Author: Lexico

Word of the Day: BUNGFUNGER

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

Word of the Day: JINGLE-BRAINS

ETYMOLOGY
– from jingle + brains

EXAMPLE
“…We left these Jingle Brains to their Crotchets , and proceeded to the West end of the Cathedral , where we past by abundance of Apples, Nuts, and GingerBread, till we came to a melancholly Multitude , drawn into a Circle , giving very serious Attention to a blind Ballad-singer who was mournfully setting forth the wonderful Usefulness…”

From: The London-spy Compleat, in Eighteen Parts,
Edward Ward, 1718

Word of the Day: ORTHOGRAPHIZE

ETYMOLOGY
– from orthography + –ize;
from Old French ortografie, later ortographie, modern French orthographie, from Latin orthographia,
from Greek ὀρθογραϕία, noun from ὀρθογράϕ-ος (writing correctly, a correct writer, orthographer), 
from ὀρθό-ς + -γράϕος (that writes, writer) + ize

EXAMPLE
“…whiles thou mak’st a tennis-court of their faces, by brick-walling thy clay-balls crosse up and downe their cheekes; whereas, if thou wert right orthographizd in the doctors elocution, thou wouldst say, in stead of, I pray, Sir, winke I must wash you, Sir, by your favour I must require your connivence…”

From: Haue with you to Saffron-Walden; or, Gabriell Harueys hunt is vp 
Thomas Nashe, 1596