Category: Word of the Day – E

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin enecat- participial stem of enecare,
from e (out) + necare (to kill)

EXAMPLE
“… The differences of Plagues are specified by the degree, qualification, or modus substantiae of the Pestilent Seminaries, which according to their grosseness or subtility, activity, or hebetude, cause more or less truculent plagues, some partaking of such a pernicious degree of malignity, that in the manner of a most presentaneous poyson, they enecate in two or three hours, suddenly corrupting or extinguishing the vital spirits; others at their first appulse excite a Per-per-acute malign Feaver; and some begin with a putrid feaver, swiftly changing into a malign one, which nature this present Pest seems to have assumed, gradually encroaching upon us, as we have already expressed. …”

From: A Discourse of the Plague containing the nature, causes, signs, and presages of the pestilence in general
By Gideon Harvey, 1665

ETYMOLOGY
as if from Latin evasor, agent-noun;
from evadere from e– (out) + vadere (to go) + -ious

EXAMPLE
“… This is a very true and assured Diary of the chief Passages in those stirs made in Sir William York’s House, but withal a very brief one. Which made me get Mr. Richardson to send certain Queries touching several Passages which were answered from a very sure and authentick Hand; and in virtue of which Answers, I shall be able to give a stop to all the tergiversations of the Incredulous, and their evasorious Pretences, as if things might be resolved into waggish Combination. …”

From: A Continuation of J. Glanvill’s Collection of Remarkable and True Stories of Apparitions and Witchcraft 
By Henry More, 1682

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin exundat- participial stem of exundare,
from ex- (out) + undare (to rise in waves), from unda (wave)

EXAMPLE
“… Thus armed, he advanced to the well. The yew-twig struck the bright motionless water, and strongly agitated it. The stream exundated on every side, kindled as it mounted, and, tumbling and commingling, in a few seconds, like an enormous flame of fire, rolled forwards and backwards round the margin of the fountain. …”

From: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
Volume LVI. July-December 1844
Traditions and Tales of Upper Lusatia
No. III. The Dwarf’s Well

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin epulum (feast, banquet) + -ous

EXAMPLE
The epulous employees finished off all the catered food at the Christmas work party, and were working at emptying the contents of the bar when the boss called it a night.

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin epistola (epistle) + -ist

EXAMPLE
Mrs. Carter to Miss Talbot, Deal, April 16, 1743.
“… I am extremely obliged to you, my dear Miss Talbot, for your account of the Italian epistolists. I find I am not likely to be much edified by their sense, but they may perhaps be of use to me in gaining the improvement I wish for in the language. …”

From: A Series of Letters Between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the year 1741 to 1770
By Elizabeth Carter, 1743

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin eximius (excepted, select, choice), from eximere (to take out) + -ous;
common in 17th century literature

EXAMPLE
“… For this matter let euery man make frendes to the kinges maiestie, for it doth perteine to a king to help this infirmity, by the grace the which is giuen to a king anointed. But for as much as some men doth iudge diuers times a Fistle or a French pocke to be the kings euil, in such matters it behoueth not a king to meddle withal, except it be thorow & of his boutiful goodnes to giue his pitifull and gracious councell. For kinges & kinges sonnes & other noble men hath been eximious Phisicions, as it appeareth more largely in y^e Introduction of knowledge, a booke of my making. …”

From: The Breuiarie of Health vvherin doth folow, remedies, for all maner of sicknesses & diseases,
By Andrew Boorde, 1547

PRONUNCIATION
uhg-ZIM-ee-uhss, ek-SIM-ee-uhss

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin empticius (obtained by purchase), from empt- ppl. stem of emere (to buy) + ‑icius (‑itious)

EXAMPLE
“… but, diverted twixt fear of detection and zeal of working more good (upon the Presbyter) for the Catholike cause, we wheel’d about and got us to Newcastle; where we found the Gentleman that ran away from Oxford playing at Stowball with his Sodalitia, his guid chapmen; who (as emptitious as he was) though they valued him not, because sese inscendi passus est, he suffered himself to be fool ridden, yet knew well enough how to overvalue him. …”

From: Mutatus Polemo. The horrible strategems of the Jesuits, lately practised in England, during the Civil-Wars, and now discovered by a reclaimed Romanist.
By A.B., 1650

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin exitiabilis (causing or bringing death or destruction, fatal, deadly),
from exitium (a going out, destruction) + -abilis (-able) 

EXAMPLE
“… But this is very necessarye to be knowen, after what sorte he handled themperoure, when he toke thaigle by the throte? In the time of Iohan the .xii. and Otto the firste there was stablyshed a greuouse intollerable, hurtefull and exitiable othe to all thempire, to be sworne of all emperours in this maner. …”

From: The Beginning and Endynge of all Popery, or Popishe Lyngedome
By Walter Lynne, 1548

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἐπιχώριος (in or of the country) (from ἐπί- (epi-) + χώρα (country) + ‑ιος) + -al

EXAMPLE
“…this double suffering will shortly be succeeded by a very peculiar, perfectly epichorial, and most distracting method of separating dust from carpets (of which more anon); while you must, at all times, be prepared for the infernal bagpipe, modulated by the blind for the benefit of the deaf, to say nothing of the stridulous flute, which it hath pleased Pan, Apollo, or Nemesis, hitherto to restrain to the classical region of the college. …”

From: The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal
Volume 3, 1833
“The City of the Clyde”
Letter from Henry d’Arcy, Esq., to Charles Vernon, Esq.

ETYMOLOGY
from ear + dropper

EXAMPLE
“… But, that he was a Creature of the Duke’s, and commended to him by Bishop Williams, the Historian is strangely out again. It is possible an Ear-dropper might hear such things talk’d at Cock-pits and Dancing-schools, miserable Intelligence to thrust into an History …”

From: Scrinia Reserata a Memorial Offer’d to the Great Deservings of John Williams, D. D.
By John Hacket, a1670