choose one:
a) In calligraphy, a writing implement used for engraving special inks (i.e. gold-embossed).
b) A small writing desk (similar to a secretary) popular during the Italian Neoclassical period (1760-1800), and characterized by a marble writing top, pendant floral carving on the drawers and fluted tapering legs.
c) A removable paper cover protecting a bound book; a dust jacket.
d) an inspector of entrails, for the purpose of divination
e) An old way of writing short notes - a kind of shorthand, indeed, not dissimilar in intention to the text that people use on mobile phones.
f) A fountain pen made entirely of glass, also called a dipping pen.
g) A small but deadly knife with the blade twisted in the manner of a screw before the final tempering. Associations: Shiv= blade. Shive=knife. Scr= screw Stilo=stylus. Stilletto=little knife Manufactured in Italy, thescrivello quickly became the favourite assassination tool of the "Black Hand"-a secret Serbian society, outlawed in 1917 for the suspected assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. A scrivello appears in the upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger movie-Collateral Damage.
h) A decorative masonry technique in which a thin line of mortar is excised from a joint and then filled with white lime.
i) The operating expenses of an opera house. [origin unknown]
j) from the root "scrivo" meaning to write, plus the diminutive "ello" so - "to do little writing"
k) A public letter writer who works in a house of joy.
l) A small elephant tusk, once commonly used to produce billiard balls
m) from latin v. scrivirto write pron. ellohim, penpal
n) A marble patterning in which white and green stripes are alternated, used in Romanesque Italian cathedral architecture.
o) Hastily written piece of music in the style of Ivor Novello (Welsh actor, composer and playwright (1893-1951)).
p) A portable writing desk.