Category: Word of the Day – G

ETYMOLOGY
from German Grobian, from medieval Latin Grobianus, name of an imaginary personage, often referred to by writers of the 15th – 6th century in Germany as the type of boorishness,
from German grob (coarse, rude)

EXAMPLE
“…In breefe, he became from an Idiot and a Clowne, to be one of the most compleat Gentlman in Cyprus and did many valorous exploits, and all for the loue of Mistris Iphiginia. In a word, I may say thus much of them all, let them be neuer so clownish, rude and horrid, Gobrians and sluts, if once they be in loue, they will be most neat & spruce and beginne to trick vp, and to haue a good opinion of themselues. …”

From: The Anatomy of Melancholy VVhat It Is
By Robert Burton, 1621

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin galactopota (milk-drinker); from Greek γαλακτοπότης (milk drinker)

EXAMPLE
“…Moreover, it not only satiates the country people with abundance of milk and cheese, but also garnishes the tables of the elegant with agreeable and numerous dishes. To some nations, indeed, which are intirely destitute of corn, it furnishes their whole sustenance: hence it is, that very many of the Nomades and Getae are called Galactopotae (milk-drinkers). …”

From: L. Junius Moderatus Columella Of Husbandry
By Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, 1745

ETYMOLOGY
from grout (sediment, dregs, lees), taken as the type of something big and coarse; 
for definition 2: there is confusion with great; perhaps the sound recalled the Dutch groot

EXAMPLE
“…professed her self a nonne in the yeare of our lord a. M. and. lxxv. to serue the deuyll in the monkes hypocresy, & in ye burnynge heates of Sodome. So daynty mowthed wer these greasy grouteheades, and so crafty in their generacyon, that they could fynde out kynges doughters to serue their lustes, and yet apere chast ghostly fathers to the world. Thurstinus a monke of Cane in Normandy…”

From: The First Two Partes of the Actes or vnchast examples of the Englysh Votaryes gathered out of their owne legenades and chronycles
By John Bale, 1551

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gaudium (joy) + –loquus (speaking) + -ent

EXAMPLE
Marianne made a gaudiloquent speech after winning the coveted Woman of the Year award.

ETYMOLOGY
from the name of Sir Edmund Beckett, first Lord Grimthorpe (1816–1905), whose restoration of St. Albans Cathedral, completed in 1904, aroused fierce criticism and controversy

EXAMPLE
“…Talking of Lord Grimthorpe reminds us of an honour that has recently been done unto his name. It shall not be the Antiquary’s fault if this honour is not perpetuated; so that, perchance, the dictionaries of the future may immortalize his titular name in the same way as they have already treated the family appellation of Boycott. Last November, a group of appreciative visitors were standing in the nave of the abbey church of Selby, discussing its probable reparation. “Ah!” remarked one, “if only the wealthy and generous man could be found, what a fine field for his labours!” To this a keen and well-known Yorkshire ecclesiologist replied: “Heaven forbid! the building might be grimthorped!…”

From: The Antiquary,
A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past, Vol. XXI, January – June, 1890
‘Notes of the Month’

ETYMOLOGY
from gyno– (combining form denoting female, woman) + Greek -ϕαγος (eating) + -ite

EXAMPLE
“…If our Ulysses, thus rejuvenated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make
a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos; —
He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynophagite!…”

From: My Novel
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1853

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gracilis (slender) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Gracilious, slender, small, thin, soft and weak…”

From: The Academy of Armory; or, A Storehouse of Armory and Blazon
By Randle Holme, 1688
Some few terms of Art used by Historians in the description of Fish and Sea-Worms

ETYMOLOGY
echoic;
compare globbe, glop, gulp (to swallow greedily);
also Danish (dial.) gluffe, Swedish (dial.) gluffa (to eat hastily or noisily (said e.g. of pigs)), gluffi (a glutton)

EXAMPLE
Big John is such a gloffer, he never refuses a second helping, and often goes back for a third.

ETYMOLOGY
apparently from Old French garbouille (confused mess, confusion, disorder), of uncertain and disputed origin;
From the O.E.D.: “it is likely that this word and the related garboil v. have been associated with garble v. and garble n., and probably regarded as variants of these”

EXAMPLE
“…and after long and mature debating off the mattar, forasmuch as itt appeared the Mayor to have ben a great sturrer of this garboyle, and to be a man that att sondry tymes hadde deluded wyth delayes the sayde commissioners whereby the matter cowlde grow to none ende…”

From: Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford
Edited by Willilam H, Turner, 1880
‘1543, May 22. Decree of the Privy Councell in the matters of Difference between the University and City.‘

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin gracilentus (slender, thin),
from gracilis (gracile, gracefully slender) + -entus

EXAMPLE
“…his old  scratch-wig  awry,  and  his  garments  sadly  bespeaking wretchedness;  we  think  we  can  see  him, with  this  outward  repulsiveness  of  appearance,  sitting down  to  give  a  gracilent  opinion  of  the  canine species…”

From: The Ladies’ Repository
A Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature and Religion, January, 1852
“Thoughts on a Canine Subject”
By James Pummill