Category: Word of the Day – S

ETYMOLOGY
from sweet + breasted (breast = a person’s singing voice, obs.)

EXAMPLE
“… I like his feather well: a proper man,
Of good discourse, fine conversation,
Valiant, and a great carrier of the businesse,
Sweet breasted, as the Nightingale, or Thrush:
Yet I must tell you; you forget your selfe,
My Lord Vitellies love, and maintenance
Deserves no other Jack ith’ box, but he:
What though he gather’d first the golden fruit,
And blew your pigges-coat up into a blister,
When you did wait at Court upon his mother;
Has he not wel provided for the barne?
Beside, what profit reap I by the other?
If you wil have me serve your pleasure, Lady,
Your pleasure must accommodate my service; …”

From: Comedies and Tragedies written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, 1647
“Love’s Cure, or The Martial Maid“, a1640

ETYMOLOGY
from speech + -ful

EXAMPLE (for adj. 2.)
“… John Mauropus, of Euchaita, Euchania, Theodoropolis — one living man among many dead, as the Arabian tale goes of the city of enchantment — one speechful voice among the silent, sole survivor of the breath which maketh words effluence of the soul replacing the bittern’s cry — speak to us! …”

From: Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1842 (1863)

ETYMOLOGY
irregularly from Latin siccus or siccare

EXAMPLE
“… Thirdly, when you put forth your horses to run at grasse all, or the most part of Summer, during which time the scorching heats wil so siccicate and dry the planks, which will cause them to warp, and the pinnes which holdeth them down to the joyces will rot, and so the planks give way, especially when horses (who not being handled in some moneths before) becomming wild, rammage, and unruly, are newly brought into the Stable, who feeling the planks to move, yeeld, and give way under them, will fall from starting thereat, to slinging, leaping, bounding and plunging, till they have dislocated the planks, and thereby have endangered both themselves, the residue of their fellowes, and those who might come to their help and succour, which is a thing very frequent in a flore of this nature: …”

From: The Compleat Horseman and Expert Ferrier In two bookes. The first, shewing the best manner of breeding good horses, with their choyce, nature, riding and dyeting … The second, directing the most exact and approved manner how to know and cure all maladies and diseases in horses;
By Thomas de Grey, 1639

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
possibly an alteration of savagerous (barbarously savage); perhaps influenced by vigorous

EXAMPLE
“… It now came to Spivey’s turn. There was nothing remarkable in his person or manner. He took his place, lowered his rifle slowly from a perpendicular, until it came on a line with the mark — held it there like a vise for a moment, and fired.
” Pretty sevigrous, but nothing killing yet,” said Billy Curlew, as he learned the place of Spivey’s ball. …”

From: Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. : in the first half century of the republic,
By Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, 1835
“The Shooting Match”

PRONUNCIATION
suhr-VIGH-gruhss

ETYMOLOGY
from Old Norse svangr, related to svangi (swange,  groin), from swaŋgw-, perhaps identical with swaŋgw-, grade-variant of swiŋgw- (to swing – to scourge, whip, flog, beat)

EXAMPLE
“… Þe hungri in god he made stronge,
And þe riche he lette al swonge.
Þe folk of Israel haþ vndurfonge
Þe child þat heo abide longe; …”

From: The minor poems of the Vernon MS
Published for the Early English Text Society, 1892-1901
La estorie del Euangelie, a1300

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek σκωπτικός, from σκώπτειν (to mock, jeer)

EXAMPLE
“… Againft these Books, the ‘Learned employed their Learning, and the Witty employed their Wit. Celsus, Porpbyrius, Jamblichus, Hierocles, and other Philosophers, endeavoured to dispute them out of the world, Symmachus and Libanius, and other Rhetors to declaim them away. Julian and Lucian and other Scoptick wits, endeavoured to jeer and droll away the credit of them. …”

From: Sermon Against the Anti-scripturists
By Seth Ward, 1670

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
possibly from slaw, Scots variant of slow

EXAMPLE
“… Quod scho, “My clype, my unspaynit gyane,
With moderis mylk yit in your mychane,
My belly huddrun, my swete hurle bawsy,
My huny gukkis, my slawsy gawsy,
Your musing waild perse and harte of stane,
Tak gud confort, my grit heidit slawsy,
Fow leis me that graceless gane. …”

From: The Poems of William Dunbar 
Edited by Priscilla Bawcutt, 1998 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies nos. 27 and 28)
Composed a1513

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin;
possibly a variant or alteration of shanny-brained;
from shanny (bashful, shy) + brained

EXAMPLE
“… But while I take this shay-brain’d course,
And like a fool run to and fro,
Master, perhaps, may sell the horse!
Therefore this instant home I’ll go. …”

From: Wild Flowers; or, Pastoral and Local Poetry
By Robert Bloomfield, 1806

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin semisomnis, semisomnus, (from semi- + somnus (sleep) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… ‘‘ Time sadly overcometh all things,” says Sir Thomas Brown, ‘‘and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes; while his sister Oblivion reclineth semisomnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian inscriptions, and turning old glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. …”

From: The Superhuman Origin of the Bible: inferred from itself
By Henry Rogers, 1873

ETYMOLOGY
coined by Jonathan Swift as the name of an imaginary animal of approximately human size mentioned in Gulliver’s Travels 

EXAMPLE
“… It now began to be known and talked of in the neighbourhood, that my master had found a strange animal in the field, about the bigness of a splacknuck, but exactly shaped in every part like a human creature; which it likewise imitated in all its actions; seemed to speak in a little language of its own, had already learned several words of theirs, went erect upon two legs, was tame and gentle, would come when it was called, do whatever it was bid, had the finest limbs in die world, and a complexion fairer than a nobleman’s daughter of diree years old. …”

From: Gulliver’s Travels
By Jonathan Swift, 1726