ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin
EXAMPLE
“…Was there ever less head in a brainless world?” said Johns. “Here, simple Nocky, I’ll do it.” He leapt off, and with much puffing climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle…”
From: The English Illustrated Magazine
1883-1884
Interlopers at the Knap. I.
ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin
EXAMPLE
“…This Stymphalist is he that with fiue or sixe Tenements, and the retinue thereunto belonging, infectes the aire with stench, and poisons that parish, yea and twentie parishes off with the contagion of such carrion as lies there in their bumble baths, and stinke at both ends like filthie greene elder pipes. For him and them master, such Landlordes and such Tenants. Good master wish as I wish…”
From: Maroccus Extaticus.
Or, Bankes bay horse in a trance
A discourse set downe in a merry dialogue, betweene Bankes and his beast: anatomizing some abuses and bad trickes of this age.
– By Iohn Dando the wierdrawer of Hadley, and Harrie Runt, head ostler of Bosomes Inne, 1595
ETYMOLOGY
from gripple (niggardly, usurious) + -minded
EXAMPLE
“…L. BEAU. That a man of your estate should be so gripple-minded and repining at his wife’s bounty!…”
From: Any Thing for a Quiet Life
– Thomas Middleton and Thomas Webster, a1632
ETYMOLOGY
from bigot + -ical
EXAMPLE
“…Or is any thing the more excellent and Venerable, because it exceeds all Understanding? Is he to be deemed the fittest subject for Religion, who is most Bigotical and carelesly credulous? Are we to put off Humane Nature that we may become Religious?…”
From: A discourse of the use of reason in matters of religion shewing that Christianity contains nothing repugnant to right reason, against enthusiasts and deists
– George Rust, translated Henry Hallywell, a1670
ETYMOLOGY
from shiksa (in Jewish speech, a gentile girl)
EXAMPLE
“…The Parson is on the highfly in a fantail banger and a milky mill tog. He got the cant of togs from a shickster whose husband’s in a bone-box. He’ll gammon the swells. He touched one for an alderman the first ten minutes…”
From: The Sydney Slang Dictionary, 1880
ETYMOLOGY
from roundabout (engaging in circumlocution, long-winded)+ -ation
EXAMPLE
“…At dinner fair Adelaide brought up a chicken
A bird that she never had met with before;
But, seeing him, scream’d, and was carried off kicking,
And he bang’d his nob’gainst the opposite door.
To finish my tale without roundaboutation,
Young master and missee besieged their papa;
They sung a quartetto in grand blubberation
The Stranger cried Oh! Mrs. Haller cried Ah!
Though pathos and sentiment largely are dealt in,
I have no good moral to give in exchange…”
From: Rejected Addresses;
Or, The New Theatrum Poetarum
– Horatio Smith and James Smith, 1812
ETYMOLOGY
irregular from frigid + -ious
EXAMPLE
“…Like curelesse cures, past and repast repaire:
Frigidious Ianus two-fold frozen face,
Turnes moyst Aquarius into congeal’d yce:
Though by the fires warme side the pot haue place…”
From: All the workes of Iohn Taylor the water-poet
Beeing sixty and three in number
Anagrams and Sonnets, 1630
ETYMOLOGY
Old English (West Saxon) ealdmodor,
from eald (eld old) + mother
EXAMPLE
“…þis es þat man men sais was born
Bath his fader and moder be-forn.
He had his eldmoder maiden-hede,
And at his erthing all lede…”
From: Cursor Mundi (The cursur o the world)
A Northumbrian poem of the XIVth century
a1300
ETYMOLOGY
? from quiz (a prying, inquisitive person (Eng. dial.)) + cuss (a person of a specified character)
EXAMPLE
“…A tenant complained that his landlord’s agent was a regular quizcuss…”
From: The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire
– Thomas Darlington, 1887
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin tolūtiloquentia (a talking on a trot, volubility)
EXAMPLE
“…After prolonged study of this pestiferous tolutiloquence I understand and sympathize with the editor’s policy ; nothing useful can or need be done…”
From: The Classical Review
Volume 4, 1954
Lexicophilia 