Category: Word of the Day – H

ETYMOLOGY
see definition above

EXAMPLE
“… but Plato moe tymes than one auised hym, with sacrifice to purchace the fauour of the Graces, that is, so to applye hymself, yt his saiynges and dooynges might haue more grace and bee better accepted & taken of the worlde. zeno beeyng outright alltogether a Stoique vsed to call Socrates the scoffer, or the Hicke scorner of the citee of Athenes: because of his merie conceiptes and tauntyng, that he neuer ceassed to vse: but yet is there no manne, but he will saie that Socrates was a more godly feloe then either of those twoo whiche I named last afore. …”

From: Apophthegmes that is to saie, prompte, quicke, wittie and sentencious saiynges, of certain emperours, kynges, capitaines, philosophiers and oratours,
By Desiderius Erasmus
Translated by Nicholas Udall. 1542

ETYMOLOGY
from hie (haste, speed) + -ful

EXAMPLE
“… Schrift schal beo wreiful, bitter mid sorhe, ihal, naket, ofte imaket, hihful, eadmod, scheomeful, dredful ant hopeful …”

(Confession must be accusatory, bitter with regret, complete, naked, frequently made, prompt, humble, made with shame, fear, and hope…)

From: The English text of the Ancrene Riwle: Ancrene Wisse edited from MS. Corpus Christi College Cambridge 402, c1230
Edited by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and Neil Ripley Ker
The Early English Text Society edition, 1962

ETYMOLOGY
reduplicated from noddy (a fool, a simpleton)

EXAMPLE
“… Lastly it is no where to be shewed, that Christ gaue any speciall commaundement, that Peter should remooue his seat from Antioche to Rome. If this hoddy Noddy thinke otherwise, let him if he canne, bring foorth his proofes, and shew where this commaundement is to be séene. …”

From: A briefe replie to a certaine odious and slanderous libel, lately published by a seditious Iesuite,
By Matthew Sutcliffe, 1600

ETYMOLOGY
from Dutch hondsvot, German hundsfott (scoundrel, rascal), lit. cunnus canis

EXAMPLE
“… If the Violence of a hooping Cough can cauſe a Rupture , what may not one justly dread from such an Explosion of Wind and Vapour? But hold, Sirs! Methinks I shou’d know the Skream, I have heard something like it before now. O pox! It’s that Hounsfoot Tom Whigg, A Son of a—! He’ll skream to be heard from London to Geneva, when he’s no more hurt than I am this Minute. …”

From: A True and Faithful Account of the Last Distemper and Death of Tom Whigg, Esq., 1710

ETYMOLOGY
formed on French habiller (to dress), or English habiliment (array, attire, dress), after adjectives etymologically formed in -atory

EXAMPLE
“… The nether garments of this petit-maitre consisted of a pair of blue tight pantaloons, profusely braided, and terminating in Hessian boots, adorned with brass spurs of the most burnished resplendency; a black velvet waistcoat, studded with gold stars, was backed by a green frock coat, covered, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, with fur, and frogged and cordonné with the most lordly indifference, both as to taste and expense: a small French hat, which might not have been much too large for my lord of ——, was set jauntily in the centre of a system of long black curls, which my eye, long accustomed to penetrate the arcana of habilatory art, discovered at once to be a wig. A fierce black mustachio, very much curled, wandered lovingly from the upper lip towards the eyes, which had an unfortunate prepossession for eccentricity in their direction. …”

From: Pelham: Or, The Adventures of a Gentleman
By Edward George E.L. Bulwer- Lytton, 1828

ETYMOLOGY
from hair + bush

EXAMPLE
“… His crisp locks frizeling, his temples prittelye stroaking.
Heer with al in trembling with speede wee ruffled his hearebush,
With water attempting thee flame too mortifye sacred.
But father Anchises, mounting his sight to the skyward,
Both the hands vplifting, hertly thus his orison vttred. …”

From: Thee first foure bookes of Virgil his Aeneis
Translated intoo English heroical verse by Richard Stanyhurst, 1582

ETYMOLOGY
from hundred + legs

EXAMPLE
“… They have also lizards three or four feet in length, and in great numbers; and also creatures called centipedes, or hundred legs, very venomous and troublesome. …”

From: The Beauties of Nature and Art
Displayed in a Tour Through the World
Volume X, 1774
Chapter I. Of South America
Sect. II. Animals

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin hortus (garden) + colere (to inhabit) + –ous

EXAMPLE
The garden center offers a wide range of horticolous plants suited for various growing conditions.

ETYMOLOGY
from hurkle (to crouch, to stoop, to squat down)

EXAMPLE
“… Lang after peeping greke o’day,
In Hurkle Durkle Habbie lay,
Gae tae yer wark, ye dernan murkle,
And ly nae there in Hurkle Durkle. …”

Note: the phrase ‘in hurkle durkle‘ = in indolence

From: Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language
By John Jamieson, 1825

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin hilarat- participial stem of hilarare, from hilarus, hilaris, (cheerful, gay)

EXAMPLE
They drank enough wine to hilarate, not intoxicate.