ETYMOLOGY
– from Latin pauci- (comb. form. of Latin paucus few, little)
+ -loquent (speaking)
EXAMPLE
“…There was a sharp lawyer, one P-,
Whose thoughts never got through his still lips;
And all he would say was “ah!” “h’m!” “oh!” and “ay
This pauciloquent person named P- …”
From: Ye Book of Copperheads
Checker-Boarders and Keystoners
Charles Godfrey Leland, 1863
ETYMOLOGY
– obsolete or dialect form of YEX – Old English ᵹeocsian, ᵹiscian,
corresponding to Old High German geskôn, gesgizôn ‘oscitare’: of imitative origin
EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“…There throngs a Cutpurse, with his working toole,
And there’s gallant Coxcombe, there’s Fooles
There’s foure or fiue together by the eares,
And tumble in the Dirt like Dogs and Beares.
One staggering there hath got the drunken yox,
And there one swaggering’s fast within the Stocks
Thus with these Gadeymaufry humours still…”
From: Goose,
Goose Faire at Stratford Bow, the Thursday after Whitsuntide
John Taylor, 1621
ETYMOLOGY
– from Latin confarreātiōnem, a noun of action from confarreāre (to unite in marriage by the offering of bread),
from con- + farreus (of spelt, corn, or grain), farreum (a spelt-cake),
from far, farr-is (grain, spelt)
EXAMPLE
“…And if fell out that, that iust number coulde not bee founde, the vse of confarreation, or marriage with a cake of Wheate, either not vsed, or only of a few: whereof he alleaged many reasons, though the chiefest was, the carelesnes of men and women…”
From: The Annales of Cornelius Tacitus. The Description of Germanie.
(Translation Richard Grenewey)
Cornelius Tacitus, 1598
ETYMOLOGY
– from Italian dappocaggine (lack of intelligence or ability);
from dappoco (of a person: lacking intelligence or ability);
from da (of ) + poco (adv. a little, slightly) + -ous
EXAMPLE
“…Were any one of the wretched broadcasting financial experts to declare not that the housing market is ‘being squeezed’ but that his dapocaginous (mean-spirited; heartless) rigadoon (lively baroque period dance) of fiscal ineptitude that has elumbated (made weak in the loins) every homeowner to an abapical (at the lowest point) financial state is made no better by the rodomontade (bluster) of politicians yarling (howling), why then I might again pay attention…”
From: The Chain of Curiosity
Sandi Toksvig, 2013
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin marītātus pa. pple. of marītāre (to marry) + -ed
EXAMPLE
“…I am still an agamist, although nubile for several annuary epochs. I have had multitudinous allectations to enter into a maritated condition, but have as yet evitated all morsure at the proffers coming from your genus…”
From: Letters to Squire Pedant In the East,
By Lorenzo Altisonant, an Emigrant to the West.
By Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour, 1870
Amenityville, Occident, (Letter written July 4, 1844)
To Seignior Lorenzo Altisonant
ETYMOLOGY
– from the French abaisser (to depress)
EXAMPLE – see below
From: The Poetical Works of Sir Thomas Chatterton,
With an Essay on the Rowley Poems by The Rev. Walter D. Skeat,
Vol II, 1891
Rowley Poems
DEFINITIONS (cont’d)
n. 1. 1768 UK sl. – a term of address to a man
n. 2. 1823 – anything abnormally large of its kind; a big lie; a heavy blow
n. 3. 1827 Amer. dial. – a driver of animals; a drover; an ox or mule driver
n. 4. 1861 Eng. dial. – a shake; a shiver
n. 5. Bk1942 Amer. sl. – something excellent
n. 6. 1960s Aust. sl. – a fool
n. 7. 1980s US sl. – a masturbator
n. 8. 20C US sl. – a gadget, a thing
n. 9. 20C US sl. – the penis
vb. 1703 Eng. dial. – to tremble, to shake with cold, fear, etc.
ETYMOLOGY
from whack (vb.) + -er
EXAMPLE (for n.3)
“…A noisy train of long-horned, thin-bodied oxen, dragging trailed wagons piled high with freight from the railway terminus, comes round the corner, and stops to listen before unyoking for the night, the whacker’s long whip cracking like pistol-shots as he lashes his unwieldy beasts into position…”
From: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
No. CCCLIX – April, 1880 – Vol. I.X.
La Villa Real De Santa Fe
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin famēlicōsus, from fames (hunger)
EXAMPLE
“…We arrived there by 10:30 p.m. and were super hungry despite eating all the stuffed pranthas all the way. I guess all Punjabis are famelicose because no matter how much we eat, we can still manage to eat more if given something that is delicious…”
From: Unanswered Questions
Love is Lost When the Answers are Assumed,
Katie Khanna, 2016
ETYMOLOGY
– from Danish dialect mosle, musle (to be dull or lazy at work)
EXAMPLE
“…She’s no-but a poor moozles…”
From: The Fenland, Past and Present
Samuel Henry Miller, Sydney Barber Josiah Skertchly, 1878
ETYMOLOGY
– ? from bumfuddled,
? from bamboozle
EXAMPLE
“…Well, father, I thought he’d a fainted too, he was so struck up all of a heap, he was completely bung fungered; dear, dear, said he, I didn’t think it would come to pass so soon, but I knew it would come; I foretold it…”
From: The Clockmaker
or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick,
Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 1836
Lexicophilia 