Category: Word of the Day – C

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin celeripedem (swift-footed),
(from celer (swift) + pedem (foot)) + -ean

EXAMPLE
“…with a decutient shrug of his stooped shoulders, as tho to desarcinate himself of funebrous thoughts, departed at a pace very different from the celeripedean gait of pristine years …”

From: American Speech, Volume 2
Edited by Arthur Garfield Kennedy, Kemp Malone, Louise Pound, William Cabell Greet, 1927

ETYMOLOGY
? for the first element ‘catter’ perhaps from Dutch kater (tomcat) + batter (to fight)

EXAMPLE
“…By Gemini ! you never heard such a catter- batter! The whole court-room stamping and laughing fit to split, and the ushers calling order, and the tipstaffs running, and his worship gobbling like a cailzie-cock…”

From: Blackwood’s Magazine
Volume 225, 1929

ETYMOLOGY
from ‘to claw the back of‘ (to flatter, fawn upon)

EXAMPLE
“…Yea, trouble not your self sir, ye may hauke and hunt, & take youre pleasure. As for the guiding of your kingdom and people, let vs alone with it.
These flattering clawbackes ar original rotes of all mischief…”

From: The Second Sermon of Maister Hughe Latimer, which be Preached before King Edward
By Hugh Latimer, 1549

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