Category: Word of the Day – C

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French type couardos  + -ous 

EXAMPLE
“…The cowardous pees that was ordeyned…”

From: The Chronicles of England
By: William Caxton (1480)

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin

EXAMPLE
“…OLIVER. I do, thou upstart callymoocher, I do. ‘Tis well known to thee I have been twice alecunner, thou mushrump that shot up in one night with lying with thy mistress….”

From: The Mayor of Quinborough: A Comedy
By Thomas Middleton, a1627

ETYMOLOGY
from French cagnard (sluggard)
(according to Littré, from Italian cagna bitch, fem. of cane dog)

EXAMPLE
“…He leneþ on is forke ase a grey frere 
þis crokede caynard sore he is adred 
Hit is mony day go þat he was here 
ichot of is ernde he naþ nout ysped …”

From: The Harley Lyrics, a1350

ETYMOLOGY
from cugger (to hold a confidential conversation)

EXAMPLE
“…There was a great laugh at Tim’s answer; and then there was a whispering, and a great cugger mugger and coshering; and at last a pretty little bit of a voice said, “Shut your eyes, and you’ll see, Tim…”

From: Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.
By Thomas Crofton Croker, 1859
Treasure Legends. Dreaming Tim Jarvis

ETYMOLOGY
from clatter (to talk rapidly and noisily; to talk idly; to chatter, prattle, babble) + fart (a disagreeable or annoying person)

EXAMPLE
“…The Irish enimie spieng that the citizens were accustomed to fetch such od vagaries, especiallie on the holie daies, & hauing an inkling withall by some false clatterfert or other, that a companie of them would haue ranged abrode, on mondaie in the Easter weeke towards the wood of Cullen…”

From: The firste (laste) volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande
– Raphael Holinshed, Richard Stanyhurst, 1577

ETYMOLOGY
adjective: from Latin conspurcātus past participle
verb: from Latin conspurcāt-, participial stem of conspurcāre (to defile, pollute),
from con- + spurcāre (to befoul), 
from spurcus (unclean, dirty, foul)

EXAMPLE
“…in dede I thynk they both will declare it hartely, if they should come before them. As for me, if you woulde knowe what I thynk (my good and most deare brother Laurence) bycause I am so synfull & so conspurcate (the Lord knoweth I lye not) with many greuous synnes (which yet I hope ar washed away Sanguine Christi) I neither can nor would be consulted withal, but as a siphar in augrim.…”

From: The first volume of the ecclesiasticall history contaynyng the actes and monumentes of thynges passed in every kynges tyme in this realme
– John Foxe, 1563

ETYMOLOGY
from cock + stride

EXAMPLE
“…It is now February and the Sun has gotten up a cocke-stride of his climbing, the vallies now are painted while, and the brooks are full of water…”

From: Fantasticks 
– Nicholas Breton, 1626

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek καλός (fair, excellent) + -ϕαντης (shower) (from ϕαίνειν to show) + -ic

EXAMPLE
“…T’is only wisht your work from Dolts, your Hiues from Drones were free:
T’is wisht in These, in Fugitiues, in Papists, and (more bad,
Whom to perswade to reason, were with reason to be mad)
In Calophantick Puritaines, amisse amendment had…”

From: Albions England
A continued historie of the same kingdome, from the originals of the first inhabitants thereof
– William Warner, 1596

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin crēbrum (frequent) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Now at the lengthe not onlie harde necessitie, but also most principallie the crebrous phame of your clemencie, and the right worshipfull and Godlie reporte of your bountefull humanitie and gentlenes vnto all men…”

From: Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries
– J. Leach. c1600
Edited by Henry Ellis

ETYMOLOGY
– from Latin clanculārius (secret),
from clanculum (adv.), diminutive of clam (in secret, private)

EXAMPLE
He was host to many clancularious gatherings, always conducted under cover of darkness.