Category: Word of the Day – P

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin parciloquium (speaking sparingly),
from parcus (sparing) + loqui (to speak)

EXAMPLE
She delivered a parciloquy to officially open the refurbished building.

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin poculentus (drinkable, suitable for drinking),
from poculum (a cup, a drinking vessel) + -lentus (-lent), after vinolentus (addicted to drinking wine)

EXAMPLE
“…As for radish and tarragon, and the like, they are for condiments, and not for nourishment. And even some of those herbs which are not esculent, are notwithstanding poculent; as hops, broom, &c…”

From: Sylva Sylvarum
By Francis Bacon, 1626

ETYMOLOGY
from penny + father

EXAMPLE
“…This skapethrifte, throweth his good{is} against the walles. That pennie father, skrapeth it togethers, bothe by God, and by the diuell…”

From: The Praise of Folie
Moriæ encomium a booke made in Latine by that great clerke Erasmus Roterodame,
Translated by Thomas Chaloner Knight, 1549

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin pedisequus (following on foot, a foot-follower), 
from pedi- (foot) + -sequus (following), sequī (to follow)

EXAMPLE
“…not onely melancholical and contumacious ones, but viscid and pituitous also, which sometimes put on the habit of Melancholly, and some adust bilious humours: and therefore we adde Rhabarb and Turbith, that we may with the Melancholical Captain-humour, educe the Pituitous, his companion inseparable, and also the Bilious, which is pedissequous.
And because this Medicament most respects melancholy, we have selected black Hellebore for this black humour; rejecting the white, as more convenient for Phlegm…”

From: A Medicinal Dispensatory: Containing the Whole Body of Physick
By Jean de Renou
Translated by Richard Tomlinson, 1657
The Apothecaries Shop: Of Liquid Electuaries

ETYMOLOGY
from plume (mark of honour or distinction) + plucked

EXAMPLE
“…Yorke. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-pluckt Richard, who with willing Soule
Adopts thee Heire, and his high Scepter yeelds
To the possession of thy Royall Hand…”

From: The Tragedie of King Richard the Second
By William Shakespeare, 1597

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ϕιλο-, ϕιλ-, combining form from root of ϕιλεῖν (to love), ϕίλ-ος (dear, friend)
+ θήρ (wild beast)

EXAMPLE
“…It is the reply of an old fisher-woman, when reproved by some Philotherian for skinning eels alive.
“Sir,” said she, “I have skinned them thusly for nearly fifty years; and they have got so used to it, they don’t mind it one bit.”…”

From: The Harvard Advocate
Vol. XI. Cambridge, Mass., February 28, 1871. No. I
Editorial

ETYMOLOGY
from pother (disturbance, turmoil, bustle; noise, tumult) + -y

EXAMPLE
“…Meer Heat and Cold are very different things from that Pothery and Sultry, that Frosty and Congealing Weather, which alternately in Summer and Winter, at the Line and the Poles we usually now feel….”

From: A New Theory of the Earth
By William Whiston, 1696

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin placidus (pleasing, favourable, gentle, mild, calm),
from root of placēre (to please)

EXAMPLE
“…There was never any thing more strange in the nature of Dogs, then that which happened at ^*Rhodes besieged by the Turk, for the Dogs did there discern betwixt Christians and Turks; for towards the Turks they were most eager, furious, and unappeaseable but towards Christians, although unknown, most easie, peaceable and placidious, which thing caused a certain Poet to write thus…”

From: The History of Four-footed Beasts, and Serpents
By Edward Topsell, 1607

ETYMOLOGY
shortened from Middle French peripateticien, from peripateticus (a person who walks about, a traveller; also, moving about from place to place) + French -ien (-ian)

EXAMPLE
“…Yet certes Moecha is a Platonist,
To all, they say, but whoso do not list;
Because her husband, a far traffick’d man,
Is a profest Peripatecian…”

From: Virgidemiarum. The Three Last Bookes
By Joseph Hall, 1598

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin prehendere (to grasp, seize, catch), variant of præhendere, 
from præ, (pre-) + a second element; sometimes perhaps aphetic from apprehend

EXAMPLE
“…but he lay not longe ther, but was delyveryd with-owt punyshment & styll Inioyed his beneffysis; they were greatly blamed that prehended hym and comitted hym…”

From: Political, Religious, and Love Poems
By John Stowe, a1605
Edited by Frederick James Furnivall, 1866