Category: Word of the Day – B

ETYMOLOGY
from French berseaux (cradle) + –trix a feminine ending

EXAMPLE
“…High rewards, as was then customary, were bestowed on the messenger who attended the child, and on the bersatrix who rocked the cradle of the infant hero…”

From: A History of the Life of Edward the Black Prince, 
By George Payne Rainsford James, 1836

ETYMOLOGY
from OED: from West Germanic: Old English bísmer, -or (strong neuter), identical with Old High German bísmer (ridicule), from bí-, be- prefix (in its strong or accented form) + -smer, which Schmeller connects with Middle High German smier (a smile, laughing), smieren (to smile).
Others have compared Old High German smero, Old English smeoru, Old Germanic *smerwo-(m, ‘fat, grease, butter,’ which seems, on phonetic as well as other grounds, less probable.

EXAMPLE
“…And eek for sche was somdel smoterlich
Sche was as deyne as water in a dich
     As ful of hokir and of bissemare
hir thoughte ladyes oughten hir to spare /
what for hir kynreed and hir nortelrye…”

From: The Harleian ms. 7334 of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer, c1386

ETYMOLOGY
from French badin (as a noun – a light-hearted person, fool, idiot; also used to denote the fool or clown in drama), (as an adjective – light-hearted, cheerful, foolish, silly),
from Old Occitan badin, adjective and noun, from badar (to gape), from Latin badare (to gape) + -in (-ine)

EXAMPLE
“…Such a Badeen ne’er came upon the Stage,
So droll, so monkey in his play and rage;
Sprawling upon his back, and pitching pyes,
Twirling his head, and flurring at the flies.
A thousand tricks and postures would he show,
Then rise so pleas’d both with himself and you,
That the amaz’d beholders could not say
Whether the bird was happier, or they…”

From: Poems by Sir W.T.
By William Temple, 1670
‘Upon My Lady Giffard’s Loory’

ETYMOLOGY
from be- + puff

EXAMPLE
“…Doggeries never so gold-plated, Doggeries never so escutcheoned, Doggeries never so diplomaed, bepuffed, gas-lighted, continue Doggeries, and must take the fate of such…”

From: Past and Present
By Thomas Carlyle, 1843

ETYMOLOGY
from blow (to burst into flower, to blossom, to bloom) + -th

EXAMPLE
“…I of no willing wrong complaine,
Which force or stealth hath wrought,
No fruit I promise from the tree,
Which forth this blooth hath brought…”

From: The Survey of Cornwall
By Richard Carew, 1602

ETYMOLOGY
from busy + -ty;
after words from French and Latin like veri-ty, jolli-ty

EXAMPLE
“…where with the sely people are so sore vexed. Of the cometh the besyte and wantonnes of officials. O couetousnes mother of all iniquitie…”

From: The Sermo[n] of Doctor Colete, made to the Conuocacion at Paulis, 1530

ETYMOLOGY
either from:
a) Middle French brigeux (from brigue (a quarrel, an argument; strife, contention)) + -eux (-ous)
b) from Latin brigosus (from briga (quarrel, dispute, strife) + -ōsus (-ous) + -ous 
c) or directly from brigue (a quarrel, an argument) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Þis answere assoileth noght at all This brigous questioun…”

From: De Consolatione Philosophiae (on The Consolation of Philosophy)
By Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
Translated by John Walton, c1450

ETYMOLOGY
possibly a corruption of French belle bonne or belle et bonne (fair and good);
if not a humorous perversion of bonnibel (fair maid, bonny lass)

EXAMPLE
“…PERIGOT. The while my Flock did feed thereby,
WILLY. The while the Shepherd self did spill:
PERIGOT. I saw the bouncing Bellibone;
WILLY. Hey ho Bonnibel!
PERIGOT. Tripping over the Dale alone,
WILLY. She can trip it very well…”

From: The Shepheardes Calender
VIII: August
By Edmund Spenser, 1579