Category: Word of the Day – N

Word of the Day: NIBSOME

ETYMOLOGY
from nib (a person of superior social standing or wealth; a gentleman [slang]) + – some

EXAMPLE
“…I ne’er was a nose, for the reg’lars came 
  Whenever a pannie was done:— 
Oh! who would chirp to dishonour his name,
And betrays his pals in a nibsome game 
  To the traps?—Not I for one! 
Let nobs in the fur trade hold their jaw
  And let the jug be free:— 
Let Davy’s dust and a well-faked claw 
For fancy coves be the only law, 
And a double-tongued squib to keep in awe 
  The chaps that flout at me!…”

From: The House Breaker’s Song
By G. W. M. Reynolds in Pickwick Abroad, 1839

Word of the Day: NEEDLE-SPITTER

ETYMOLOGY
from needle (n.) + spitter (a person who spits)

EXAMPLE
“… At the instant I entered, all the parties were engaged in combat, and my landlady – a perfect needle-spitter – stood with a face like Gorgon, with the iron frying pan in her uplifted hands eagerly waiting to cut down the too powerful knight of the hammer…”

From: The Sporting Magazine,
Or Monthly Calendar of The Transactions of The Turf, The Chace, 
And Every Other Diversion Interesting to the Man of Pleasure, Enterprise, and Spirit
Vol. 25. For March, 1805
‘A Ramble; From Tiverton to Exeter’

Word of the Day: NABAL

ETYMOLOGY
from the Hebrew proper name Nabal (a wealthy sheep owner who refused to pay tribute to King David for protecting his flocks),
from nabal (a disgraceful, impious, or villainous person)
from nabal (to be foolish, act foolishly)

EXAMPLE
“…As for those men that resemble the rigorous iudge, that neither feare God, nor good man, that neuer thinke of the saluation of their sinful seduced soules, that either be Athiestes or Libertines or Machiuelians or Spend-thriftes or couetous Nabals or great Gamsters or Luxurious and Riotous persons or seditious and traiterous papists, are no fitte men to bee such a husband as I propose …”

From: A sermon preached at Trafford in Lancashire
By William Massie, 1586

PRONUNCIATION
NAY-buhl

Word of the Day: NICELING

ETYMOLOGY
from nice (adj.) + -ling

EXAMPLES
(for n.1.)
“…Whether a man loue God purely, the pleasures of this worlde dooe trye, but muche more doeth the hurly burly of affliccions. And it is in vs, that being furnyshed with the helping ayde of God, we maye nether become tendre nycelynges through vayne pleasures, ne moued with terrible turmoylinges …”

From: The seconde tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the Newe Testament
Desiderius Erasmus
Translation by Miles Coverdale et al, 1549

(for n. 2.)
“…Why, I was showing you what nicelings and delicates my father was bringing, and what I had thought to say was this: that he may have this for one, and that for the other, and many a one proud to be remembered (as I shall be if he thinks of me), but this that I know he is bringing for little Bess Hall is something worth all of these, for it is nothing less than the whole love of his heart…”

From: Judith Shakespeare: Her love affairs and Other Adventures
By William Black, 1884

Word of the Day: NEBSIE

ETYMOLOGY
from neb (the beak or bill of a bird) + -sie -sy

EXAMPLE
“…“I’ll tell you aboot Mark,: he said next time; ‘we’ll no be disturbed again till the men want their forenoon – that’s the drop whisky, you ken. Simon’s wife’s a nebsy clatterin’ body, but for a’ that, I wish ehre were mair like her…”

From: The Red Scaur
A Novel of Manners
By P. Anderson Graham, 1896

Word of the Day: NUM-CUMPUS

ETYMOLOGY
dialect corruption of non compos mentis (not of sound mind)

EXAMPLE
“…Sa like a graät num-cumpus I blubber’d awaäy o ‘ the bed-
” Weänt niver do it naw moor; an ‘ Sally loookt up an ‘ she said ,
” I’ll upowd it tha weänt ; thou’rt laike the rest o ‘ the men,
Thou’ll goä sniffin ‘ about the tap till tha does it agëan.
Theer’s thy hennemy, man, an’ I knaws, as knaws tha sa well,
That, if tha seeäs ’im an’ smells ’im tha’ll foller ’im slick into Hell…”

From: The Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson, 1882
Ballads and Other Poems
‘The Northern Cobbler’