Tag: 1600 – 1699

Word of the Day: PRIDIAN

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin pridianus (relating to the previous day),
from pridie (adv. on the day before),
from pri- before + dies a day + -anus (-an)

EXAMPLE
“… This Gann, I take it, has similar likings, for I hear him occasionally at midnight floundering up the stairs (his boots lie dirty in the passage)—floundering, I say, up the stairs, and cursing the candlestick, whence escape now and anon the snuffers and extinguisher, and with brazen rattle disturb the silence of the night. Thrice a−week, at least, does Gann breakfast in bed—sure sign of pridian intoxication; and thrice a−week, in the morning, I hear a hoarse voice roaring for ‘my soda−water.’ How long have the rogues drunk soda−water? …”

From:  A Shabby Genteel Story,
And Other Tales.
By: William M. Thackeray, 1840
How Mrs. Gann received two lodgers.

Word of the Day: SINISTER-HANDED

ETYMOLOGY
from sinister:  from Old French  senestre, sinistre or Latin sinister (left, left-hand)

EXAMPLE
“… That which still makes her mirth to flow,
Is our sinister-handed woe,
Which downwards on its head doth go,
And, ere that it is sown, doth grow.
This makes her spleen contract,
And her just pleasure feast:
For the unjustest act
Is still the pleasant’st jest. …”

From: Lucasta: Posthume Poems
Lucasta Laughing
By Richard Lovelace, a1657

Word of the Day: ASMATOGRAPHER

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek aσµατογράϕος (from ᾀ̑σμα, -µατ– (song, lyric) + -γράϕος writing, writer) + -er

EXAMPLE
” … (Title) 1639 Songs: – A Collection of Original Songs, by Oddibus, Funnybus, Asmatographer to the Court of Comus…”

From: Catalogue of the Singularly Curious, Very Interesting, and Valuable Library
of Edward Skegg,
Arranged by S. Leigh Sotheby, Auctioneer of Literary Property, and Works of Art,
1842

Word of the Day: OSCITATE

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin oscitat-, past participial stem of oscitare (to open (as a mouth)), 
also oscitari (to gape, yawn), from os mouth + citare (to move, actuate)

EXAMPLE
“… and if he will but imitate some drowsy people at church, by taking a sternutatory, he will arrive at the close without feeling fatigue or ascribing his heaviness to the writer; There are persons whose physical constitutions are so delicate that mere thoughts of taking snuff, (and medicines generally) produce the same effect as inhaling the powder itself: now, if the imagination of the reader has a similar influence over his system, he can have no disposition to oscitate while finishing the chapter; on the contrary, the greatest obstacle to his progress will arise from a disposition to sneeze. …”

From: Transactions of the Society of Literary and Scientific Chiffonniers;
Being Essays on Primitive Arts In Domestic Life.
The Spoon
By Hab’k O. Westman, 1844
Chapter X, Snuff taken with Spoons

Word of the Day: FUSTILUGS

ETYMOLOGY
? from fusty (having an unpleasant or stuffy smell), + lug (something heavy and clumsy), in the sense of something heavy or slow

EXAMPLE
“… Whereupon the richest Babylonians intending to marry, buy the fairest and most beautifull virgins in the company, one out-bidding another in the bargain. The country swains contenting themselues though they haue not the fairest, take the woodden-fac’d wenches, and the ill-fauourd-foule-fustilugs for a small summe, …”

From: A World of Wonders,
Or an Introduction to a Treatise Touching the Conformitie of Ancient and Moderne Wonders.
By Henri Estienne
Translated by R.C., 1607

Word of the Day: MOTITATION

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin motitat-, past participial stem of motitare (to move),
from motare (to set in motion, to keep moving) + -itare (-itate) + -ion

EXAMPLE
“… because muscles in this, scarce otherwise then in other functions, are strained; & therefore you rest a trembling Head upon a cush∣on, you shall soon stay the trembling, and free it from that motitation. And hence it is that we know this motion of the Head is voluntary …”

From: Pathomyotamia, or, A dissection of the significative muscles of the affections of the minde
By John Bulwer, 1649

Word of the Day: JIGGALORUM

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin; probably influenced by jig and jog

EXAMPLE
“… Even Humfrey King finds an excuse for his own mediocrity in that it is not the lowest: ‘I see my inferiours in the gifts of learning, wisdome, & vnderstanding, torment the Print daily with lighter trifles, and Iiggalorums, then my russet Hermit is, the which hath made me the bolder to shoulder in amongst the’…”

From: Halfe-penny-worth of Wit
By Humphrey King, 1613

Word of the Day: CLODPATE

ETYMOLOGY
from clod (lump) + pate (head)

EXAMPLE
“… VVHat Clod-pates, Thenot, are our Brittish swains,
How lubber-like they loll upon the plains?
No life, no spirit in ’em; every Clown
Soone as he layes his Hook and Tarbox down,
That ought to take his Reed, and chant his layes,
Or nimbly run the winding of the Maze,
Now gets a bush to roam himselfe, and sleepe;
Tis hard to know the shepheard from the sheepe. …”

From: By Thomas Randall/Randolph
in: Annalia Dubrensia, vpon the yeerely celebration of Mr. Robert Dovers Olimpick Games vpon Cotswold-Hills, 1636
Edited by Alexander Grosart, 1877