What I thought, and what they are.

1. Rube – green, inexperienced? As in, “Chances were, this rube would never be able to crack the safe in time to get out.” (Actual: bumpkin)
2. Scow – battered boat? As in, “The old man’s scow bump against the bastion on the rising tide.”
3. Probity – caring interest? As in, “The doctor, despite her poor breath, asked her questions with probity.” (Actual: honesty, decency)
4. Badinage – back and forth, as in a correspondence? As in, “Drunk, the Lieutenant engaged the private in careless badinage.” (Actual: humorous conversation)
5. Pettifoggery – trivial obfuscation through detail. As in, “The unlikely clerk deflected the point of the inspector’s inquiry with hasty pettifoggery.” (Actual: dubious practice)
6. Gambit – a play intended to force an opponents hand. As in, “It was a gambit we’d taken together, whether the rope would endure our descent, to elude the savage mob.” (Actual: An opening move involving risk)
7. Missal – scriptures used at mass. As in, “As a child I was tone-deaf to the Sunday missal.” (Actual: book of scriptural text)
8. Hebetude – like lethargy-inducing habits? As in, “What was this blanket, this hebetude of drink that had come to define my days at Clichy? (Actual: dull or lethargic)
9. Fulguration – a quality of transformation? As in, “After she departed I found it difficult to endure the fulguration toward lonely sleep.” (Actual: procedure to destroy tissue using electric current). Wow.
10. Ochraceous – of an ochre hue? Ochre-like? As in, “After a lick with the torch the surface of the custard became ochraceous.” (Actual:
11. Nodosity – A sense of a hidden force, as in life? As in, “The child’s play became everything to the old woman; the nodosity of this thing was frightening.” (Actual: a knotty swelling). Um okay!
12. Aleatory – temporary? As in, “The aleatory effects of the pill soon wore off.” (Actual: chance, random)
13. Radicles – extensions, as in roots? As in, “His habits were like radicles to her, little life-sucking probes that made their way into the rich soil of her heart.” (Actual: rootlike subdivision of a root or vein)
14. Intercalated – combined without mixing, as in layers? As in, “The cards quickly became intercalated as the players through them down, hand by hand, until only two were left, gazing blankly at the kitty.” (Actual: insert between crystal layers)
15. Echelonment – structure, hierarchy. As in, “As the family grew and each member of it aged, a natural order set in and the echelonment of their lives settled on them.” (Actual: organization of elements within a force into three elements)
16. Saprophytes – lives on dead or decaying organic matter. As in, “Soon the head was covered saprophytes and it wasn’t long after that its distinguishing characteristics vanished entirely.
17. Rictus – a curve, like a carve or gash? As in, “His smile was set in a grim rictus, displaying neither warmth nor aversion – he simply aceded and removed himself from the game.” (Actual: fixed grimace or grin)
18. Quadrumane – primate. As in, “She felt no nearer to the quadrumane that she had to her father – they might have well have been separate species entirely.” (Actual: obsolete subdivision of the primates with four hands)
19. Chalcedony – crystalline? As in, “The evening was full laughter, chalcedony as clear as any glass they drank from.” (Actual: a type of quartz)
20. Perfusion- liquid infusion of nutrients for consumption, a replacement? As in, “Step by step the doctors words entranced him, a perfusion of evidence that lulled him to an urgent belief.” (Actual: pumping a liquid into an organ or tissue)
21. Bight – a small piece. As in, “The mouse ran off with a bight – not enough to kill the meal but enough to make its presence known.” (Actual: a loop of rope, distinct from its ends). Okay!
22. Bowdlerize – appropriate incorrectly? As in, “It wasn’t fair, she felt, for the other women to bowdlerize her comments about Henry in that way, so fashionable on her aristocratic father’s side of the family.” (Actual: to remove improper material, to weaken)