Word of the Day

Word of the Day: MULLIGRUBS

also MA-LE-GRUBBLES, MOULDY-GRUBS, MULLEYGRUBS, 
MULLIEGRUMS, MULLIGRUMPHS (Sc.), MULLYGRUBS

ETYMOLOGY
alteration (probably influenced by grub) of earlier mulliegrums, perhaps alteration (perhaps influenced by obsolete English mully (dusty, mouldy), from English mull + -y) of megrims (low spirits) 

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Hee was as good as his word, and had no sooner spoke the worde, but he did as he spoke. with a heauy heart to the pallace the yeoman of the mouth departed, and rehearsed this second il successe, wherwith Peters successour was so in his mulliegrums that he had thought to haue buffeted him, & cursed him with bell, book, & cndle ; but he ruled his reaso[n], & bad him, thgh it cost a million, to let him haue that third that rested behind, and hie him expeditely thither, lest some other snatched it vp, and as fast from thence againe, for hee swore by his triple crowne, no crumme of refection woulde he gnaw vpon, till he had sweetened his lippes with it. …”

From: Lenten Stuffe
By Thomas Nashe, 1599
“The Praise of the Red Herring”

Word of the Day: PUDIBUND

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin pudibundus (easily ashamed, bashful, modest, also shameful),
from pudere (to make or be ashamed) + -bundus 

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1)
“… If any man do vse to drynke water with wyne, let it be purely strayned, & than seth it and after it be cold let hī put it to his wyne, but better it is to drīke with wyne stylled waters, specyally ye water of strawberes or the water of buglos or the water of endyue, or the water of cycory, or ye water of southystel, & dandelyon. And yf any man be cobred with the stone or doth burne in the pudybunde places, vse to drynke with whyte wyne the water of hawes, & the water of mylke, voke for thys mater in a boke of my makynge named the breuyary of health …”

From: A Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Healthe Made in Mountpyllyer,
By Andrewe Boorde, 1542

PRONUNCIATION
PYOO-duh-bund

Word of the Day: GOTCH-GUTTED

ETYMOLOGY
from English dialect gotch (a big-bellied earthenware pot or jug) + bellied

EXAMPLE
“… Then did ye see e’r an old Bald-pated, Beetle-Brow’d, Gotch-Gutted, Squint-Ey’d, Sowr-Fac’d Ra­scal, the very Canker-Worm of Heaven and Earth, and Store-House o’ Mischief, Roguery, and Villany, leading o’ two good likely Girls? …”

From: Plautus’s Comedies, 
By Titus Maccius Plautus
Translated by Laurence Echard, 1694

Word of the Day: BABBART

ETYMOLOGY
probably from a first element of uncertain origin + ‑ard (suffix)

EXAMPLE
“… The hare, the scotart,
The bigge, the bouchart,
The scotewine, the skikart,
The turpin, the tirart,
The wei-betere, the ballart,
The go-bi-dich, the soillart,
The wimount, the babbart,
The stele-awai, the momelart,
The evil-i-met, the babbart,
The scot, the deubert,
The gras-bitere, the goibert,
The late-at-hom, the swikebert,
The frendlese, the wodecat,
The brodlokere, the bromcat, …”

From: The Middle English “Names of the Hare“
(Bodleian Library MS Digby 86)

Word of the Day: SIT-UPONS

ETYMOLOGY
from sit (vb.) + upon (prep.), after to sit upon

EXAMPLE
“… I need scarcely say that he kept a tiger, and that the tiger was a perfect model of a brute. He wore a sky-blue coat with silver buttons, a pink-striped waistcoat, green plush sit-upons, and flesh-coloured silks in-doors; out of doors the lower garments were exchanged for immaculate white doeskins, and topboots — virgin Woodstocks on his hands, and a glazed hat upon his head with forty-two yards of silver-thread upon it to loop up the brims to two silver buttons. …”

From: Peter Priggins, The College Scout
By Theodore Hook, 1841

Word of the Day: GRAVILOQUENCE

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gravis (grave, weighty, important) + loqui, loquent- (to speak)

EXAMPLE
“… I treasure her unsentimental, enterprising, and no-nonsense-responsible spirit, her gravitas and graviloquence. I’d like to be capable (at least at times) of such classical conservatism, a necessary leaven for my mushy murky utopian pink political daydreaming …”

From: The Theater of Maria Irene Fornes, 1999

Word of the Day: DISCLANDER

ETYMOLOGY
noun: from Anglo-Norman desclandre, desclaundre, disclaunder, disclaundre (slander, slanderous statement, scandal, public outrage)
verb: from disclander (noun)

EXAMPLE (for vb. 1.)
“… Þis gode men with ioie inov : heore leue of him heo nome,
And þannes heo wenden sone i-nouȝ : to þe court of rome.
Þare neren heo nouȝt faire onder-fonge : for þe bischopes comen bi-fore
And desclaundreden seint thomas : þat he was fals and for-suore.
Ake naþeles þe grace heo hadden : þat to þe pope heo miȝten go.
him-sulue heo tolden in priuete : al seint thomases wo: …”

From: Laud Manuscript, c1300
In The Early South-English Legendary ; or, Lives of Saints
Edited by Carl Horstmann, 1887

Word of the Day: DEBATIVE

ETYMOLOGY
from debate (vb.) + -ive

EXAMPLE
“… It is a wonder to behold, that in one man should appeare so many tokens of valour, as first to be the ouerthrow of so mighty a kingdome: next of the setting vp & revniting again of the same: Againe, that whersoeuer he tooke part, victory was euermore attendant vppon his actions; which was the onely cause they honored him aboue men, and little lesse than a God, they were driuen into a debatiue meditation, whether they offered him more wrong in his banishment, or more honnor in calling him home: …”

From: The Historie of Iustine Containing a Narration of Kingdomes, from the beginning of the Assyrian Monarchy, vnto the Raigne of the Emperour Augustus
Translated by G.W., 1606