Author: Lexico

Word of the Day: INNOCENTIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin innocentia (innocence)

EXAMPLE
“… To conclude, hee read vnto her so strict and austere a Lecture, concerning her base and debosht life, that from an impudent Strumpet, hee wrought her to be a repentant Conuertite. Her Brasen forhead melted at his fierie zeale, and all those skales of Immodestie (like a Maske plucked off) fell from her face, and shee appeared to him in her former simple and innocentious life. When further questioning with her of her birth and countrey, shee freely confessed vnto him, That shee was borne in the North countrey, her father a gentleman, once of faire Reuenue; but being impouerished by peeuish Suites in Law, her mother first, and hee (whether by age, or griefe, shee knew not) soone after died. …”

From: Γυναικεῖον [Gynaikeion]: or, Nine Bookes of Various History Concerninge Women
By Thomas Heywood, 1624

Word of the Day: BARRATOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French barateus, from barat: masculine (= It. baratto, Old Spanish barato, Provencal barat), also Old French barate feminine (= Old Spanish, Catalan, Provencal barata) ‘deceit, fraud, confusion, trouble, embarrassment’ + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… For other Analyses he ouerpassed, as impertinent, or not specially materiall. After such examination of their autorities, and argumentes, not with a rigorous Censure of either, but with a fauorable Construction of both: Pardon him, though he presume to deliuer some part of his animaduersions in such termes, as the instant occasion presenteth: not for any contentious, or sinister purpose (the world is too-full of litigious, and barratous pennes) but for the satisfaction of those, that de∣sire them, & the aduertisement of those, that regard them. …”

From: Pierces Supererogation or A New Prayse of the Old Asse
By Gabriel Harvey, 1593

Word of the Day: PHILOFELIST

ETYMOLOGY
from philo–, combining form (loving, having an affection for) + Latin feles (cat) + -ist

EXAMPLE
“… An extract from the Register of Cat’s Eden has got abroad, whereby it appears that the Laureate, Dr. Southey, who is known to be a philofelist, and confers honours upon his Cats according to their services, has raised one to the highest rank in peerage, promoting him through all its degrees by the following titles, His Serene Highness the Arch-Duke Rumpelstilzchen, Marquis Macbum, Earl Tomlemagne, Baron Raticide, Waowlher and Skaratchi. …”

From: The Doctor, &c.
By Robert Southey, 1847

Word of the Day: SENNIGHT

ETYMOLOGY
from seven + the plural of night  

EXAMPLE
“… Among other, none was either more grateful to the beholders, or more noble in it selfe, then iusts, both with sword & launce, mainteined for a seuen-night together: wherein that Nation doth so excel, both for comelines and hablenes, that from neighbour-countries they ordinarilye come, some to striue, some to learne, some to behold. …”

From: The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia
By Sir Philip Sidney, 1590

Word of the Day: HABILATORY

ETYMOLOGY
formed on French habiller (to dress), or English habiliment (array, attire, dress), after adjectives etymologically formed in -atory

EXAMPLE
“… The nether garments of this petit-maitre consisted of a pair of blue tight pantaloons, profusely braided, and terminating in Hessian boots, adorned with brass spurs of the most burnished resplendency; a black velvet waistcoat, studded with gold stars, was backed by a green frock coat, covered, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, with fur, and frogged and cordonné with the most lordly indifference, both as to taste and expense: a small French hat, which might not have been much too large for my lord of ——, was set jauntily in the centre of a system of long black curls, which my eye, long accustomed to penetrate the arcana of habilatory art, discovered at once to be a wig. A fierce black mustachio, very much curled, wandered lovingly from the upper lip towards the eyes, which had an unfortunate prepossession for eccentricity in their direction. …”

From: Pelham: Or, The Adventures of a Gentleman
By Edward George E.L. Bulwer- Lytton, 1828

Word of the Day: COLLOQUACIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin colloqui + –acious, after loquacious

EXAMPLE
“… What importance can be attached to the ipse divits of soliloquising Philosophy, when compared to the issue of those phrenological bumps which are developed by a numerous society of colloquacious philosophers knocking their heads together? What is the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, when compared with the volume of Reports just published by the C.N. K.C.? Is it not as the great clumsy castings of the Southwark lron Bridge, compared with the ferruginous refinements of the smithery, in which the bellows, the hammer, and the file, co-operate; …”

From: Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country
Vol, XVI. July to December 1837
Blue Friar Pleasantries
No. XV. Report of a Visit to the Consolidated National Knowledge Company

Word of the Day: GINNOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from gin (skill, ingenuity, obs.) + -ous

EXAMPLE
” …and man’s flesh is so savoury and so pleasant that when they have taken to man’s flesh they will never eat the flesh of other beasts, though they should die of hunger. For many men have seen them leave the sheep they have taken and eat the shepherd. It is a wonderfully wily and gynnous; beast, and more false than any other beast to take all advantage, for he will never fly but a little save when he has need, for he will always abide in his strength, and he hath good breath, for every day it is needful to him, for every man that seeth him chaseth him away and crieth after him …

From: The Master of Game
By Edward, second duke of York, a1425
(The oldest English book on hunting)
Edited by Wm. A. and F. Baillie-Grohman, 1909

Word of the Day: EXQUISITIVE

ETYMOLOGY
formed on exquisititious (adj.), from Latin exquisit- participial stem of exquirere (to search out)

EXAMPLE
“… It is enough that the Priests and learned Men explain the difficult Passages of it to the People, and write Commentaries for the Use of the more curious and exquisitive. The Persians, on the contrary, think it no Disparagement to the Arabick, or Profanation of the Sense, to translate this cursed Book into their own Language; and Copies are frequent among them. …”

From: The Philosophical Transactions and Collections 
to the End of the Year MDCC (1700)
By John Lowthorp, 1731
Chapter II, Chronology, History, Antiquities

Word of the Day: MALEVOLO

ETYMOLOGY
from Italian malevolo, from Latin malevolus (enemy, foe, ill-wisher)

EXAMPLE
“… We had many pamphlets commended daily unto us, The integrity of a parliament; how that it could have no sinister end: as if a multitude could be void of knaves to contrive, and of fools to concur in mischief. Many plots were discovered daily against our religion and our laws, in which ye Machiavels of Westminster, ye Malevolos might have claimed the chiefest livery, as Beelzebub’s nearest attendants in that kind: but they must be fathered still upon our old justicers; and indeed they can do little, that cannot bely an enemy. …”

From: The British Bellman
Printed in the Year Of the Saints Fear. 1648