Word of the Day

Word of the Day: CULLIBLE

ETYMOLOGY
from the Oxford English Dictionary:
“This adjective, which is presupposed in the derivative cullibility (known 1728), would normally be derived from a verb cull ; but none such is recorded”

EXAMPLE
“…The cullibity of man praeterite, I allow, but because men are & have been cullible, I see no reason why shd always continue so, – Have there not been fluctuations in the opinions of mankind; and as the stuff which soul is made of must be in every one the same …”

From: The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Edited by Frederick Lafayette Jones, 1964,
– Shelley to Hogg, January 12, 1811

Word of the Day: MUNDICIDIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin mundus (world) + –cidious from –cida (killer)

EXAMPLE
“…Since I knew what to feare, my timerous heart hath dreaded three things: a blazing starre appearing in the aire: a State Comet, I mean a favourite rising in a Kingdome, a new Opinion spreading in Religion: these are Exorbitancies: which is a formidable word: a vacuum and an exorbitancy, are mundicidious evils…”

From: The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America
By Rev. Nathaniel Ward, 1647

Word of the Day: LICKSPITTLE

ETYMOLOGY
from lick (vb.) + spittle (a house or place for the reception of the indigent or diseased)

EXAMPLE
“…Yes – and to hear his lickspittles speak, you would think that a man of great and versatile talents was a miracle; whereas there are some thousands of them publicly acknowledged in England at this day…”

From: Noctes Ambrosianae (J. Wilson) in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine,
Volume XVIII, July-December, 1825

Word of the Day: OPEN-TAIL

ETYMOLOGY
from open + tail (posterior extremity)

EXAMPLE
“…Kate still exclaimes against great Medlers,
A busie-body hardly she abides,
Yet she’s well pleas’d with all Bum-fiddlers,
And hir owne Body stirring still besides:
I muse her  stomacke  now so much should faile,
To loath a Medlar, being an Open-taile…”

From: The Scourge of Folly,
By John Davies, 1611

Word of the Day: QUAINTRELLE

ETYMOLOGY
from Middle French (queint-) cointerelle feminine of cointerel (beau, fop), from cointe (quaint)

EXAMPLE
“…It folweth nouht that thouh j be thus kembt and a litel make the queyntrelle that for swich cause j am fair I am foul old and slauery foule stinkinge and dungy…”

From: Pilgrimage of the Lyf of the Manhode,
from the French of G. de Guilleville, c1430

Word of the Day: COLLACHRYMATE

ETYMOLOGY
adj.: from Latin collacrimatus, pa. pple. of collacrimare;
vb. : from Latin collacrimat- ppl. stem of collacrimare, from col- (together) + lacrimāre (to shed tears, weep), from lacrima (tear)

EXAMPLE
“…A tormentor would collachrymate my case, and rather choose to have been tortured himself than torment me with ingratitude as thou dost…”

From: Christs teares ouer Ierusalem,
By Thomas Nashe, 1593

Word of the Day: PLUME-PLUCKED

ETYMOLOGY
from plume (mark of honour or distinction) + plucked

EXAMPLE
“…Yorke. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-pluckt Richard, who with willing Soule
Adopts thee Heire, and his high Scepter yeelds
To the possession of thy Royall Hand…”

From: The Tragedie of King Richard the Second
By William Shakespeare, 1597

Word of the Day: PHILOTHERIAN

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ϕιλο-, ϕιλ-, combining form from root of ϕιλεῖν (to love), ϕίλ-ος (dear, friend)
+ θήρ (wild beast)

EXAMPLE
“…It is the reply of an old fisher-woman, when reproved by some Philotherian for skinning eels alive.
“Sir,” said she, “I have skinned them thusly for nearly fifty years; and they have got so used to it, they don’t mind it one bit.”…”

From: The Harvard Advocate
Vol. XI. Cambridge, Mass., February 28, 1871. No. I
Editorial