools and Schools' からです。

Barbara was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study in the study. If you, miss, were a stunning New York girl, and saw every day that a brown, ingenuous Western witch was getting hobbles and a lasso on the young man you wanted for yourself, you, too, would lose taste for the oxidized-silver setting of a musical comedy.
Barbara sat by the quartered-oak library table. Her right arm rested upon the table, and her dextral fingers nervously manipulated a sealed letter. The letter was addressed to Nevada Warren; and in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope was Gilbert's little gold palette. It had been delivered at nine o'clock, after Nevada had left.

"dextral" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Of or on the right side or the right hand. The opposite of sinistral: ‘Commonly there is a partitioning of sinistral and dextral criteria on alternate horizons, but horizons occur where both senses coexist.’

・Collins Dictionary: of, relating to, or located on the right side, esp of the body; right-hand:

・WordNet: preferring to use right foot or hand or eye: "Dextral individuals exhibit dominance of the right hand and eye"

"dextral" と対の "sinistral" も一緒に覚えたい。それにしてもO.Henryの小説は知らない単語が山ほど出てきます。

chafing dish

Robert B.Parkerの小説を4冊続けて読んだので地元の図書館にあるParkerの作品は "Resolution" を残すだけとなりました。Parkerの作品は英文自体は平易で俗語は多く出てきますが一般的には難しい語彙は少ないので非常に読み易いのですが、内容はお粗末で、2流、いや3流の探偵小説と思います。さすがに飽きて来たので、たまたまNHKの朝ドラの主人公がO.Henryの作品を読んでいたのを見て、O.Henryの49 Storiesを読むことにしました。O.Henryの短編は高校の英語の副読本で幾つか読んだ記憶があります。

最初にとりあげる表現はO.Henryの短編でも特に有名な 'The Last Leaf' からです。

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth avenue, and became a "colony."

"chafing dish" は何かの食器でしょうか？　辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: A metal pan with an outer pan of hot water, used for keeping food warm.: ‘If hot food must sit out for longer than two hours, use warming trays, slow cookers or chafing dishes to keep the food hot.’

・Merriam-Webster: a utensil for cooking or keeping food warm at the table: And yet the chafing dish has the genteel task of keeping food warm.

・Wikipedia: A chafing dish is a metal cooking or serving pan on a stand with an alcohol burner holding chafing fuel below it. It is used for cooking at table, notably in Gueridon service, or as a food warmer for keeping dishes at a buffet warm.
Note Gueridon service: In the restaurant industry, gueridon service or tableside service is the cooking or finishing of foods by a waiter at the diner's table, typically from a special serving cart called a guéridon trolley.

Russia’s vaunted military

The Japan Times March 14の記事からの抜粋です。
Just as the past two weeks revealed that Russia’s vaunted military faltered in its invasion plan, the next two or three may reveal whether Ukraine can survive as a state, and negotiate an end to the war. So far, even the most basic progress, such as establishing safe humanitarian corridors, has proved elusive.
ロシア軍を形容している "vaunted" の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: proudly talked about or praised as being very good, especially when this is not deserved: Their much vaunted reforms did not materialize.

・Collins Dictionary: If you describe something as vaunted or much vaunted, you mean that people praise it more than it deserves.: Its vaunted security procedures hadn't worked.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: praised often in a way that is considered to be more than acceptable or reasonable: His (much) vaunted new plan has been shown to have serious weaknesses.

なるほど、それで Russia’s vaunted military の後に "faltered" と続いているのですね。

line dry

Reader's Digest 12/1月合併号の記事 'New Rukes of Laundry' からの引用です。

New Rule #6: Try to line dry, at least sometimes.
...(中略)
You might have time to hang up every load of your wash. But you may want to consider line-drying some of your things as a goal to shoot for. It'll save energy and your clothes, plus they'll smell like sunshine.

"line-drying" の意味は文脈から容易に分かりますが、"line-drying/line-dry" を辞書で探しましたが、Wiktionaryにだけ　"line-dry" の項目があり、次の説明がありました。
line-dry: To dry on a clothesline.


日本語では洗濯竿はよく使われますが、洗濯綱/洗濯紐は聞いたことがありませんね。西洋では竹がない（？）ので "clothesline" が使われるのですね。

easy peasy

Reader's Digest 12/1月合併号の記事 'New Rules of Laundry' からの引用です。

New Rule #1: Don't let your clothes tell you what to do.
Our clothes are bossy. Their tags bully us into time-sucking techniques, and before we know it, each article of clothing is trying to tell us what to do. Easy peasy is my mantra.

・Oxford English Dictionary: Very straightforward and easy (used by or as if by children): ‘they insist the new tax forms are easy-peasy’
・Collins Dictionary: very easy; presenting no difficulty at all: very easy; presenting no difficulty at all: Difficulty levels can be adjusted from easy-peasy to fiendishly difficult.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: very easy: It would be easy-peasy to talk about introducing lots of lovely clean electricity generated by wind or whatever we liked if we charged the consumer twice as much.

ごろ合わせから出来た表現でしょうね。

liken

Reader's Digest 12/1月合併号の記事 'What A Waste!' からの引用です。

Where. then, is the tipping point beyond which our debt level will become unsustainable? No one knows. But, says Maya MacGuiness, "I liken it to invisible fence--you have no idea where it is, but you don't want to find out."

"liken" は基本語の "like" と似ていますが、関係があるのでしょうか？　辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Point out the resemblance of someone or something to.: ‘they likened the reigning emperor to a god’

・Collins Dictionary: If you liken one thing or person to another thing or person, you say that they are similar.: He once likened his job to fire-fighting.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: to say that someone is similar to or has the same qualities as someone else: She's been likened to a young Elizabeth Taylor.

"darken" や "weaken" のように名詞や形容詞を動詞にする 'en' が "like" についてできた動詞ですね。

extremities

Reader's Digest 12/1月合併号の記事 'Stretch Yourself' からの引用です。

Brady Peterson, 75, a retired university professor in Belton, Texas, had always been physically active, working out in a home gym and walking six to ten miles a day. Then, about four years ago, after experiencing gradually increasing stiffness and pain in his extremities, he was diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica, an inflammatory disease that can affect every part of the body.

"extremities" は　"extreme" から推測すると、身体の末端、手足を意味している様ですが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: extremities The hands and feet.: ‘tingling and numbness in the extremities’

・Collins Dictionary: Your extremities are the end parts of your body, especially your hands and feet.: He found that his extremities grew cold.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: the parts of the human body furthest from the heart, for example, the fingers, toes, and nose: Few women took advantage of the opportunity to report additional symptoms-breast pains, buzzing in ears, tingling of extremities and irritability were mentioned.

この意味では必ず複数形の "extremities" で使うとありました。