Tag: 1500 – 1599

Word of the Day: FRIDAY-FACE

ETYMOLOGY
probably from the time when Friday was a day of abstinence

EXAMPLE
“…The Fox on a time came to visit the Gray, partly for kindred, chiefly for craft, and finding the hole empty of all other company, saving only one Badger enquiring the cause of his solitariness: he described the sudden death of his dam and sire with the rest of his consorts. The Fox made a Friday face, counterfeiting sorrow: but concluding that death’s stroke was inevitable persuaded him to seek some fit mate wherewith to match.…”

From: Greene’s, Groat’s-Worth of Witte, bought with a million of repentance 
Robert Greene, 1592

Word of the Day: SLOWBACK

ETYMOLOGY
from slow (adj.) + back (n.)

EXAMPLE
“…For God doth not assiste slouthfull persons and idle slowbackes. Now I call those needelesse occupations, whiche idle and ill disposed people do vse, thereby to be troublesome to their neighbours and to deceiue other men, exercising, I confesse, an occupation, but such an one as is vtterly vnlawfull & vnprofitable to all men…”

From: Fiftie Godlie and Learned Sermons Diuided into Fiue Decades
By Heinrich Bullinger, 1577

Word of the Day: HIBBER-GIBBER

ETYMOLOGY
reduplicated derivative of gibber (unintelligible talking, rapid and inarticulate utterance)

EXAMPLE
“…and I wott not what maruelous egges in mooneshine: but a flye for all your flying Speculations, when one good fellow with his oddiestes, or one madd knaue with his awke hibber-gibber, is able to putt downe twentye of your smuggest artificiall men, that simper it so nicely, and coylie in their curious pointes…”

From:  Pierces Supererogation
Or A New Prayse of The Old Asse,
Gabriell Harvey, 1593

Word of the Day: PUSILL

ETYMOLOGY
from: a) Middle French pusille, puzil, pusil (very small, weak),
b) Latin pusillus (very small, insignificant, petty) from pusus (boy) + -illus 

EXAMPLE
“…And to amase her weake, and pusill minde,
In creepe through crannies of imagination.
Deformd Idean formes, and phansies blinde.
Sent foorth by hir sicke sences, instigation.
Like staringe greisly fendes, threatninge invasion.
Presenting to her heart, the homely iarres.
And houshold cares, accurringe nuptiall warres…”

From: Eustathia, or the Constancie of Susanna
By Robert Roche, 1599

Word of the Day: CUPSTANTIAL

ETYMOLOGY
a humorous perversion of substantial, intended to suggest ‘drunken’

EXAMPLE
“…He that is borne vnder Capricornus shall be a slouenly, ill-fauoured, and vncleane fellowe, bicause the gote is a beast filthie, stinking and vncleane. He that is borne vnder Aquarius and Pisces shall be fortunate by water, bicause watermen haunt the waters, and fishes swim in the same. These be cupstantiall reasons and well seasoned arguments, and as strong to prooue their purpose, as a castell of paper to resist the enimie…”

From: Phillip Stubbes’s Anatomy of the Abuses in England in Shakspere’s Youth, A.D. 1583
Folly of the Zodiacal Signs influencing men.

Word of the Day: DETESTATE

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin detestat-, ppl. stem of detestare (-arī) (to detest)

EXAMPLE
“…the whiche in all kinde of liuing and conuersacion is vtterly geuen and married vnto this worlde, whiche as a mortall enemy, the doctrine of the gospell doeth detestate and abhorre? with cleane handes and verye reuerentlye we vse to touche the holy boke of the gospell…”

From: The First Tome or Volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the Newe Testamente
By Erasmus, Desiderius
Translated by Nicholas Udall, 1548

Word of the Day: VOUST

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin

EXAMPLE
“…Circuland abowt with swift fard of the cart
The feildis our all quhar in euery art,
And schew hir bruthir Turnus in his char,
Now brawland in this place, now voustand thar;
Na be na way wald scho suffir that he
Assembill hand for hand suld with Enee…”

From: The Æneid of Virgil
Translated Into Scottish Verse
By Gavin Douglas, 1513

Word of the Day: FLANTITANTING

ETYMOLOGY
a reduplicated formation on flanting (flaunting)

EXAMPLE
“…An old Doctor of Oxford shewd me Latine verses of his in that flourishing flantitanting goutie Omega fist, which he presented unto him (as a bribe) to get leave to playe, whe hee was in the heighth or prime of his Puer es cupis atque doceri…”

From: Have with You to Saffron-Walden Or, Gabriell Harveys Hunt is Up
By Thomas Nashe, 1596