Word of the Day

Word of the Day: THINKATIVE

ETYMOLOGY
from think (vb.) + -ative, chiefly after talkative

EXAMPLE
“… They have not known I say, that the knowledge of Observation, doth not introduce an understanding into the essential thingliness of a thing, but erecteth only a thinkative knowledge: For otherwise, the understanding should perceive causes that are before in essence. Then also they have been deceived by the simplicity of the Water, which simpleness they have confounded with the unity of knowledge to us unknown. …”

From: Oriatrike or, Physick Refined
By Jean Baptiste van Helmont
Translated by J. Chandler, 1662

Word of the Day: ILL-LOOKING

ETYMOLOGY
from ill (adj.) or (adv.) + looking, present participle of look (vb.)

EXAMPLE
“… That gawdy eare-wrig, or my lord your patron,
Whose pensioner you are. — I ‘le teare thy throat out,
Sonme of a cat, ill-looking hounds-head, rip up
Thy ulcerous maw, if I but scent a paper,
A scroll, but halfe as big as what can cover
A wart upon thy nose, a spot, a pimple,
Directed to my lady: it may prove
A mysticall preparative to lewdnesse. …”

From: The Broken Heart
By John Ford, 1633

Word of the Day: DUPLE

Note: the obsolete adjective definition is a general sense.
In mathematics, it is applied to the proportion of two quantities one of which is double of the other; 
in music, it is applied to ‘time’ or rhythm having two beats in the bar.

ETYMOLOGY
Adj. and n.:  from Latin duplus (double), from duo (two) + -plus, from root ple- (to fill);
Vb.:  from Latin duplare (to double), from dupl-us (duple)

EXAMPLE (for vb.)
“… She mixd of Quick-silver a deadly weight,
That dupled force his murder hasten might.
Then while those baneful pots betwixt them strov,
The helpful swaying the hurtfuls bane out drov. …”

From: Enchiridium epigrammatum Latino-Anglicum:
An epitome of essais,
Englished out of Latin by Robert Vilvain, 1654

Word of the Day: TENEBROUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French tenebrus, modern French tenebreux, Provencal tenebros, 
Spanish, Italian tenebroso, from Latin tenebrosus (dark, gloomy)

EXAMPLE
“… The name of thys lady was callyd Prescience.
She neuer left Vyce, ne noon that wold hym folow,
Tyll they wer commyttyd by the diuine sentence
All to peyne perpetuell and infynyte sorow.
Ryghtwysnes went to see that no man shuld hem borow.
Thus all entretyd sharpely were they, tyll Cerberus
Had hem beshut withyn hys gates tenebrus. …”

From: The Assembly of Gods:
or, The Accord of Reason and Sensuality in the Fear of Death
By John Lydgate, c1420

PRONUNCIATION
TEN-uh-bruhss

Word of the Day: PERICULOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin periculosus (dangerous, full of danger), from periculum (danger, peril) + –osus (-ous)

EXAMPLE
“… That Saturn the enemy of life, comes almost every seventh year, unto the quadrate or malevolent place; that as the Moon about every seventh day arriveth unto a contrary sign, so Saturn, which remaineth about as many years, as the Moon doth daies in one sign, and holdeth the same consideration in years as the Moon in daies; doth cause these periculous periods. Which together with other Planets, and profection of the Horoscope, unto the seventh house, or opposite signs every seventh year; oppresseth living natures, and causeth observable mutations, in the state of sublunary things. …”

From: Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 
Or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths.
By Thomas Brown, 1650
Chapter XII Of the great Climacterical year, that is, Sixty three.

PRONUNCIATION
puh-RICK-yuh-luhss

Word of the Day: BUNGERLY

ETYMOLOGY
? from bunger (? for bungler) + -ly

EXAMPLE (for adj.)
“… I saw her conferring with no worseman then Master Snagge. The bungerliest vearses they were that euer were scande, beeing most of them bought and cut off by the knees out of Virgill, and other Authors. …”

From: Haue vvith you to Saffron-vvalden. Or, Gabriell Harueys hunt is vp.
By Thomas Nashe, 1596

Word of the Day: ALIICIDE

ETYMOLOGY
from. Latin alius (another) + -icide (the killing of), in allusion to suicide

EXAMPLE
“… Would the Lord Chief Justice be at all surprised if one of his amiable and interesting, but insane, correspondents were to take a mad freak into her head some day, and commit suicide or allicide? If, instead of adorning the Queen’s Bench, he honoured the chair of an insurance company, what would he think of the rate of payment requisite on the lives of such persons going at large? …”

From:  Punch, or The London Charivari,
December 19, 1868
Look After Lunatics

Word of the Day: VIRIPOTENT

ETYMOLOGY
adj. 1: from Latin viripotent-, viripotens, from vir (man, husband) + potens (able)
adj. 2: from Latin viripotent-, viripotens, from vires (strength)

EXAMPLE
“… The king thus hauing vanquished and ouercome the Welshmen, placed garisons in sundrie townes & castels, where he thought most necessarie, and then returned to London with great triumph. Thither shortlie after came ambassadours from the emperour, requiring the kings daughter affianced (as before you haue heard) vnto him, and (being now viripotent or mariable) desired that she might be deliuered vnto them. …”

From: The first and second volumes of Chronicles. [vol. 3 (i.e. The Third Volume of Chronicles)] comprising 1 The description and historie of England, 2 The description and historie of Ireland, 3 The description and historie of Scotland:
First collected and published by Raphaell Holinshed, William Harrison, and others: now newlie augmented and continued (with manifold matters of singular note and worthie memorie) to the yeare 1586. by Iohn Hooker aliàs Vowell Gent and others.
Henrie the first, yoongest sonne to William the Conquerour. (Book Henry I)

Word of the Day: SWAG-BUTTOCKED

ETYMOLOGY
from swag (to move heavily from side to side or up and down) + buttock

EXAMPLE
“… Mag. Look you heare then.
Fra. O see, see — dat is de gross english Douck, for
de swagbuttock’d-wife of de Pesant.
Mag. How like you this then? There’s a Reverence
I warrant you. …”

From: Five new playes, (viz.) The Madd Couple Well matcht. Novella. Court begger. City witt. Damoiselle
The Damoiselle, Or The New Ordinary
By Richard Brome, 1653