Tag: 1600 – 1699

Word of the Day: EFFEROUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin efferus [from ex– out + ferus (fierce)] + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…But whatsoeuer be done with the foxes, yet from the teeth of that efferous beast, from the tuske of the wild bore, from the sucking and drawing of Romish horse-leaches, from the bloud-thirsty dropsie of Antichrist and his adherents, from the cursed Assasinates of Iesuites and their darke disciples, from the peremptory knife of Popish, worse then paganish, pruners, ô thou that art the root & generation of Dauid preserue our root and all his generation, together with his most glorious stemme…”

From: Vitis Palatina
A sermon appointed to be preached at VVhitehall vpon the Tuesday after the mariage of the Ladie Elizabeth her Grace.
By Bishop John King, 1614

Word of the Day: COMPUNCTIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from stem of compunction (pricking of the conscience, remorse) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…The Rauen himselfe is hoarse,
That croakes the fatall entrance of Duncan
Vnder my Battlements. Come you Spirits,
That tend on mortall thoughts, vnsex me here,
And fill me from the Crowne to the Toe, top-full
Of direst Crueltie: make thick my blood,
Stop vp th’ accesse, and passage to Remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of Nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keepe peace betweene
Th’ effect, and hit. Come to my Womans Brests,
And take my Milke for Gall, you murth’ring Ministers,
Where-euer, in your sightlesse substances,
You wait on Natures Mischiefe. Come thick Night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoake of Hell,
That my keene Knife see not the Wound it makes,
Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke,
To cry, hold, hold….”

From: Macbeth
By William Shakespeare, a1616

Word of the Day: HODDY-DODDY

ETYMOLOGY
the element dod is evidently the same as in dodman (a shell-snail);
hoddy-dod, hoddy-doddy, & hodman-dod, are perhaps from nursery reduplications;
but the element hoddy- appears itself to have come to be associated to mean ‘snail’ (or ? horned);
for n. 2. (a cuckold) – with reference to the ‘horns’ of a cuckold

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“…My living lieth here and there, of God’s grace,
Sometime with this good man, sometime in that place;
Sometime Lewis Loiterer biddeth me come near;
Somewhiles Watkin Waster maketh us good cheer;
Sometime Davy Diceplayer, when he hath well cast,
Keepeth revel-rout, as long as it will last;
Sometime Tom Titivile keepeth us a feast;
Sometime with Sir Hugh Pie I am a bidden guest;
Sometime at Nichol Neverthrive’s I get a sop;
Sometime I am feasted with Bryan Blinkinsop;
Sometime I hang on Hankyn Hoddydoddy’s sleeve;
But this day on Ralph Roister Doister’s, by his leave…”

From: Ralph Roister Doister,
By Nicholas Udall, a1556

Word of the Day: INSTIGATRIX

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin instigatrix, female agent-n. from instigare (to instigate, bring about by incitement or persuasion)

EXAMPLE
“…She was (saies Salme∣ron, a main Supporter of the Roman Church among the Tridentine Fathers) cooperatrix, that is, Christs Fellow-laborer in the very Passion to the end, that as a Man and a Woman did work out the utter ruine of Man-kind, so a Man and a Woman might perfect their Salvation; and as well here as there, the Woman should be the Instigatrix, or the first Sollicitress, Eve to temt, and Mary to set the Man to work. Thus she is, saies another, the Mother of Redemtion, by shedding her Soul into compassion under, as Christ did his in Passion upon the Cross…”

From: Saul and Samuel at Endor,
or The new waies of salvation and service, which usually temt men to Rome, and detain them there Truly represented, and refuted,
By Daniel Brevint, 1674

Word of the Day: INCAUTELOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from in- + cautelous (cautious, wary)

EXAMPLE
“…The bold Physitian, too incautelous,
By those he cures, himselfe is murdered,
Kindnes infects, pitie is dangerous,
And the poore infant, yet not fully bred,
Thear where he should be borne, lies buried,
So the darke Prince, from his infernall cell,
Casts vp his griesly Torturers of hell,
And whets them to revenge, with this insulting spell….”

