Tag: 1600 – 1699

Word of the Day: BY-WIPE

ETYMOLOGY
from by- + wipe (sarcastic reproof or rebuff)

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Wherefore should ye begin with the devil’s name, descanting upon the number of your opponents? Wherefore that conceit of Legion with a by-wipe? Was it because you would have men take notice how you esteem them, whom through all your book so bountifully you call your brethren? We had not thought that Legion could have furnished the Remonstrant with so many brethren. …”

From: Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence Against Smectymnuus
By John Milton, 1641

Word of the Day: MEDISANCE

ETYMOLOGY
from French medisance, from mesdisant present participle of mesdire (to speak evil), from mes- (mis-) + dire (to say)

EXAMPLE
“… Let every one then make this good use of the respect and difference which is given to their persons or conditions; the taking upon them to discredit this so pernitious fashion of receiving (as justifyable Presents from their observers) the desamation of their brother; for when this humour of Medisance springeth in the head of the company, it runnes fluently into the lesse noble parts; but when it riseth first but in the inferior and dependent persons, it requireth a force of wit and ingeniosity to raise and diffuse it upward, which capacity is not very familiar: …”

From: Miscellanea Spiritualia: or, Devout Essaies
By Walter Montagu, 1648

Word of the Day: RORULENT

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin rorulentus (dewy); from ror-, ros (dew) + ‑ulentus (‑ulent)

EXAMPLE
“… Anaurus, no such River on Mount Ida, or within any part of the Trojan Territories,
Being only a Name given to any Current raised by Rain, and not sending up rorulent Steams or Vapors, as all or most Rivers do,
Yet apply’d as a Name to several Rivers, not properly, but to shew how they are qualifi’d like that unſteaming Current …“

From: The Tragedies of L. Annæus Seneca the Philosopher;
Translated by Sir Edward Sherburne, 1702

Word of the Day: VANQUISSANT

ETYMOLOGY
from obsolete French vainquissant, present participle of vainquir, a rare variant of vaincre (to conquer, overcome)

EXAMPLE
“… Full glad was Eromena to heare of such things, acknowledging her thankes to heaven for doing them in the favour of her girle. Congratulations she received not as a woman in child-bed, but as a Captaine vanquissant of a battel. Many times and often kissed shee her sweet babe, who without either crying or weeping, beheld stedfastly the faire light of the world; by no meanes possible would the sweet little one endure the swathing bands, but would with a lovely fiercenesse push them off her. …”

From: Eromena, or, Love and Revenge
Written originally in the Thoscan tongue, by Cavalier Giovanni Francesco Biondi
Translated by James Hayward, 1632

Word of the Day: PLENIPOTENT

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin plenipotens, plenipotent, from Latin pleni- (full) + potens (potent, powerful)

EXAMPLE (for adj.)
“… (being now grown by their rents and Lordly dignities, by their power over the Ministers and other liege’s, by their places in Parliament, Council, Session, Exchequer, and high Commission to a plenipotent dominion and greatness) they frame a book of Canons for ruling the Kirk and disposing upon religion at their pleasure. …”

From: The Remonstrance of the Nobility, Barrones, Burgesses, Ministers and Commons within the Kingdom of Scotland,
Church of Scotland. General Assembly, 1639

Word of the Day: BLOB-TALE

ETYMOLOGY
from blob, variant of blab (to talk indiscreetly) + tale

EXAMPLE
“… These Blob-tales, when they could find no other News to keep their Tongues in motion, laid open our Bishop for a Malignant, because he gave Entertainment at his Board, to such as carried a Grudge to the Lord Duke’s Prosperity; who, if such, came in their course to his House upon old acquaintance, but upon no factious design, that ever was proved. …”

From: Scrinia Reserata; a memorial offer’d to the great deservings of John Williams, D. D., who some time held the places of Ld Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Ld Bishop of Lincoln, and Ld Archbishop of York
By John Hacket, a1670

Word of the Day: EXTERRANEOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from  Latin exterraneus (from ex- (out) + terra (land)) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… had they only a morsel of standing room – an exterraneous rock from which to pull. How the wheels crush and pulverise all that they come upon, under their three or four tons weight! …”

From: The Dublin University Magazine
A Literary and Political Journal
Volume II, July to December, 1833
Familiar Epistles from London. No. IV

Word of the Day: AIRLING

ETYMOLOGY
apparently from air (n.) + -ling 

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Some more there be, slight ayrelings, will be wonne,
With dogs, and horses ; or, perhaps, a whore ;
Which must be had : and, if they venter Hues,
For vs, AVRELIA, we must hazard honors
A little. Get thee store, and change of women,
As I haue boyes; and giue ‘hem time, and place, And all conniuence : be thy selfe, too, courtly ;
And entertayne, and feast, sit vp, and reuell ;
Call all the great, the faire, and spirited Dames
Of Rome about thee ; and beginne a fashion
Of freedome, and community. …”

From: Catiline His Conspiracy
By Benjamin Jonson, 1611

Word of the Day: DEXTERICAL

ETYMOLOGY
irregularly formed on Latin dexter (on the right hand or right side) + -ic + -al

EXAMPLE
“… It is called of the Hebrewes, … the hande of the Soule, or … the right hand of the minde, because it makes any conceit dexterical, one of the two things, for which a pregnant Poet (as imagine of Homer, Naso, or any other) especially is to be admired: …”

From: The optick glasse of humors.
Or The touchstone of a golden temperature
Or, The philosophers stone to make a golden temper.
By Thomas Walkington, 1607

Word of the Day: BAUBLING

ETYMOLOGY
from bauble (n.) + -ing

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1.)
“…euen so by the smalest booke that can be written, by ye most babling ballet that can be made, and by the least word that can be spoken, his strange and wonderful workes in man, with his most liberall and incomparable guiftes vnto thē do as perfectly set forth and shew themselues as by the greatest volume yt euer was written, by the wayghtyest or wysest concept that euer was made, or by the most eloquente or learned oration that euer was vttered. …”

From: A Short Inuentory of Certayne Idle Inuentions
By C. Thimelthorpe, 1581