Suggestions please

When I was up in town yesterday (the outer London dweller's way of saying "in central London") I bought a book from the new branch of Foyles that's in the lower section of the Festival Hall. It was written by Christopher Foyle, grandson of the shop's founder. The original shop is, I believe, the biggest bookshop in the world. You need a map to get around its five (?or more) floors.

Anyway, the book is called Foyle's Philavery, and is subtitled "A treasure of unusual words". So here's today's competition. See if you can come up with interesting or, preferably, amusing definitions of these words:

1. furphy.
2. piligerous.
3. swikedom.
4. maritodespotism.
5. ventoseness.

Answers tomorrow, after I've looked them up again!