Category: Word of the Day – G

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin genetrix, genitrix (female parent, mother; originator, creator),
from gen- stem of gignere (to beget, give birth)

EXAMPLE
“… The roundelayes, and charming lullabies,
That my indulgent genetrix did warble?
What are my braines grown dry, or my bloud cold?
Or am I on a sudden waxen old?
I thought, though Cupids aire-deviding shaft,
Soone penetrated the well tempered
Corslet: which the hot-halting god of fire,
Made for his boysterous rivall, it should not find,
Or make a way to vulnerate my mind. …”

From: Εροτοπαιγνιον (Erotopaignion), or, The Cyprian Academy
By Robert Baron, 1647

ETYMOLOGY
from grizzle (to grin or laugh [Eng. dial.]) + ???

EXAMPLE
“… Bed-blonket akether! Ha! zey zitch a word more, chell cotton thy wastecoat. Chell thong tha, chell gi’ tha zitch a strat in tha chups, ya grizzledemundy. …”

From: The Gentleman’s Magazine
Volume 16, 1746
An Exmoor Scolding; In the Propriety and Decency of Exmoor Language, between two Sisters

ETYMOLOGY
? from goose (a foolish person) + noodle (a stupid or silly person); second syllable unknown

EXAMPLE
“… for “The Maister” seldom came there until much later in the evening, when he knew he should find some of those peculiarly constituted individuals there, whom Alrina generally designated “goostrumnoodles,” and whom he seldom found much difficulty in frightening to his heart’s content. …”

From: The Wizard of West Penwith,
A Tale of the Land’s-End,
By William Bentinch Forfar, 1871

ETYMOLOGY
from gere (a wild and changeful mood; a sudden fit of passion or feeling) + -ful

EXAMPLE
“… Now vp, now doun, as boket in a welle
Right as the friday, soothly for to telle
Now it shyneth, now it reyneth faste
Right so,/kan geery Venus ouer caste
The hertes of hir folk, right as hir day
Is gereful, right so chaungeth she array
Selde is the friday, al the wowke ylike
Whan þat Arcite had songe, he gan to sike …”

From: The Ellesmere MS of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer, c1386

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

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

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

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

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

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