Vocabulary Builidng

I was reading a book last night by Josh Ozercky called "The Hamburger". The book is a history of the fast food hamburger in America. Now who would think that a book on the history of the fast food hamburger would have vocabulary words that one would not know. Well in my reading I started writing down the words that I rarely or have never used and clarified there definition using Wikidictionary as my source. Here are the findings.

shibboleth (plural shibboleths)

1. A slogan, jargon word, or catchphrase closely associated with a particular group and not used very much, or at all, outside of it. Can also apply to ideas, customs, and uses of language.
2. A common or longstanding belief or custom associated with a particular group; truism, platitude

   It's about time we abandoned the bourgeois shibboleth that earning money makes you a better person.

3. A common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.

stricture (plural strictures)

1. (usually in plural) A rule restricting behaviour or action.

   For them, parity is less an ultimate goal than a transitory and permissive springboard for testing Western resolve and pursuing whatever additional accretions of strategic power the strictures of SALT and American tolerance will allow.

2. A sternly critical remark or review.

to hew (third-person singular simple present hews, present participle hewing, simple past hewed or rarely hew, past participle hewed or hewn)

1. (transitive) To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
2. (transitive) To shape; to form.

bourgeois (comparative more bourgeois, superlative most bourgeois)

1. Of or related to the middle class, especially its attitudes and conventions.
2. Belonging to the middle class.
3. Conventional, conservative and materialistic.

   bourgeois opinion

4. (political, leftist terminology) Of, or related to capitalist exploitation of the working class.