From: Christs Cictorie, and Triumph in Heauen, and Earth, Ouer, and After Death
By Giles Fletcher, 1610

Word of the Day: SWITCH-TAIL

ETYMOLOGY
from switch + tail

EXAMPLE 1 (for n.1)
“…she was observed to ride forth in a Cavalcade somewhat extraordinary pleasant , viz. a good rich Velvet Saddle, and fashionable upon a sorry Horse with a Switch-Tail that us’d to carry Lime, and not Ladies; A gentile Surtout or riding-Suit; with her Shoulders warmly wrapt up in a good White Serge whittle: A pretty handsome Commode of the newest fashion, upon which was gracefully plac’d a good homely Straw Hat, with a long Pole like a Sugar Loaf, so that Cit and Bumpkin seem’d never better met or set off since the Creation …”

From: The Adventures of the Helvetian Hero, with the Young Countess of Albania;
Or, The Amours of Armadorus and Vicentina: a Novel
Unknown author, 1694

EXAMPLE 2 (for n. 2.)
“…I can look a gangster in the eye and make him change his mind, but I can’t do a thing with a woman no more. At one time I had nine big switch-tail women on my personal payroll, and they all stole from me, picked me clean. Buzzards!

From: McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon
By Joseph Mitchell, 1943

Word of the Day: KITCHENIST

ETYMOLOGY
from kitchen (n.) + -ist

EXAMPLE
“…If, notwithstanding All that hath bin said,
TOBACCONISTS will still hold on their Trade,
And by their Practice still hold vp their Name,
Though Iewes, though Diuels, better suite the same;
I’le say no more but only This, of This:
Henceforth, let none whose meaner Lot it is
To liue in Smoak; Lime-burners, Alchymists,
Brick-makers, Brewers, Colliers, Kitchenists;
Let Salamanders, Swallowes, Bacon-stitches,
Red-Sprats, red-Herings, and like Chimnie-wretches,
Think no Disparagement, nor hold them base:
TOBACCONISTS their Companie will grace,
And teach them make a Vertue of Necessitie…”

From: Tobacco Battered; & the pipes shattered
By Josuah Sylvester, 1617

Word of the Day: HIRQUITALLIENCY

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin hirquitallire (of infants: to acquire a strong voice) [from hircus (he-goat)] + -ency

EXAMPLE
“…Here it was that passion was active, and action passive, they both being overcome by other, and each the conquerour. To speak of her hirquitalliency at the elevation of the pole of his microcosme, or of his luxuriousness to erect a gnomon on her horizontal dyal, will perhaps be held by some to be expressions full of obscoeness, and offensive to the purity of chaste ears; yet seeing she was to be his wife, and that she could not be such without consummation of marriage, which signifieth the same thing in effect, it may be thought, as definitiones logicae verificantur in rebus, if the exerced act be lawful, that the diction which suppones it, can be of no greater transgression, unless you would call it a solaecisme, or that vice in grammar which imports the copulating of the masculine with the feminine gender…”

From: Εκσκυβαλαυρον (Ekskybalauron – The Jewel )
By Sir Thomas Urquhart, 1652

Word of the Day: LACHRYMATE

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin lacrimat-, past participial stem of lacrimare (to weep),  from lacrima (tear)

EXAMPLE
“…Whose cruell tortures did infest her heart:
For ev’ry one did taxe this Virgins Fate,
And her sad sorrowes caus’d them Lachrymate:
Since in her passions she was so extreame,
For to her griefe she limited no meane;
Which so surprest her, that she seem’d ro bee
The very abstract of calamity…”

From: A small treatise betwixt Arnalte and Lucenda
entituled The Evill-Intreated Lover, or The Mmelancholy Knight
By San Pedro de Diego
Translation by L. Lawrence, 1639

PRONUNCIATION
LACK-ruh-mayt