ETYMOLOGY
from bread + wright (a workman, artificer)
EXAMPLE
“… And her wrigteleslike holden in bond.
Quað ðis bred wrigte liðeð nu me.
me drempte ic bar bread lepes ðre. …”
From: Genesis and Exodus, composed c1250;
Joseph and his Brethren
in: Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250
By: Joseph Hall, 1920
ETYMOLOGY
from French bel (fair) + amour (love)
EXAMPLE (for n. 1)
“… Loe loe how braue she decks her bounteous boure,
With silken curtens and gold couerlets,
Therein to shrowd her sumptuous Belamoure,
Yet neither spinnes nor cardes, ne cares nor frets,
But to her mother Nature all her care she lets. …”
From: The Faerie Queene
By Edmund Spenser, 1590
ETYMOLOGY
from Old French beau (fine, good_ + pre (father), or, in sense 2, per, peer (equal, peer):
From OED: In Old French, beau père was politely used in addressing every one whom one called ‘father’; i.e. one’s own father, a ‘father’ in the church, a god-father, a step-father, a father-in-law, an elderly man occupying a fatherly position in one’s regard; about the 16th or 17th century, this use of beau became obsolete, and beau-père was retained as a distinctive term for ‘father-in-law’ and ‘step-father’ as distinct from a real father. In English the use appears to have been much more limited.
EXAMPLE
“… Tho he hadde his tale itold and ymaked al his wise,
He sat adoun and the Bischop of Cicestre gan arise. “Beau pere,” he seide to the Pope: “me thinȝth hit
faith to the,
“To desturbi thing that falleth: to harm of communeaute; …”
From: The Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Beket, c1300
Edited by J.H. Black, 1848
ETYMOLOGY
perhaps from bedazzle + bamboozle
EXAMPLE
“… O Shadrack, my Shadrack! Prissilla did speak,
While the rosy red blushes surmantled her cheek,
And the tears of affection bedoozled her eye,
Shadrack, my Shadrack! I ‘m yourn till I die! …”
From: The Gazette of the Union, Golden Rule, and Odd-Fellow’s Family Companion
A Saturday Family Journal of General Literature, Odd-Fellowship and Amusement.
Volume X – From January to June Inclusive, 1849
From the Scrabble Hill Luminary
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
ETYMOLOGY
Middle English: in sense adj. 1, from broth (impetuous, violent, wrathful) + -ly;
sense adj. 2, possibly a derivative of brothel
EXAMPLE (for adj. 1)
“… þan said Isaac tille him, “ert þou his mayntenour?
Fulle broþely & brim he kept vp a trencheour,
& kast it at Statin, did him a schamfulle schoure.
His nese & his ine he carfe at misauentoure. …”
From: Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle, (as illustrated and improv’d by Robert of Brunne), 1330
ETYMOLOGY
from bunger (probably an alteration of bungle) + -some
EXAMPLE
“… He had nothing very ill to say of Rotch; Nodder he called a drunken, bungersome nughead. (He was of Somersetshire.) …”
From: The Convict Ship
By William Clark Russell, 1896
ETYMOLOGY
from brow + sick
EXAMPLE
“… Besides though, I confess, Parnassus hardly,
Yet Helicon this Summer-time is dry:
Our wits were at an ebbe or very low,
And, to say troth, I think they cannot flow.
But yet a gracious influence from you
May alter Nature in our Brow–sick crew.
Have patience then, we pray, and sit a while;
And, if a laugh be too much, lend a smile. …”
From: The Last Remains of Sr John Suckling
A Prologue of the Author’s to a Masque at Witten, 1659
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)
EXAMPLE
“…The blew Pipe groweth likewise in manner of a smal hedge tree, with many shootes rising from the roote like the former, as our common Priuet doth, whereof it is a kind. The branches haue some small quantitie of pith in the middle of the wood, and are couered with a darke black greenish barke or rinde. The leaues are exceeding greene and crumpled or turned vp like the brims of an hat, in shape very like vnto the leaues of the Poplar tree: among which come the flowers, of an exceeding faire blewe colour, compact of many small flowers in the forme of a bunch of grapes:…”
From: The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes
By John Gerard, 1597
Lexicophilia 