Reader Digest's Word Power

i got the Fb 2011 issue of REader's Digest a couple of days ago, and just now goat around to doing the Vocabulary Builder/Word Power quiz.

And there wee two words in their that not only did I not know the meaning of, but that I'd also never heard of. That doesn't often happen to me. (I may on occasion have the definition of a word wrong, if I read it and try to figure it out in context instead of looking up, but at least I've read it somewhere. Reading the mysteries of Edmund Crispin will do that to ya!

Here they are:

tabby - knew it as a cat, othwerwise, never knew it was a "type of silk taffeta" (fabric first made in Al-Attabiya, Baghdad)
Boeotiian - to be dull (Greek Boeotians were labeled bores by Athenians)
fescennine - to be obscene. (after an ancient Italian town noted for offensive verse)