Get a dictionary, Al. It is not a particularly obscure word ~~ I remember it occurring in many literary contexts. & I am a good bit elderlier than you, if it comes to that! You're not in your 80th year, are you!

I don't want to 'encourage a government to think it doesn't matter'; of course it matters ~ BUT I simply make the point that other things will wring my withers far more than that he couldn't have done this particular crime because he was probably somewhere else that night doing another one ~ and if not on that specific night, then ··· see what I mean?

Best

~M~