Tag: 1600 – 1699

Word of the Day: BUMPSY

ETYMOLOGY
probably from bump (to collide heavily or firmly, to knock) + -sy

EXAMPLE
“… How Tarlton landed at Cuckolds haven.
TArlton being one Sunday at Court all day, caused a paire of Oares to tend him, who at night called on him to be gone. Tarlton being a carousing, drunk so long to the Watermen, that one of them was bumpsie, and so indeede were all three for the most part: at last they left Greenwich, the Tide being at a great low fall the Watermen yet afraide of the Crosse Cables by the Lime-house, very dark and late as it was, landed Tarlton at Cuckolds-hauen, and said, the next day they would giue him a reason for it …”

From: Tarltons Jests Drawne into these three parts.
1 His court-witty iests.
2 His sound city iests.
3 His countrey pretty iests.
Full of delight, wit, and honest mirth.
By Richard Tarlton, 1611

Word of the Day: NUPTIALIZE

ETYMOLOGY
from nuptial (relating to marriage or a wedding) + -ize

EXAMPLE
“… Vain.
Thou art enthusiastically congnitiant, but I must make an est inventus of Owmuch.

Fop.
And I’le voyage the while towards the straights of your Sisters affection.

Vain.
Hold Armiger, you must a while retire; the Knight must nuptialize before the ‘Squire …”

From: Tunbridge-Wells, or, A Days Courtship A Comedy
By Thomas Rawlins, 1678

Word of the Day: COEVOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin coævus (of the same age),
from co- + ævum (age) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… Finally, the Tetrad connects all Beings, of Elements, Numbers, Seasons of the Year, Coaevous Society; neither can we name any thing, which depends not on the Tetractys, as its Root and Principle: …”

From: The History of Philosophy: containing the lives, opinions, actions and discourses of the philosophers of every sect
By Thomas Stanley, 1660

Word of the Day: WROX

ETYMOLOGY
of obscure origin

EXAMPLE
“… be sure to give it a second plowing, just overthwart all the lands, and so cut the Turfe, that the Soard may have all the Winters frost to wroxe, and moulder it, which towards March thou mayst plow again, and so cast it, or raise it, as thy Land requireth …”

From: The English Improver, or a New Survey of Husbandry discovering to the kingdome that some land, both arrable and pasture, may be advanced double or treble
By Walter Blith, 1649
Reducement of Land to Pristine Fertility

Word of the Day: RESPECTUOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from respect (n.) + -uous, 
originally after French respectueux (showing respect, respectful)

EXAMPLE
“… Howbeit, they are themselves partly the cause that they doe incurre this obscuritie and igno­rance: who being of divers and contrarie natures, yet fall into one and the selfesame inconveni­ence. For some upon a certaine respectuous reverence which they bare unto their Reader and Doctour, or because they would seeme to spare him, are afraid to aske questions, and to be con­firmed and resolved in doubts arising from the doctrine which he delivereth: and so give signes by nodding their heads that they approove all, as if they understood everie thing verie well. …”

From: The Philosophie, commonlie called, The Morals
By Plutarch of Chæronea
Translated out of Greeke into English, and conferred with the Latine translations and the French, by Philemon Holland, 1603

Word of the Day: BELLY-MOUNTAINED

ETYMOLOGY
from belly + mountain + -ed

EXAMPLE
“… and such a one he confesseth himself, that some of his own kindred (whom therefore he styles Jewish Presbyterians) suspect him to be; yea he complains of, or exclaims rather against one, (whom he calls a man of pufpast, like that fat bellie-mountaind Bishop) who lighting on one of his Works, said no more of it, but wrote onely upon it, Spalatensis. …”

From: A Discours Apologetical; wherein Lilies lewd and lowd lies in his Merlin or Pasqil for the yeer 1654. are cleerly laid open
By Thomas Gataker, 1654

Word of the Day: TUMULTUATE

ETYMOLOGY
from participial stem of Latin tumultuari (to make a bustle or disturbance) + -ate

EXAMPLE
“… Secondly, beeing sued, and Iudgement passed against you, Acquiesce in the Iudgement, and doe not tumultuate against it; and take example from mee, whom you haue heard here protest, that when euer any Decree shall be giuen against me in my priuate right, betweene me and a Subiect, I will as humbly acquiesce as the meanest man in the Land. Imitate me in this, for in euery Plea there are two parties, and Iudgement can be but for one, and against the other; so one must alwayes be displeased. …”

From: James I of England
Speach Starre-chamber, 1616

Word of the Day: AWEBOUND

ETYMOLOGY
from awe (a feeling of terror or dread mixed with reverence) + bound (compelled, obliged)

EXAMPLE
“… As she uttered the interrogatory, she raised the rattle-snake in her hands, holding it so that it might be distinctly seen by those whom she addressed. The reptile hissed, accompanying the sibilation with a sharp “skirr” of its tail. Who could doubt that it was an answer in the affirmative?
Not the Yamassees, who stood awe-bound and trembling in the presence of the mighty sorceress. …”

From: Osceola the Seminole,
Or, The Red Fawn of the Flower Land
By Capt. Mayne Reid, 1858