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Word watching answers: July 10, 2007

SEDECUPLE (b)

A quantity sixteen times another. Latin sedecim means sixteen. After decuple. 1690: “If any Root be Multiplied by Four, the product shalle be the Root of the Sedecuple.”

MUSTERDEVILLERS (a)

A mixed grey woollen cloth. Toponym of the name of the town now called Montivil-liers in Normandy. 1494: “My Musterdevillers gown, collar and cuffs lined with velvet.”

SAXAUL (a)

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A shrub, Anabasis (or Holoxylon) Ammo-dendron, growing on the steppes of Asia. 1882: “(Khi-va) Saxaul is found in quantities, and furnishes excellent fuel.”

ONOMANCY (b)

Divination from names or the letters of a name, as, the number of vowels in a name, the sum of the numerical value of the letters, or the like. Abbreviated form of the medieval Latin onomatomancia. 1880: “The Rabbinical writers describe a system of onomancy, termed Notaricon, in conjunction with lithomancy.”