ETYMOLOGY
from hundred + legs
EXAMPLE
“… They have also lizards three or four feet in length, and in great numbers; and also creatures called centipedes, or hundred legs, very venomous and troublesome. …”
From: The Beauties of Nature and Art
Displayed in a Tour Through the World
Volume X, 1774
Chapter I. Of South America
Sect. II. Animals
ETYMOLOGY
from French maldisant (evil speaker), use as noun of present participle of maldire, maudire (to speak evil), from maledicere; from male (badly) + dicere (to speak, say)
EXAMPLE
“… He is to blame (faith Martiall, and further he brandes him with a knavish name) that will be wittie in another mans booke. How then will scoffing readers scape this marke of a maledizant? whose wits have no other worke, nor better worth then to flout, and fall out?…”
From: A Worlde of Wordes, or, Most Copious, and Exact Dictionarie in Italian and English
Collected by John Florio, 1598
ETYMOLOGY
from Belial, the spirit of evil personified;
used from early times as a name for the Devil or one of the fiends, and by Milton as the name of one of the fallen angels
EXAMPLE
“… Semey stones and stokkes and myre on Dauid kest;
The Sinagoge spittinges and thornes & buffets on Crist fest.
Semey callid Dauid “man of Belial” and “manquhellere:
The Synagoge Crist “a wyche, gyloute and mysdoete”. …”
From: The Mirour of Mans Saluacioun:
a Middle English translation of Speculum humanae salvationis : a critical edition of the fifteenth-century manuscript illustrated from Der Spiegel der menschen Behältnis, Speyer, Drach, c1429
Edited by Avril Henry, Scolar Press edition, 1986
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin genetrix, genitrix (female parent, mother; originator, creator),
from gen- stem of gignere (to beget, give birth)
EXAMPLE
“… The roundelayes, and charming lullabies,
That my indulgent genetrix did warble?
What are my braines grown dry, or my bloud cold?
Or am I on a sudden waxen old?
I thought, though Cupids aire-deviding shaft,
Soone penetrated the well tempered
Corslet: which the hot-halting god of fire,
Made for his boysterous rivall, it should not find,
Or make a way to vulnerate my mind. …”
From: Εροτοπαιγνιον (Erotopaignion), or, The Cyprian Academy
By Robert Baron, 1647
ETYMOLOGY
from French jobard (a person who is easily fooled or very credulous)
EXAMPLE
“… False supplantyng, clymbyng of foolis
Unto chayers of worldly dignite,
Looke of discrecioune sette jobbardis upon stoolis,
Whiche hathe distroyed many a comunalte,
Marchol to sitte in Salamons see,
What folwithe after no reason no justice,
Injuste promocioune and parcialite,
By false prerogatyf theyr neyghburghs to dispise. …”
From: A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate
Printed for the Percy Society, 1840
The Moralite of the Hors, the Goose, and the Sheepe
Composed c1440
ETYMOLOGY
from the name of Nebuchadnezzar (died c562 BC) ruler of the Babylonian empire (604–562 BC), after French nabuchodonosor (large wine bottle used for champagne)
EXAMPLE (for n. 3.)
“… That didn’t prevent me strewing my whole room with little bits of paper, when I undressed that night. Fireworks ensue, then (children dismissed) supper and afterwards, the most magnificent Nebuchadnezzars, and finally a good form of blind-man’s buff, where everyone stands round the room in a circle and the blind man walks up and prods someone, telling him at the same time to make a noise … sch as the sound of rain falling on mud – and the speaker has to be recognised by the sound of his voice. …”
From: Letters of Aldous Huxley
By Aldous Huxley, 1969
Letter to Leonard Huxley, 11 November, 1913
PRONUNCIATION
neb-yuh-kuhd-NEZ-uh
ETYMOLOGY
irregular from Latin umbra (shade, shadow) + -acious
EXAMPLE
“… About the same period also an approach was made, by altering and levelling the ground, and planted with elms, sycamores, and chestnuts on each side, which have already become very umbracious, and will in the course of a few more years, when he who planted them rests beneath their shade, form a stately avenue. …”
From: The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme
By William Brocklehurst Stonehouse, 1839
ETYMOLOGY
short for famble;
for n. 4.: shortened from family
EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Jenny being very genteely dressed, he observed a Gentleman who was a very Rum Muns, (that is, a great Beau) who had a very Glim Star, (that is, a Ring) upon his Feme, (that is, Hand} which she longed to make, so giving the Hint to her Companions to Bulk the Muns forward, (that is, Push) they pushed him quite in; …”
From: Select trials at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey, for murder, robberies, rapes, sodomy, coining
From the year 1720, to this time. 1742
The following is a particular Account of the Transactions of the Life of Mary Young, alias Jenny Diver, &c. &c. &c.
ETYMOLOGY
apparently a derivative of dandle (to move (a child, etc.) lightly up and down in the arms or on the knee)
EXAMPLE
“… I wes in youthe, on nureice kne,
Cald dandillie, bischop, dandillie,
And quhone that age now dois me greif,
A sempill vicar I can nocht be:
Exces of thocht dois me mischief. …”
From: Dunbar: A Critical Exposition of the Poems
By Tom Scott, 1965
Don is a Battell on the Dragon Blak
Composed by William Dunbar, a1513
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin dubitat-, participial stem of dubitare (to doubt)
EXAMPLE
“… as it shall now fare with him, the whole Future may be this way or be that. If, for example, he were to loiter dubitating, and not come; if he were to come, and fail: the whole Soldiery of France to blaze into mutiny. …”
From: The French Revolution: a History
By Thomas Carlyle, 1837
Lexicophilia 