Category: Word of the Day – C

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

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek κακόδοξος (kakodoxos) (of the wrong opinion)

EXAMPLE
“… But that Cacodox Alastor has not only abandon’d the true Principles of Reason and Religion, as identify’d with those of the Protestant Reformation and Church of England, but also those of their fore-Fathers of High-Church …”

From: Athenæ Britannicæ: or, A Critical History of the Oxford and Cambridge writers and writings
By Myles Davies, 1716

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin circumforaneus (from circum + forum (market)) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…  Water is good for any thing: It will part dogs, it will make Pottage, and howsoe’r and wheresoe’r the Barber found out this recipe for a dead sleep, it was no dry device, Veritatem è puteo hauriunt tantam, the truth of it is, the very Probatum for a Lethargy, and drawn out of a deep well cures a deep sleep. The Moon was alwaies beholding to the Pleiades, for waking of Endymion. I doe believe the Barber learned it of a Mountebanck, and ’twas first taught him to awaken drunken customers, who fell asleep in trimming-while, and with the sprinkling of this Frigida, were restor’d to their senses againe, and paid for the nap, as well as the snip. But the circumforaneous Emperick rais’d his Fame, in using this admirable Element upon any other disease. …”

From: Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot
By Edmund Gayton, 1654

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin contradictorius (contradictory) + -ous

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1.)
“… after the grete clerk Plinius, libro quinto, capitulo decimo octavo, what distaunce is betwene cenit of oure hedde and a poynte contradictorious to hit in heuyn, soe moche distaunce is from the este in to the weste;…”

From: Polychronicon 
By Ranulf Higden
Translated by John Trevisa, a1475

ETYMOLOGY
from crab (the common name of the wild apple) + stick

EXAMPLE (for n. 2.)
“… Yes, I remember. I was remarking that sangaree and calipash, mangoes and guava jelly, dispose the heart to love, and so they do. I was not more than six weeks in Jamaica when I felt it myself. Now, it was a very dangerous symptom, if you had it strong in you, for this reason. Our colonel, the most cross-grained old crabstick that ever breathed, happened himself to be taken in when young, and resolving, like the fox who lost his tail and said it was not the fashion to wear one, to pretend he did the thing for fun, determined to make every fellow marry upon the slightest provocation. …”

From: Charles O’Malley
The Irish Dragoon
By Charles Lever, 1840

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin coævus (of the same age),
from co- + ævum (age) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… Finally, the Tetrad connects all Beings, of Elements, Numbers, Seasons of the Year, Coaevous Society; neither can we name any thing, which depends not on the Tetractys, as its Root and Principle: …”

From: The History of Philosophy: containing the lives, opinions, actions and discourses of the philosophers of every sect
By Thomas Stanley, 1660

ETYMOLOGY
from churl +  -y

EXAMPLE
“… But all this while, the shop where Jonah sleeps,
Is tost, and torne, and batter’d on the deeps,
And well-nigh split upon the threatning Rock,
With many a boystrous brush, and churley knock.
God help all desp’rate voyagers, and keepe
All such, as feele thy wonders on the deepe. …”

From: Divine poems: containing the History of -Jonah. Ester. Job. Samson.; Sions – sonets. Elegies.
By Francis Quarles, 1638