ETYMOLOGY
from Latin utibilis, from utor (to use, employ)
EXAMPLE
“…Proposals by the Utible Society, for the Insurance on Marriages, by a weekly Dividend,
at the office, next door to the blue boar, over-against the half moon tavern in Aldersgate street…”
(Book title)
From: Example book title (above), ?1711
ETYMOLOGY
from under- ;
? possibly for dunderhead
EXAMPLE (for n.2.)
“…And indeed wiser discretions, that have the thread of reason to conduct them, offend without a pardon; whereas under heads may stumble without dishonour…”
From: Religio Medici
By Thomas Browne, 1643
ETYMOLOGY
from under-;
(From E-NED: In Old English, various secondary meanings of under- are represented by such verbs as under(be)ᵹinnan (to begin or attempt), underfón (to receive), underᵹietan, -niman, -standan (to understand), undersécan (to investigate))
EXAMPLE
“…Ȝif hie cumeð fram mannen, hie cann hwatliche underfinden, an hwos half he is icumen, and ðar after hie hine underfengð …”
From: Vices and Virtues : a Soul’s Confession of its Sins with Reason’s Description of the Virtues,
A Middle-English Dialogue of about 1200 A.D.
ETYMOLOGY
from un- (prefix) + buxom (adj.)
EXAMPLE
“…Betere þe were.
iboren þat he nere.
for betere is child vnbore. þane vnbuhsum.
þe mon þe spareþ yeorde. and yonge childe.
and let hit arixlye. þat he hit areche ne may…”
From: The Proverbs of Aelfred, a1250
ETYMOLOGY
Old English undernmǽl
EXAMPLE
(for n. 2.)
“…that drawes deepe, and by that time his Tobacco marchant is made even with, and hee hath dinde at a tauerne, and slept his vnder-meale at a bawdy house, his purse is on the heild and only fortie shillings hee hath behinde, to trie his fortune with at the cardes in the presence…”
From: Lenten Stuffe
– Thomas Nashe, 1599
ETYMOLOGY
– probably from undercumstumble (to understand, Eng. dial.)
EXAMPLE
“…Well, he stole on behind a rock, like a coastguard man watching a boat, and got very near the noise. He couldn’t umble-cum-stumble the words – they were Greek and Hebrew to him…”
From: Greatheart
By Walter Thornbury, 1866
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin ūnus one + asinus ass, after unanimous
FIRST DOCUMENTED USE
1656 – see EXAMPLE below
EXAMPLE
“…Go your wayes,” says he to Dr Wallis and Seth Ward, you uncivil Ecclesiastiques, inhyman divines, Dedoctors of Morality, Unasinous collegues, Egregious pair of Issachars, most wretched Vindices and Indices Academarium….”
From: Elements of Philosophy the First Section, Concerning Body,
Wwritten in Latine by Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury;
And now translated into English;
To which are added Six lessons to the Professors of Mathematicks of the Institution of Sr. Henry Savile, in the University of Oxford
Lexicophilia 