Ironmonger

Someone who sells wares made of iron.

“Life was often worse in Glasgow. Families huddled in piles of rags and straw in unheated tenement flats. Children froze in their sleep. The sky was thin smoke and the sewers overflowed. Glasgow’s leading products were ships, locomotives, and vast clouds of eyewatering stench. The city’s stink surpassed even that of Edinburgh, the capital known as “Auld Reekie” for its septic odor. Yet the metropolis was glorious, too, in the way that a blast furnace is glorious: noisy, dirty, and Promethean. Forty years before, Glasgow’s foundries had produced 25,000 tons of iron in a year. The total was now more than 500,000 tons. This one city produced more iron than all of England.”

Kevin Cook, Tommy’s Honor (2007).

The Etruscan Haruspex

An ancient fortune-teller who interprets various natural signs, including the meaning to be divined from the entrails of sacrificial animals.

"A diviner or soothsayer of a class originally Etruscan, but early introduced into Rome, though not as official priests of the state religion. The divinations of the haruspex comprised interpretation of lightning and natural prodigies, and especially extispicium, or inspection of the entrails of sacrificial victims."

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

A Sailor's Life

"'Yes,' he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. 'I'm the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'd live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it.'"

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Freemason

A skilled stone mason, who moved freely about to work on important construction projects.

"Freemason: A member of a certain class of skilled workers in stone, in the 14th and following centuries often mentioned in contradistinction to 'rough masons', 'ligiers', etc. They travelled from place to place, finding employment where important buildings were being erected, and had a system of secret signs and passwords, by which a craftsman who had been admitted on giving evidence of competent skill could be recognized."

Oxford English Dictionary

Poulterer

A dealer in poultry.

“Let Butchers, Poultrers, Fishmongers contend, Each his owne Trade in what he can defend.”

John Penkethman, Artachthos; or a new booke declaring the assise or weight of bread (1638).

Thunder Guards

"The Thunder Guards are awe-inspiring when they appear during a violent thunder-storm. The Major and Middle Captains and the other officers of the two Guards divisions make a delightful sight as they post themselves next to the lattices in the Palace. When the thunder has abated, one of the Major Captains orders the soldiers to 'go up' or 'go down'."

Sei Shonagon, "The Thunder Guards Are Awe-Inspiring," The Pillow Book (11th Century).

Will Rogers on Veterinarians

A doctor who specializes in treating animals.

“Personally, I have always felt that the best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what is the matter—he’s got to just know.”

Will Rogers, Wise and Witty Sayings of a Great American Humorist (1969).