Author: Lexico

Word of the Day: EMISSITIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin emissicius (sent out), from emiss- participial stem of emittere + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… And if any one of our Clergy, after a legal and just divorce long since, have taken to himself that liberty, which other Reformed Churches publicly allow; as granting in some case a full release, both a thoro and a vinculo; what ground is this, for an impure wretch to cast dirt in the eyes of our Clergy, and in the teeth of our Church? Malicious Mass-Priest, cast back those emissitious eyes, to your own infamous Chair of Rome; and, if even in that thou canst discern no spectacles of abominable uncleanness, spend thy spiteful censures upon ours. …”

From: The Honor of the Married Clergie
By: Joseph Hall, 1620

Word of the Day: BLETHERBAG

ETYMOLOGY
from dialect blather (empty, noisy talk) + bag

EXAMPLE
“… The wife whiles took a taste, and while under its influence was a perfect bletherbag. She hadna a tooth in a’ her head, and on that account her tongue mair room in her mouth; and on ordinary occasions it had little rest. …”

From: Life Studies of Character
By: John Kelso Hunter, 1870
Chapter XXXIV. Breaking the Pledge

Word of the Day: SPUDDY

ETYMOLOGY
from spud (a short or stumpy person or thing; a potato) + -y

EXAMPLE
“… suddenly the door opened, and a fat, short, little, round, spuddy fellow – muffled up in enormous cloaks and greatcoats, till only the point of a prodigiously red nose was visible – hobbled, as fast as he could, down the steps …”

From: Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine
For 1835
Volume II. New Series.
Phadde and His Friends 
Chapter II. The Englishman’s Story.

Word of the Day: MAN-MENDER

ETYMOLOGY
from man + mender

EXAMPLE
“… Man, I must have busines; this foolish fellow
Hinders himselfe: I have a dozen Rascalls
To hurt within these five dayes: good man mender,
Stop me up with Parsley, like stuft Beefe,
And let me walke abroad. …”

From: Comedies and Tragedies written by Francis Beaumont and Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen
By: Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, a1625

Word of the Day: NUDIUSTERTIAN

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin nudiustertianus from nudius tertius (day before yesterday, literally ‘today the third day’, counting inclusively)

EXAMPLE
“… I am not much offended if I see a trimme, far trimmer than she that wears it: in a word, whatever Christianity or Civility will allow, I can afford with London measure: but when I heare a nugiperous Gentledame inquire what dresse the Queen is in this week : What the nudiustertian fashion of the Court; I meane the very newest: with egge to be in it in all haste, what ever it be; I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cypher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if shee were of a kickable substance, than either honour’d or humour’d. …”

From: The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America
By: Nathaniel Ward, 1647

Word of the Day: DECENNALIAN

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin decennalis (of ten years) + -an

EXAMPLE
“… But the war was finished in the first year of the fourteenth Olympiad, in which the Corinthian Damon conquered in the stadium, and when, among the Athenians, the Medontidae still held the decennalian government, and the fourth year of the reign of Hippomenes was expired. …”

From: The Description of Greece
By: Pausanias
Translated by: Thomas Taylor

Word of the Day: OVIARY

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin oviaria (flock of sheep), from ovis (sheep) + -aria (-ary)

EXAMPLE
“… Any of the following lines would also be matched by the expression $meadow =~ /ovine/, giving false positives when looking for lost sheep:
Fine bovines demand fine toreadors.
Muskoxen are a polar ovibovine species.
Grooviness went out of fashion decades ago.
Sometimes they’re right in front of you but they still don’t match:
Ovines are found typically in oviaries. …”

From: Perk Cookbook
By: By Tom Christiansen & Nathan Torkington, 1998

PRONUNCIATION
OH-vee-uh-ree

Word of the Day: TOAD’S-GUTS

ETYMOLOGY
? in medieval folklore, toads were often considered abominable or unappealing

EXAMPLE
“… Baltazar. Sirra, you Salfa-Perilla Rascall, Toads-guts, you whorson pockey French Spawne of a bursten-bellyed Spyder, doe you heare, Monsire.

Medina. Why doe you barke and snap at my Narcissus, as if I were de Frenshe doag? …”

From: The Noble Souldier. Or, A Contract Broken, Justly Reveng’d. A Tragedy
By: Samuel Rowley, 1634