ETYMOLOGY
from hen (a woman, a wife) + house
EXAMPLE
“…That was another one. She’s got two daughters. Hold me, big boy,; I’m heading for the hen-house…”
From: Sanctuary
By William Faulkner, 1931
Word of the Day: HEN-HOUSE
Category: Word of the Day – H
Word of the Day: HOUSE-DOVE
ETYMOLOGY
from house + dove
EXAMPLE
“…safe and sounde to Rome, and euery man riche and loden with spoyle: then the hometarriers and housedoues that kept Rome still, beganne to repent them that it was not their happe to goe with him…”
From: The Liues of the Noble Grecians and Romanes
– Plutarch
– Translated by Thomas North, 1579
Word of the Day: HOB-NOBBLE
ETYMOLOGY
– from hob-nob (vb. to be on familiar terms with)
EXAMPLE
“…how the officers hob-nobbled with our Maine brethren in New York…”
From: Portland Transcript,
Volume 25
Army Correspondence
Camp of 1st Maine Regiment
Letter from the First Regiment, June, 1861
Word of the Day: HONISH
ETYMOLOGY
from Anglo-Norman huniss-, Anglo-Norman and Old French honiss-, extended stem of Anglo-Norman hunir, Anglo-Norman and Old French honir (French honnir ) to shame, to humiliate, to ruin, to damage
FIRST DOCUMENTED USE
a1325 – see EXAMPLE below
EXAMPLE
“…Me sholde him [sc. Christ] hounschy & skorne boþe ffer & neye.….”
From: The Southern Passion
A Middle English poem;
Edited by Beatrice Daw Brown, 1927
Word of the Day: HOUNCY-JOUNCY
ETYMOLOGY
? from jounce to bump, thump and jolt, as a vehicle in deep ruts
FIRST DOCUMENTED USE
1857 – Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English
– Thomas Wright, 1857
Lexicophilia 