Category: Word of the Day – F

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin femina (woman, feminine) + -ary

ETYMOLOGY
from fucation (a painting the face; hence, the giving of a false semblance or appearance, counterfeiting), (from Latin fucatus, pa. pple. of fucare (to paint, rouge)) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…but then the condition must be possible in his power to whom ’tis made, and the perfor∣mance according to the promisers Wil or liking; els it can∣not be candid or current. For to offer a courtesy under impossible condition, is frivolous or fucatious: as if one should offer mony to a blind Man on condition he wil tel what coin ’tis; which is al one as to deny an alms: nay in som sort wors, sith ’tis a denial with delusion and derision, or a meer mockery…”

From: Theoremata Theologica: Theological Treatises.
Octo theses theologicæ: Eight theses of divinity
By Robert Vilvain, 1654

ETYMOLOGY
from facund (eloquent) + -ate

EXAMPLE
To facundate your writing , you need to understand the subtleties and nuances of language.

ETYMOLOGY
from flesh (n.) + -ful

EXAMPLE
“…He looked like one of those burly Flemings that Rembrandt would sometimes paint, with his orange moustache and imperial, his solid fleshful face, and his big, chubby hands, on whose knuckles were little tufts of tawny hair…”

From: Loaded Dice: A Novel
By Edgar Fawcett, 1891

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
perhaps from the Teutonic root flap and Old French frapillier (to be indignant, murmur)

EXAMPLE
“…Elixir vitae, and the precious Stone,
You know as well as how to make an Apple;
If’te come to the workinge then let you alone,
You know the coullers black brown bay and dapple,
Controwle you once then you begin to fraple.
Swearing and saying, what is fellow is this?
Yet still you worke but ever worke amisse…”

From: Sir Edward Kelle’s Worke,
In Elias Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum, 1652

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin falsiloquus (from falsus (false) + loqui (to speak)) + -ence

EXAMPLE
“…And that their Mutual Forces Join’d,
Harnass’d with Wit so much refin’d;
And so adorn’d instead of Sense,
With Trappings of Falsiloquence,
Might draw misjudging Fools to be,
In Love with their Sincerity;…”

From: The Fifth and last Part of Vulgus Britannicus
By Edward Ward, 1710

ETYMOLOGY
from frost + brained

EXAMPLE
“…MARTIANUS: Madam, we all have so importund him
Laying unto his judgement every thing
That might attract his sences to the crowne;
But he, frost-braind, will not be obtaind
To take upon him this Realmes government…”

From: No-Body and Some-Body, 1606
“Printed for John Trundle, and are to be sold
at his shop in Barbican, at the signe of No-body.”

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin fracidus, from frac-, frax (lees of oil)

EXAMPLE
“…Natures recreation, which she out of the fracid ferment of putrifying Bodies doth form…”

From: The Reformed Common-wealth of Bees,
presented in several letters and observations to Samuel Hartlib, 1655

ETYMOLOGY
? from frop, variant of frap (to strike, to beat) + -ish

EXAMPLE
“…God doth usually, if not constantly, break their wills by de∣nying them, as one would cross a froward. Child of his stub∣born humour: or else puts a sting into them, that a man had been as good he had been without them, as a man would give a thing to a froppish Child, but it may be with a knock on his Fingers, and a frown to boot.…”

From: Christian letters full of spiritual instructions tending to the promoting of the power of godliness, both in person and families.
By Joseph Alleine, 1659

ETYMOLOGY
diminutive of faunt: aphetic form of Old French enfaunt, enfant;
the shortened form has not been found in French, but Italian has the corresponding fante (boy, servant, foot-soldier), whence German fant

EXAMPLE
“…”Þat is soth,” quod clergye “I se what þow menest,
I shal dwelle as I do my deuore to shewen,
     And conformen fauntekynes and other folke ylered,
Tyl pacience haue preued þe and parfite þe maked…”

From: The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman,
By William Langland, 1377