Tag: 1500 – 1599

Word of the Day: NEGATORY

ETYMOLOGY
from French negatoire or Latin negatorius negative; from negāt-, past participial stem of negare (to negate, to render invalid) + –orius (‑ory) 

EXAMPLE
“… Only one thing grieved me by anticipation; the sorrow of my Berga, for whom, dear tired wayfarer, I on the morrow must overcloud her arrival, and her shortened market – spectacle, by my negatory intelligence. She would so gladly (and who can take it ill of a rich farmer’s daughter?) have made herself somebody in Neusattel, and overshone many a female dignitary! …”

From: Translations From The German
Schmelzle’s Journey to Flaetz
By Jean Paul Feiedrigh Richter
Translated by Thomas Carlyle, 1827

Word of the Day: BLAST-BOB

ETYMOLOGY
from blast + bob (a light blow as with anything rebounding)

EXAMPLE
“… Much lyke as in forrest a long set dottrel, or oaktree,
With northen blusters too parts contrayrye retossed:
Thee winds scold strugling, the threshing thick crush crash is owtborne,
Thee boughs frap whuarring, when stem with blastbob is hacked:
Yeet the tre stands sturdy: for as yt toe the skytyp is haunced,
So far is yt crampornd with roote deepe dibled at helgat’s:
So this courragious gallant with clustered erraunds
Is cloyed and stinging sharp car’s in brest doe lye thrilling.
His mynd vnuariant doth stand, tears vaynelye doe gutter. …”

From: Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Æneis
Translated into English heroical verse by Richard Stanyhurst, 1582

Word of the Day: GAINSTRIVE

ETYMOLOGY
from gain- (against, in opposition to) + strive (to endeavour vigorously)

EXAMPLE (for vb. 1.)
“… Giue vs that peace, which we doo lacke,
Through misbelief and ill lyfe:
Thy Word to offer thou dost not slacke,
Which we unkindly gainstriue.
With fire and swoord,
This healthfull woord:
Some persecute and oppres:
Some with the mouth,
Confess the truth,
Wythout sincere godlynes. …”

From: The Whole book of Psalms: collected into English metre, by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others, 1569
“Da Pacem, Domine“

Word of the Day: PEACIFY

ETYMOLOGY
from peace (n.) + -ify, influenced by pacify (vb.)

EXAMPLE
“… yet she wolde not but rather suffre dethe she was so stedfaste in the feythe relygyous and chaste, and thus he beynge in great perplexyte and doutfull peryll, the foresayde Blessyd vyrgyne his Donghter was warnyd by an Aungell that she shulde goo to her Fader and bydde hym agree to the other Kynys requeste and desyre, and that she shulde assent therto, / and so shulde she comforte and assure her Fader and peacyfye and make glad the other parte.

From: Here Begynneth the Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande, 1516

Word of the Day: ROISTER-DOISTER

ETYMOLOGY
from the name of the chief character (Ralph Royster Doyster) in Nicholas Udall’s comic play, based upon roister (a boisterous or noisy reveller), written about 1533

EXAMPLE
“… The terriblest tearmes may be repayed-home with aduauntage: I haue knowen the raylingest Sophister in an Vniuersity, sett non plus: and haue seene the mad-braynest Roister-doister in a countrey, dashte out of countenaunce. …”

From: Foure Letters, and Certaine Sonnets especially touching Robert Greene, and other parties, by him abused
By Gabriel Harvey, 1592

Word of the Day: ONERARIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin onerarius (suitable for carrying a burden or cargo) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… For that he emongest all gouernors, chiefly did remembre that a kyng ought to bee a ruler with wit, grauitie, circumspeccion, diligence and constancie, and for that cause to haue a rule to hym comitted, not for an honor, but for an onorarious charge and daily burden, and not to looke so muche on other mennes liuynges, as to consider and remembre his owne doynges and propre actes. …”

From: The vnion of the two noble and illustrate famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke 
By: Edward Hall, 1548

Word of the Day: HICKSCORNER

ETYMOLOGY
see definition above

EXAMPLE
“… but Plato moe tymes than one auised hym, with sacrifice to purchace the fauour of the Graces, that is, so to applye hymself, yt his saiynges and dooynges might haue more grace and bee better accepted & taken of the worlde. zeno beeyng outright alltogether a Stoique vsed to call Socrates the scoffer, or the Hicke scorner of the citee of Athenes: because of his merie conceiptes and tauntyng, that he neuer ceassed to vse: but yet is there no manne, but he will saie that Socrates was a more godly feloe then either of those twoo whiche I named last afore. …”

From: Apophthegmes that is to saie, prompte, quicke, wittie and sentencious saiynges, of certain emperours, kynges, capitaines, philosophiers and oratours,
By Desiderius Erasmus
Translated by Nicholas Udall. 1542

Word of the Day: OBLIGATORIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin obligatorius (imposing obligation) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… quharethrow he culd nocht contract, trespas, or do ony sic deid as were obligatorious, quherbj he mycht be oblist to pvnisment of his persoune, likeas he mycht nocht oblise him in his gudis …”

From: Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland
Compiled from the original records and manuscripts
By Robert Pitcairn, 1833
Slaughter committed by an alleged Madman or Furious person – A.D. 1554

Word of the Day: SLAWSY-GAWSY

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

Word of the Day: LUSKISH

ETYMOLOGY
obsolete lusk (an idle or lazy fellow, a sluggard) + -ish

EXAMPLE
“… And as it fareth in the traunces and slepes that folke fall in by the bely – so fareth it lykewyse in the traunces and slepes that folke fall in by those partes that are benethe the bely. For whan the rage is thereof (as Tyndall sayeth) ouer passed, and that they haue in theyr traunce and theyr slepe played out all theyr luskysshe lustes … than they awake. …”

From: The Second Parte of the Confutacion of Tyndals answere in whyche is also confuted the chyrche that Tyndale deuyseth
By Thomas More, 1533