Tag: 1400 – 1499

Word of the Day: RABIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin rabiosus (rabid, mad, frenzied, furious), from rabies (rabies) + –osus (-ous)

EXAMPLE
“… Ethelred, languishing in minde and body, Edmond his sonne, surnamed Ironside (to oppose youth to youth) was imployed against this rabious inuador. A Prince worthy of a better time, and had he found faith, had made it so, and deliuered his country at that turne, from the worst of miseries, the conquest by strangers. …”

From: The First Part of the Historie of England
By Samuel Daniel, 1612

Word of the Day: SEGGER

ETYMOLOGY
from segge (to say) + -er

EXAMPLE (for n.1.)
“… As yoe are a lorde most lofsom of lyre
Vndir sir Pilate that lyfis in this empire,
Ȝone segger that callis hymselffe a sire
With tresoure and tene sall we taste hym.
Of yoone losell his bale schall he brewe,
Do trottes on for that traytoure apas
In hast. …”

From: York Mysteries, c1440
The Agony and Betrayal

Word of the Day: GAINSTAND

ETYMOLOGY
from gain- (against, in opposition to) + stand (vb.)

EXAMPLE (for vb.)
“… Throuch his falsheid and craftynes
He sall flow in to welthynes
The Godlye pepyll he sall noye
By creuell deith, and thame distroye
The kyng of Kyngis, he sall ganestand
Syne be distroyit withouttin hand. …”

From: Ane Dialog Betuix Experience and ane Courteour off the Miserabyll Estait of the Warld
By David Lindsay, 1554

Word of the Day: ORGULOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Anglo-Norman orguillous, orgeillus, orgoilous, orgullous,
orgulous, orgulus, orgilous, orgillus and Old French orguillus,
orgoillus, orguilleus, orgueilleux;
from  orgueil (pride, haughtiness) + ‑ous 

EXAMPLE 1 (for adj. 1.)
“… yet habbeþ manitime maked of watere wyn; gostliche. wanne þurch his grace maked of þo euele manne good man. of þe orgeilus umble. of þe lechur chaste. of þe niþinge large. and of alle oþre folies; so ha maket of þo watere wyn. þis his si signefiance of þe miracle. …”

From: An Old English miscellany containing a bestiary, Kentish sermons, Proverbs of Alfred, religious poems of the thirteenth century
Edited by Richard Morris, 1872

EXAMPLE 2 (for adj. 1)
”…I was banished from my own country, and was dishonoured, and with hard labour gained I what I have got ; and now I stand in the King’s favour, and he asketh of me my daughters for the Infantes of Carrion. They are of high blood and full orgullous, and I have no liking to this match ; but if our Lord the King adviseth it we can do no other-wise: …”

From: Chronicle of the Cid
By Robert Southey, 1808

Word of the Day: STOTAY

ETYMOLOGY
possibly from Old French estoutoier, estoteier (to fall into disorder)

EXAMPLE
“… Þo cried þat freoly foode:
“Whi spille ȝe innocens bloode?”
And alle þei stoteyd and stoode,
Þis ferlys to frayne. …”

From: The Pistill of Susan – a Middle English adaptation of the Old Testament Apocryphal book The History of Susanna, a1400

Word of the Day: RIGENT

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin rigent-, rigens (stiff, rigid), present participle of rigere (to be stiff)

EXAMPLE
“… An hous [y]maad of aller is but shent; 
Yet ther the ground is myre, weet, vnsure,
Pile in aller as for the fundament.
Ek elm & asshe ydried beth rigent,
And while they beth vndried, so curuable,
ffor shippis that they beth right profitable. …”

From: Middle-English translation of Palladius De Re Rustica. ?1440
Edited by Mark Liddell, 1896

Word of the Day: DELITOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Anglo-Norman delitous, Middle French deliteux;
from delit (delight) + ‑ous 

EXAMPLE
“… For sich solace sich ioie and play
I trowe that neuere man ne say 
As was in that place delytous
The gardeyn was not daungerous
To herberwe briddes many oon
So riche a yeer was neuer noon …”

From: The Romaunt of the Rose
By Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun
Translated by Geoffrey Chaucer, a1425

Word of the Day: DUPLE

Note: the obsolete adjective definition is a general sense.
In mathematics, it is applied to the proportion of two quantities one of which is double of the other; 
in music, it is applied to ‘time’ or rhythm having two beats in the bar.

ETYMOLOGY
Adj. and n.:  from Latin duplus (double), from duo (two) + -plus, from root ple- (to fill);
Vb.:  from Latin duplare (to double), from dupl-us (duple)

EXAMPLE (for vb.)
“… She mixd of Quick-silver a deadly weight,
That dupled force his murder hasten might.
Then while those baneful pots betwixt them strov,
The helpful swaying the hurtfuls bane out drov. …”

From: Enchiridium epigrammatum Latino-Anglicum:
An epitome of essais,
Englished out of Latin by Robert Vilvain, 1654

Word of the Day: TENEBROUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French tenebrus, modern French tenebreux, Provencal tenebros, 
Spanish, Italian tenebroso, from Latin tenebrosus (dark, gloomy)

EXAMPLE
“… The name of thys lady was callyd Prescience.
She neuer left Vyce, ne noon that wold hym folow,
Tyll they wer commyttyd by the diuine sentence
All to peyne perpetuell and infynyte sorow.
Ryghtwysnes went to see that no man shuld hem borow.
Thus all entretyd sharpely were they, tyll Cerberus
Had hem beshut withyn hys gates tenebrus. …”

From: The Assembly of Gods:
or, The Accord of Reason and Sensuality in the Fear of Death
By John Lydgate, c1420

PRONUNCIATION
TEN-uh-bruhss