Category: Word of the Day – G

Word of the Day: GLEESOME

ETYMOLOGY
from glee (n.) + -some

EXAMPLE
“… This Smith was a quaint sire,
As merry as Bird on brier.
Iocund and gleesome at euery sith,
His countenance aye, buxome and blith,
His face full coaly and full black,
Hued like vnto a Colliers sacke,
Or as if it had been soile in the mier,
Full of wrinkles was his cheeks with the fier…”

From: The Merry Tales of the Cobler of Canterburie
Anonymous, 1590

Word of the Day: GRIMGRIBBER

ETYMOLOGY
from Grimgribber, an imaginary estate subject of a legal discussion in the play Conscious Lovers (1722) by Sir Richard Steele, British essayist and dramatist

EXAMPLE
“… Mankind in general are not sufficiently aware that words without meaning, or of equivocal meaning, are the everlasting engines of fraud and injustice; and that the grimgribber of Westminster Hall is a more fertile, and a much more formidable, source of imposture than the abracadabra of magicians. …”

From: Epea pteroenta, or, The diversions of Purley
By John Horne Tooke, 1786

Word of the Day: GLIMFLASHY

ETYMOLOGY
from glim (a light of any kind; a candle, a lantern) + flashy (given to show)

EXAMPLE
“… What ho, my kiddy,” cried Job, “don’t be glimflashy: why you’d cry beef on a blater; the cove is a bob cull, and a pal of my own; and, moreover, is as pretty a Tyburn blossom as ever was brought up to ride a horse foaled by an acorn.. …”

From: Pelham; Or, The Adventures of a Gentleman
Volume I, Second Edition, 1828

Word of the Day: GASTROLATER

ETYMOLOGY
from French gastrolatre,
from Greek γαστρ(ο)-, γαστήρ (belly) + -λατρος (serving)

EXAMPLE
“… At the Court of that great Master of Ingenuity, Pantagruel observ’d two sorts of troublesom and too officious Apparitors, whom he very much detested. The first, were call’d Engastrimythes; the others, Gastrolaters. …”

From: Pantagruel’s Voyage to the Oracle of the Bottle
Being the fourth and fifth books of the works of François Rabelais
Translated by Peter Anthony Motteux, 1694

Word of the Day: GNATHONIC

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin Gnathonicus,
from Gnathonem (gnatho),
from Latin Gnatho, the name of a parasite in the “”Eunuchus” of Terence

EXAMPLE
“… The gnathonick Parasite sweareth to all that this benefactor holdeth. The mercenary Pensioner will bow before he break. He, who only studieth to have the praise of some witty invention can not strick upon another anwile. …”

From: A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland
By G. Gillespie, 1637

Word of the Day: GAINSTAND

ETYMOLOGY
from gain- (against, in opposition to) + stand (vb.)

EXAMPLE (for vb.)
“… Throuch his falsheid and craftynes
He sall flow in to welthynes
The Godlye pepyll he sall noye
By creuell deith, and thame distroye
The kyng of Kyngis, he sall ganestand
Syne be distroyit withouttin hand. …”

From: Ane Dialog Betuix Experience and ane Courteour off the Miserabyll Estait of the Warld
By David Lindsay, 1554

Word of the Day: GULIST

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gula (gullet, appetite, gluttony) + -ist

EXAMPLE
“… He that sell’s himselfe to the custome of disloyalty to his Creator, become’s ignorant of his offence; and, instead of correction, prove’s unskilfull in the knowledge of his sinne. The gluttonous satiety of our swelling Gulists, argue’s their necessity of offending by forgetfulnes: and their own abundance barr’s them frō the just weighing of the poverty of the distressed. The common drunkard cannot be taken with a due thanks-giving for that superfluity which he corrupt’s, from whence many thirstie soules might sucke a reasonable supply for necessity. …”

From: The Honor of Chastity
By John Featley, 1632