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Word watching answers: June 15, 2006

SOLPUGA

(b) A venomous ant or spider mentioned by classical authors. From the Latin solifuga, shunning the sun. 1601: “In Aethyopia there is a great country dispeopled sometime by Scorpions, and a kind of Pismires called Solpugae.”

BEARDIE

(a), (b) and (c). A name given, chiefly in Scotland, to a small fish, the Loach (Cobitis barbatula), from the beards or bristles on its gills. (b) The bearded collie. (c) A local Australian nickname to a body of Southcotians, followers of John Wroe, who called themselves Christian Israelites.

SHUKA

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(a) A long piece of fabric, now commonly worn as a shawl-like garment in East Africa. Swahili. 1936: “The visitors from outside came wrapped in their shuka, a square black shawl with two fringed sides which they wore draped over their heads and bodies.”

BEAL

(c) The mouth of a (Highland) river or valley. An adaptation of the Gaelic beul, mouth. 1818: “The different passes, precipices, corries, and beals, through which he said the road lay to Inverary.”