Category: Word of the Day – A

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin adversarius (opposed, hostile, adverse, harmful, injurious) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…This resisting and aduersarious Empire, while it fought against Christ it serued Christ, while it killed his Church it increased his Church, and while it fought against Religion, it became a meanes to spread and inlarge it…”

From: Diseases of the Time Attended by their Remedies
By Francis Rous, 1622

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin avītus of or pertaining to the avus (grandfather) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Being a leucothiop, he was not even a mediocrist, but a mere polypragmatical hafter or barrator. His inscience of avitous justicements, and of lexicology, his perissology and battology, imparted to his tractation of his cause, an imperspecuity which rendered it immomentous to the juratory audients…”

From: Letters to Squire Pedant in the East
Letter No. IX, 1843
By Lorenzo Altisonant (pseudonym Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour),
an Emigrant to the West, 1856

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin anser (goose) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Can any one be so anserous as to suppose, that the faculties of young men cannot be exercised, and their industry and activity called into proper action, because Mr. Hamilton teaches, in three or four years, what has (in a more vicious system) demanded seven or eight?…”

From: The Edinburgh Review, June, 1826
Hamilton’s Method of Teaching Languages

ETYMOLOGY
from anti- + -loquy (Latin loqui to speak)

EXAMPLE
“…The Antiloquie…”
(Heading)

From: The Utter Routing of the Whole Army of all the Independents and Sectaries, with the Totall Overthrow of their Hierarchy
By John Bastwick, 1646

ETYMOLOGY
from annoy (n.) + -ful

EXAMPLE
“…And eek men seyn þat thilke Iuge is wys þat soone vnderstondeth a matere & Iuggeth by leyser for al be it so þat al taryyng be anoyful algates it is nat to repreue...”

From: The Hengwrt manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin amœnus (pleasant) + –ous

EXAMPLE
“…Whose mynde was none other but to pass the time, and their predestinate perpetual captivitie in the amenous varietie of over reading and revoluting many volumes and sundry books of divers sciences and strange matters…”

From: Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards
By the Rev. Mr. Evan Evans, 1764
A Poem Entitled, The Ode of the Months, composed by Bwilym Ddu of Arfon, to Sir John Griffydd Llwyd, of Tregarnedd and Dinornig

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἀδιάϕορ-ος (indifferent) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…From all which may be inferred, that dissentions among the protestantes are not merely personall, or but pointes adiaphorous, indifferent, being as it were but peccant humors, and not true or formed diseases in their church, but they do concerne most profound doubtes of their religion, since otherwaies they would neuer anathematize, or condemne one an other with such acerbity of wordes…”

From: Whyte Dyed Black
Or A discouery of many most foule blemishes, impostures, and deceiptes
– Thomas Worthington, 1615

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin amicus (friendly, loyal, loving, favourable) + -ic + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…as by which each single species draws and assimilates that only to it self, which it finds most amicous and congruous to its nature; and if so it be, then have we no more to do, than to learn how to prepare our Ferments, and apply them accordingly…”

From: A philosophical discourse of earth relating to the culture and improvement of it for vegetation,
and the propagation of plants, &c. as it was presented to the Royal Society
– John Evelyn, 1675

ETYMOLOGY
– from affection on analogy of caution, cautious, action, actious, etc.

EXAMPLE
“…and geif ze think it meit, I pray zou, wryt ane afectious letter to my mother, that scho may mak delygens…”

From: Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok
By William Fraser, 1863
“Lady Elizabeth Maxwell to Sir John Maxwell of Pollok, 23d July, c. 1580”