Category: Word of the Day – P

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin plenitudinarius (full, complete, plenary),
from Latin plenitudin-, plenitudo (abundance, fullness, fullness of shape, thickness, full amount, the whole) + -arius (-ary)

EXAMPLE
“…and a strange kind of Government must that needs be, wherein the Servants Throne is above his Masters, and a Subject shall have a plenitudinary power beyond that which his Lord and King had, or, as the times then were, was capable of …”

From: An Historical and Political Discourse of the Laws & Government of England from the First times to the End of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
By Nathaniel Bacon, 1647

ETYMOLOGY
from: a) Middle French pusille, puzil, pusil (very small, weak),
b) Latin pusillus (very small, insignificant, petty) from pusus (boy) + -illus 

EXAMPLE
“…And to amase her weake, and pusill minde,
In creepe through crannies of imagination.
Deformd Idean formes, and phansies blinde.
Sent foorth by hir sicke sences, instigation.
Like staringe greisly fendes, threatninge invasion.
Presenting to her heart, the homely iarres.
And houshold cares, accurringe nuptiall warres…”

From: Eustathia, or the Constancie of Susanna
By Robert Roche, 1599

ETYMOLOGY
from putty (in the sense of something soft, something that can be bent any way) + head

EXAMPLE
“…The pickings must be equally divided amongst both classes of the harmonious democracie ‘putty heads’ and ‘adamantines’…”

From: The Janesville Gazette (Wisconsin), 1851

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek πᾶν, pan, (“all”, “of everything”, “involving all members” of a group)
+ from Latin ichthyophagus,
from Greek ἴχθυοϕάγος  from Greek ἰχθυο- (fish-) + -ϕάγος (eating),
from ϕαγεῖν (to eat) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…The caranx, trachurus, or bastard mackerel, probably corresponds with the individual so called by Oppian and Athenaeus. It abounds in the Mediterranean, and is a dry coarse fish, fit only for hungry boatmen and panichthyophagous puss…”

From: Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country
Volume 47, March 1853
The Caranx