A matamata is a species of turtle found in South America. It's odd looking, even for a turtle.
The word matamata is an example of a reduplicative. It is of unknown etymology.
A kurgan is a tumulus or mound erected over a grave, at first in the southern Asian steppes (4th century BCE) and later throughout southeast Europe. I myself saw many kurgans in Bulgaria, but for some reason never learned the word. A saiga is a kind of antelope. A zander is a European fish similar to a perch. A chillum is a kind of decorated bamboo pipe "often sold in places like Haight-Ashbury and Greenwich Village." A punkah was, in the late but not-so-great lamented days of the Raj, a large swinging fan, operated by a servant called a punkah wala. Arrack or arac is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of coconut flowers, which sounds delicious but is probably not available at our local liquor store. The astragalus, more often called the talus, is a bone in the human foot. The word's similarity to asparagus is inadvertent but nevertheless amusing. A condyle is "a protuberance at the end of a bone." A swidden is an area of land cleared to farm by slashing and burning. Swidden, a truly lovely word, is derived from an Old Norse verb meaning "to burn"-- as well it should be.
Lamellar armor was made from small plates of leather or bronze. Here's a terracotta statue of a soldier wearing scute-like armor.
A guimpe (pronounced gimp, apparently), was a short high-necked Victorian blouse designed to be worn under a low-cut dress. It would take a specialist to explain the difference between a guimpe and a fichu. A tarboosh is a variety of fez.
A bident is a two-pronged weapon, two-thirds of a trident. Here's a statue of Hades wielding one:
Could there be a linguistic relationship between bident and Biden? Not likely, because a "biden" was originally a maker of buttons.
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