Tag: 1500 – 1599

Word of the Day: CLUMPERTON

ETYMOLOGY
from clump or clumper (a lump, mass);
possibly on model of simpleton

EXAMPLE
“…Thus departinge from thence it chaunced him to stray asyde from his companie, and, fallinge into reasoninge and so to altercation with a stronge stubberne clomperton, he was shrowdlie beaten of him, yeat hee kepte him from beinge hurte of his menne, grauntinge that hee hadd well deserved those stripes…”

From: Polydore Vergil’s English History, c1534
from an early translation preserved among the mss. of the old royal library in the British museum

Word of the Day: WIDGEON

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin

From the Oxford English Dictionary:
The form appears to suggest a French origin (compare pigeon n.), but French forms are first attested significantly later than the English word: compare †vigeon kind of West Indian duck (1667), †vingeon kind of duck observed in Madagascar (1690), kind of West Indian duck (1767 or earlier), Eurasian wigeon (Buffon 1783, also as †gingeon), American wigeon (J. Latham 1785), and it is even possible that the French word was borrowed < English.

PRONUNCIATION
WIJ-uhn

EXAMPLE (for n. 2)
“…Such as you shall like too: what say you to this young Gent. He is the widgen that wee must feed vpon…”

From: The Miseries of Inforst Mariage
By George Wilkins, 1607

Word of the Day: GIM

ETYMOLOGY
perhaps a variation of jimp (slender, slim, delicate, graceful, neat)

EXAMPLE
“…Hys wifis, Toppa and Partelot, hym by,
As byrd al tyme that hantis bigamy.
The pantyt povn, pasand with plomys gym,
Kest vp his taill, a provd plesand quheill rym,
Yschrowdyt in hys fedrame brycht and scheyn,
Schapand the prent of Argus hundreth eyn…”

From: Virgil’s Aeneid translated into Scottish verse
By Gavin Douglas, 1513

Word of the Day: ONEWHERE

ETYMOLOGY
from one + where, after somewhere, nowhere

EXAMPLE
“…if we translate the Hebrew or the Greek word once by purpose, never call it intent; if onewhere journeying, never traveling, if one where think, never suppose; if one where pain, never ache; if one where joy, never gladness…”

From: Bible (King James)
Translator Miles Smith, 1611

Word of the Day: MAUMISH

ETYMOLOGY
possibly from maum (mellow, soft, esp. over-ripe) + –ish 

EXAMPLE
“…but she fed more vpon fancie, than glutted hir selfe with any cates there presente: more vpon daintie deuices, than any parcell of repast: for this meate forsooth was mawmish, & this melancholie: this dish would driue hir to drincke, and this cause hir to drie…”

From: Narbonus The Laberynth of Libertie
By Austin Saker, 1580