Word of the Day

Word of the Day: TACENDA

ETYMOLOGY
Latin, gerundive neuter pl. of tacere (to be silent)

EXAMPLE
“…With due rigour, Willelmus Sacrista, and his bibations and tacenda are, at the earliest opportunity, softly, yet irrevocably put an end to. The bibations, namely, had to end; even the building where they used to be carried on was razed from the soil of St. Edmundsbury, and ‘on its place grow rows of beans:’ Willelmus himself, deposed from the Sacristry and all offices, retires into obscurity, into absolute taciturnity unbroken thenceforth to this hour…”

From: Past and Present
By Thomas Carlyle, 1843

Word of the Day: TISTY-TOSTY

ETYMOLOGY
for int.: perhaps a mere ejaculation
for n. 2.: it has been compared with obsolete tyte tust(e) or obsolete tussemose (a nosegay)

EXAMPLE
“…And now I wil daunce, now wil I praunce,
For why I haue none other woork:
Snip snap Butter is no bone meat:
Knaues flesh is no Porke.
Hey tisty tosty an Ole is a bird,
Iack a napes hath an olde face:
You may beleeue me at one bare woord,
how like you this mery cace?…”

From: A Pleasant Enterlude, Intituled, Like Will to Like Quoth the Deuill to the Collier
By Ulpian Fulwell, 1568

Word of the Day: DEMULCEATE

ETYMOLOGY
irreg. formed on Latin demulcere (to stroke down, to soothe caressingly) + -ate

EXAMPLE
“…Gallantry, sir, (said he, turning to me) or the exalted science of demulceating the amiable reservedness, and overcoming the attractive pudicity, of the gentler sex, by the display of rare and excellent endowments, was a discipline worthy of the accomplished chevaliers of these most memorable eras …”

From: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
Volume I, April – September, 1817
Fragment of a Literary Romance

Word of the Day: COB-CASTLE

ETYMOLOGY
? from cob (a big man, a great man, a leading man) + castle

EXAMPLE
“…’Twixt the wood and the castle they see at high water
The storm, the place makes it a dangerous matter;
And besides, upon such a steep rock it is founded,
As would break a man’s neck, should he’scape being drowned:
Perhaps though in time one may make them to yield,
But ’tis prettiest Cob-castle e’er I beheld…”

From: Poems on Several Occasions written by Charles Cotton, 1689
A Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque

Word of the Day: SPISCIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin spissus (thick, close, compact)

EXAMPLE
“…Methought this Drink had a kind of a sweet taste, like Asses Milk, yet it could not properly be called a liquor, but rather a certain concreted Mist or spiscious Froath; for being with no small paine got out againe, I found it had not so much as moistned my Cloaths…”

From: The Comical History of Francion
By Charles Sorel, 1655

Word of the Day: LITTLE-WHAT

ETYMOLOGY
from little + what

EXAMPLE
“…Philip answeride to him, The looues of two hundrid pens suffysen not to hem, that ech man take a litle what…”

From: The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate
(Wycliffite, early version), c1384

Word of the Day: SNUFFY

ETYMOLOGY
from snuff + -y

EXAMPLE
“…I’m sure she makes a very Tarquinius Sextus of me, and all about this Serenade,—I protest and vow, incomparable Lady, I had begun the sweetest Speech to her—though I say’t, such Flowers of Rhetorick—’twou’d have been the very Nosegay of Eloquence, so it wou’d; and like an ungrateful illiterate Woman as she is, she left me in the very middle on’t, so snuffy I’ll warrant…”

From: Sir Patient Fancy
By Aphra Behn, 1678

Word of the Day: CARRIWITCHET

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin

EXAMPLE
“…That tells vs of Proiects beyond the Moone, of Golden Mines, of Deuices to make the Thames run on the North side of London (which may very easily be done, by remouing London to the Banke-side) of planting the Ile of Dogs with Whiblins, Corwhichets, Mushromes and Tobacco. Tut I like none of these, Let mee see, as I take it, it is an inuectiue against Coaches, or a proofe or tryall of the Antiquitie of Carts and Coaches…”

From: All the vvorkes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet 
By John Taylor, 1623
The VVorld runnes on VVheeles

Word of the Day: MELIORATE

ETYMOLOGY
from late Latin meliorat-, ppl. stem of meliorare, from Latin melior-, (melior better)

PRONUNCIATION
MEE-lee-uh-rayt

EXAMPLE
“…safe from all daungiers,beeyng proude therof not without cause, he would often saie: I found Roome made but of bricke, and I will leaue it of marble. Nothyng to a prince maye bee more magnificente or regall, then if the same dooe meliorate & bettre ye state of a dicion or royalme descended and come to his possession…”

From: Apophthegmes that is to saie, prompte, quicke, wittie and sentencious saiynges, of certain emperours, kynges, capitaines, philosophiers and oratours…
By Desiderius Erasmus
Translated by Nicholas Udall, 1542

Word of the Day: COCKLE-BRAINED

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
perhaps from cockle (to move or rock unsteadily; to totter or wobble)

EXAMPLE
“…Their bind was just a Scots pint over-head, and a tappit-hen to the bill, and no man ever saw them the waur o’t. It was thae cockle-brained callants of the present day that would be mair owerta’en with a puir quart than douce folk were with a magnum…”

From: St. Ronan’s Well
By Sir Walter Scott, 1823