Author: Lexico

Word of the Day: EVASORIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
as if from Latin evasor, agent-noun;
from evadere from e– (out) + vadere (to go) + -ious

EXAMPLE
“… This is a very true and assured Diary of the chief Passages in those stirs made in Sir William York’s House, but withal a very brief one. Which made me get Mr. Richardson to send certain Queries touching several Passages which were answered from a very sure and authentick Hand; and in virtue of which Answers, I shall be able to give a stop to all the tergiversations of the Incredulous, and their evasorious Pretences, as if things might be resolved into waggish Combination. …”

From: A Continuation of J. Glanvill’s Collection of Remarkable and True Stories of Apparitions and Witchcraft 
By Henry More, 1682

Word of the Day: HESITATIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin hæsitationem, noun of action from hæsitare (to hesitate) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… he did not advance with his Army as near as, as he might have done, nor did endeavor to enforce others, nor to be enforced himself to fight, but rather went out of his direct way, which he had taken to come to Vienna, and kept for the most part in strong and commodious seats, as between the two Rivers of Sava and Drava; and if a powerful and vain glorious Prince, who professed that he had undertaken that War meerly out of a desire of glory would make use of haesitatious counsels, where the consequences were so great and so heavie; …”

From:
Politick Discourses written in Italian by Paolo Paruta, a noble Venetian, cavalier and procurator of St. Mark;
Translated by the Right Honorable Henry, Earl of Monmouth, 1657

Word of the Day: HICKET

ETYMOLOGY
an earlier form of hiccup, another being hickock, both apparently with a diminutive formative -et, -ock

EXAMPLE
“… And it is good to caste cold water in the face of him that hath the hicket, and to threaten him, and so put him in feare, and to anger hym, or els to prouoke hym to heauynesse, for by these thinges the naturall heat is reuoked and fortified within, and causeth the hicket to cease. …”

From: A new booke entyteled The Regiment of Lyfe: with a syngular Treatise of the pestilence
By Jean Goeurot
Translated by Thomas Phaer, 1544

Word of the Day: GASTROLATER

ETYMOLOGY
from French gastrolatre,
from Greek γαστρ(ο)-, γαστήρ (belly) + -λατρος (serving)

EXAMPLE
“… At the Court of that great Master of Ingenuity, Pantagruel observ’d two sorts of troublesom and too officious Apparitors, whom he very much detested. The first, were call’d Engastrimythes; the others, Gastrolaters. …”

From: Pantagruel’s Voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle
Being the fourth and fifth books of the works of François Rabelais
Translated by Peter Anthony Motteux, 1694

Word of the Day: GNATHONIC

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin Gnathonicus,
from Gnathonem (gnatho),
from Latin Gnatho, the name of a parasite in the “”Eunuchus” of Terence

EXAMPLE
“… The gnathonick Parasite sweareth to all that this benefactor holdeth. The mercenary Pensioner will bow before he break. He, who only studieth to have the praise of some witty invention can not strick upon another anwile. …”

From: A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland
By G. Gillespie, 1637

Word of the Day: PREALLABLE

ETYMOLOGY
from Middle French preallable (preceding, preliminary);
from preal(l)er (to precede);
from pre- + aller (to go) + -able

EXAMPLE
“… And it was not to bee modelled or directed by the patterne of regular and remisse friendship, wherein so many precautions of a long and preallable conversation, are required. This hath no other Idea than of it selfe, and can have no reference but to it selfe. …”

From:  The Essayes, or Morall, Politike, and Millitarie Discourses of Lord Michaell de Montaigne
Translated by John Florio, 1603
Of Friendship

Word of the Day: BELSIRE

ETYMOLOGY
from Middle English belsyre,
from belfair (beautiful) (from Old French)

EXAMPLE
“… With those delicious Brooks, by whose immortall streames
Her greatnesse is begunne: so that our Riuers King,
When he his long Descent shall from his Bel-sires bring,
Must needs (Great Pastures Prince) deriue his stem by thee,
From kingly Cotswolds selfe, sprung of the third degree: …”

From: Poly-Olbion
By Michael Drayton, 1612

Word of the Day: SOLEMNCHOLY

ETYMOLOGY
fancifully from solemn (adj.), after melancholy

EXAMPLE
[Dr. John Beatty to Philip Fithian]
Philadelphia, December 18th, 1772

“… I rode that evening you left me as far as Cormans; being very Solemncholly and somewhat tired, I concluded to stay there all night; and very early next morning breakfasted at Gloucester and got into Philadelphia before Eleven of the clock …”

From: Journal and Letters
By Philip Vickers Fithian, 1900

Word of the Day: PINCHPENNY

ETYMOLOGY
from pinch- (comb. form) + penny

EXAMPLE
“… A prince & kyng of al a regioun
Mot avarice thrist a-doune to grounde;
To hym þat lith in helle depe I-bounde,
The, auarice, by-take I to kepe;
Thow pynepeny, [pynchepeny] ther ay mot þou slepe! …”

From: Hoccleve’s Works,
Edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, 1892
De Regimine Principum
By Thomas Hoccleve, Composed c1412