Category: Word of the Day – C

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin colloqui + –acious, after loquacious

ETYMOLOGY
from child + great (big)

EXAMPLE
“… Swines-Bread, sovsed, doth not onely speed
A tardy Labour; but (without great heed)
If ouer it a Child-great Woman stride,
Instant abortion often doth betide.
The burning Sun, the banefull Aconite,
The poysonie Serpents that vnpeople quite
Cyrenian Desarts, neuer Danger them
That wear about them th’ Artemisian Stem. …”

From: Du Bartas his Deuine Weekes and Workes
By Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas
Translated by Joshua Sylvester, 1605

ETYMOLOGY
conjectured to be a whimsical imitation of concur (cur = dog);
but no evidence has been found of its actual origin

EXAMPLE
“… Alcum. So is it, and often doth it happen, that the iust proportion of the fire and all things concurre.

Rafe. Concurre, condogge. I will away.

Alcum. Then away. …”

From: Gallathea
By John Lyly, 1592

ETYMOLOGY
from carrion (the human body) + case (a covering)

EXAMPLE
“He wore a tight, white, long-sleeved, button-up carrion-case.”

ETYMOLOGY
adj. 1.: from chit (a freckle or wart, obsolete) + -y
adj. 2. & 3..: apparently deduced from chitty-face, (thin face), but afterwards associated with chit (the young of a beast)
n. 1.:  from Hindi chiṭṭhi, Marathi chitthi, chithi and its cognate
Hindi ciṭṭhi (document, letter, note, promissory note, pass), of uncertain origin

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1.)
“… How shall I stifle now my rising Phlegm,
Are all, are all his Thoughts employ’d on them
Shall they such Chitty Jades so happy be,
And can he not bestow one word on me;
Hence from my Sight, avoid this wicked Room,
Go you ungracious Minxes, get you home. …”

From: The Rival Milliners: or, the Humours of Covent Garden
A Tragi-Comi-Operatic-Pastoral Farce
By Robert Drury, 1737

ETYMOLOGY
probably an alteration of cheslop, a variant of cheslip (a woodlouse), after bob (a bunch or cluster, as of leaves, flowers, fruit, etc.)

EXAMPLE
“I saw several chizzle-bobs crawling out from under the damp wood that was stored in the shed”

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin celebris (crowded, much frequented; festive), variant of celeber (famous, well-known) + -ous

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1.)
“… Howe happy are those men, who for their constant standing in the gappe, against Sathan & Antichrist, are every day illustrated, and made celebrious, by the maligning
of the adversaries of truth? Their soules are in peace, and their glory is promulgated by their enemies trumpets, who the more they oppugne them, the more we doe loue them, and eternise the memory of them. …”

From: The Reasons vvhich Doctour Hill hath brought, for the vpholding of papistry, which is falselie termed the Catholike religion
By George Abbot, 1604

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin correctus + -fy

EXAMPLE
“… It is not to be a Justice of Peace as you are, and palter out your time i’th’ penal Statutes. To hear the curious Tenets controverted between a Protestant Constable, and Jesuite Cobler; to pick Natural Philosophy out of Bawdry, when your Worship’s pleas’d to correctifie a Lady; nor ’tis not the main Moral of blind Justice, (which is deep Learning) when your Worships Tenants bring a light cause, and heavy Hens before ye, both fat and feeble, a Goose or Pig; and then you’ll sit like equity with both hands weighing indifferently the state o’th’ question. These are your Quodlibets, but no Learning, Brother. …”

From: The Elder Brother a comedie
By John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, 1637

ETYMOLOGY
from caper (a frolicsome leap) + witted (relating to wit or intelligence)

EXAMPLE
“… I have stood by his Table often, when I was about the Age of Two and twenty Years, and from thence forward, and have heard learned Pieces read before him at his Dinners, which I thought strange; but a Chaplain of James Mantague, Bishop of Winton, told me, that the Bishop had read over unto him the four Tomes of Cardinal Bellarmine’s Controversies at those Respites, when his Majesty took fresh Air, and weighed the Objections and Answers of that sub∣tle Author, and sent often to the Libraries in Cambridge for Books, to examine his Quotations. Surely then, whatsoever any Caperwitted Man may observe, neither was the King’s Chastity stained, nor his Wisdom lull’d asleep, nor his Care of Government slackned, by Lodging in those Courts remote from London, where he was freer from Disturbances …”

From: Scrinia Reserata a memorial offer’d to the great deservings of John Williams, D. D.
By John Hacket, 1693

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek κῡµατ- (wave) + -ic + -al. after Latin cumatilis (sea-coloured, blue)

EXAMPLE
“… A Prince blew.
Crimson, i.e. Scarlet.
Cumatical colour, i.e. blew.
Flesh colour, a certain mixture of red white.
Gangran colour, i.e. divers colours together, as in a Mallards, or Pigeons neck. …”

From: The Compleat Gentleman: fashioning him absolute in the most necessary and commendable qualities, concerning mind, or body, that may be required in a person of honor.
By Henry Peacham, 1661
An Exposition of Colours