Author: Lexico

Word of the Day: MANY-FEET

ETYMOLOGY
from many + foot

EXAMPLE
“…As for some sea-fishes, wee have said before that they have eight legs: namely, Manyfeet, Pourcuttles, Cuttles, Calamaries, and Crabfishes; and those moove their fore-clees like armes a contrary way, but their feet either they turne round or else fetch them crooked atone-side: and a man shall not see any living creature again, all round, but they …”

From: The Historie Of The World: Commonly called, The Naturall Historie Of C. Plinius Secundus.
By Pliny the Elder
Translated into English by Philemon Holland, 1601

Word of the Day: TRAGEMATOPOLIST

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin tragematopola (sweet seller) or its etymon, Greek τραγηματοπώλης (seller of sweetmeats),
from τραγήματ-, τραγήμα (dried fruits or sweetmeats eaten as dessert) + ‑ο‑ + ‑πώλης (-pole) + ‑ist 

EXAMPLE
Abby promised her children a trip to the tragematopolist’s after they’d done their chores and homework.

Word of the Day: DRY-FIST

ETYMOLOGY
from dry (miserly, stingy) + fist

EXAMPLE
“…Ferentes. Yet again ? nay, an if you be in that mood, shut up your fore-shop, I’ll be your journeyman no longer. Why, wise Madam Dryfist, could your mouldy brain be so addle to imagine I would marry a stale widow at six-and-forty? Marry gip! are there not varieties enough of thirteen? come, stop your clap-dish, or I’ll purchase a carting for you. By this light, I have toiled more with this tough carrion hen than with ten quails scarce grown into their first feathers …”

From: Loves Sacrifice
By John Ford, 1633

Word of the Day: ADULATORIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin adulatorius (adulatory) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Histories are full fraught with such relations of adorations, and most adulatorious Epithites giuen to his Holinesse, the proper name and calling now of the Pope, amongst his adorers and followers: and doe you think the Pope knoweth not, or affecteth not this his greatnes: obserue his pride (excuse me Pontifician reader) when he saith not priuate Masse himselfe, but is in his publike Chappel, …”

From: The Motiues of Richard Sheldon pr. for his Lust, Voluntary, and Free Renouncing of Communion with the Bishop of Rome, Paul the 5. and his Church
By Richard Sheldon, 1612

Word of the Day: BLASTFUL

ETYMOLOGY
from blast (a blowing or strong gust of wind) + -ful

EXAMPLE
“…Breezy hills and blastful mountains,
Chirp of birds, and thunder’s roll.
Tinkling rills and gushing fountains.
Powers that spurn weak man’s control.
Cradle song and chariot’s rattle.
Mighty thoughts that stir the soul,
Throng of business, roar of battle,
All make music In the whole. …”

From: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine,
July – December 1883
‘October Song’

Word of the Day: AGAMIST

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἄγαµ-ος (unmarried) + -ist

EXAMPLE
“…to exhort these spirituall Fathers first to cease from murdering of their owne children to spare the bloud of innocentes, & not to persecute Christ so cruelly in his members, as they do, and furthermore to exhort in like maner these Agamistes, and wilful reiecters of matrimony, to take themselues to lawfull wiues, and not to resist Gods holy ordinaunce, nor encounter his institution with an other contrary institution of theyr own deuising, lest perhappes they preuented by fragilitie, may fall into daunger of suche inconueniences aboue touched …”

From: Actes and Monumentes 
By John Foxe, 1570

Word of the Day: CRYPTONYMOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek κρυπτός (hidden) + ὄνοµα (name)

EXAMPLE
“…The Ballad Book. Edinb. 1 827. 8vo. Maillet, Benedict de. Telliamed, being a Translation from the French.
A cryptonymous book — Telliamed being the anagram of M. de Maillet. It consists of * Discourses between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary on the diminuation of the sea, the formation of the earth, the origin of men and animals, and other curious subjects relating to natural history and philosophy. …”

From: The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature, Vol. III
By William Thomas Lowndes, 1834