Category: Word of the Day – L

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin levisomnus [from levis (light) + somnus (sleep)] + -ous

EXAMPLE
The young woman was a levisomnous soul, usually only sleeping three or four hours every night.

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin largiloquus (talking copiously, garrulous) + -ent

EXAMPLE
“…I secretly admired and still admire the ease and smoothness with which she could pour forth her torrent floods of largiloquent Celtic rhetoric…”

From: Rosalba: The Story of Her Development
By Olive Pratt Rayner (Pseudonym), Grant Allen, 1899

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin latrocinari (to rob on the highway)

EXAMPLE
He chose a much-used route when taking the day’s profits to the bank – less risk of being latrocinated.

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin loco, ablative of locus (the place in which something is situated or occurs) + move

EXAMPLE
“…A Journey in a Postchaise
To his Brother
Passenham, July 16, 1792

Dear Brother, – It is high time you should know something about us and our locomotions. To-morrow morning, at six of the clock, we begin to loco-move towards Bitteswell…”

From: Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century
By Thomas Twining (letter)

ETYMOLOGY
from leasing (lying, falsehood) + monger (a dealer, trader, or trafficker in a commodity

EXAMPLE
“…here abitis ben ful of lesyngis & þei ben but feyned & peyntid men of religion, & not only lesyngmongeris but pure lesyngis…”

From: The English works of Wyclif
c1380

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin longinquus (situated at a distance, remote, of time or distance: long, distant),
from longe (far) + a suffix also seen in propinquus (close at hand, neighbouring)

EXAMPLE
“…Of the Iles of the Gentiles in IAPHETS portion: of BEROSVS his too speedie seating GOMER the sonne of IAPHET in Italie; and another of IAPHETS sonnes TVBAL in Spaine: and of the antiquitie of Longinque Nauigation….”

From: the first part of The History of the World
By Sir Walter Raleigh, 1614

ETYMOLOGY
from long + tongued

EXAMPLE
“…And tyme hathe this one vngracious propertee,
   to blab at length open all that he doothe see.
   Than a daughter eke he hath called veritee,
   As vnhappie a longtounged girle as can bee.
   she bringeth all to light, some she bring[eth] to shame,
   she careth not a grote what manne hathe thanke or blame.
   yf men be praise worthie she dothe so declare them
   And if otherwyse in faithe she dothe not spare them…”

From: Respublica: an interlude for Christmas
Attributed to Nicholas Udall, 1553

ETYMOLOGY
from life (n.) + -some

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1)
“…If badd, how happ’s that none his hurtes disproue?
If willingly I burne, how chance I waile?
If gainst my will, what sorrow will auaile?
O liuesome death, O sweete and pleasant ill,
Against my minde how can thy might preuaile?
If I bend backe, and but refraine my will,
If I consent, I doe not well to waile…”

From: ἐκατομπαθία: The Hekatompathia or Passionate Centurie of Loue
By Thomas Watson, 1582

ETYMOLOGY
alteration of Latin lilium convallium (lily of the valleys), influenced by fancy

EXAMPLE
“…Of Liricumancie.
Liricumfancie, or as other iudge May Lilie, for resemblace alike: It hath his flowre verie white. In Greeke it is called Ephemeron, for his short continuance and daylie dying…”

From: A Greene Forest
By John Maplet, 1567

ETYMOLOGY
from little + what

EXAMPLE
“…Philip answeride to him, The looues of two hundrid pens suffysen not to hem, that ech man take a litle what…”

From: The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate
(Wycliffite, early version), c1384