Tag: 1600 – 1699

Word of the Day: DRY-FIST

ETYMOLOGY
from dry (miserly, stingy) + fist

EXAMPLE
“…Ferentes. Yet again ? nay, an if you be in that mood, shut up your fore-shop, I’ll be your journeyman no longer. Why, wise Madam Dryfist, could your mouldy brain be so addle to imagine I would marry a stale widow at six-and-forty? Marry gip! are there not varieties enough of thirteen? come, stop your clap-dish, or I’ll purchase a carting for you. By this light, I have toiled more with this tough carrion hen than with ten quails scarce grown into their first feathers …”

From: Loves Sacrifice
By John Ford, 1633

Word of the Day: ADULATORIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin adulatorius (adulatory) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Histories are full fraught with such relations of adorations, and most adulatorious Epithites giuen to his Holinesse, the proper name and calling now of the Pope, amongst his adorers and followers: and doe you think the Pope knoweth not, or affecteth not this his greatnes: obserue his pride (excuse me Pontifician reader) when he saith not priuate Masse himselfe, but is in his publike Chappel, …”

From: The Motiues of Richard Sheldon pr. for his Lust, Voluntary, and Free Renouncing of Communion with the Bishop of Rome, Paul the 5. and his Church
By Richard Sheldon, 1612

Word of the Day: STRATIOTIC

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin stratioticus (characteristic of a soldier), and its etymon ancient Greek στρατιωτικoς (military, warlike), from στρατιώτης stratiote (a Greek soldier) + ‑ικός (‑ic)

EXAMPLE
“…The Theoric board dominated the financial administration, as later on Demosthenes’ own Stratiotic board did.…”

From: The Olynthiac Speeches of Demosthenes
By Terrot Reaveley Glover, 1897

Word of the Day: MARITORIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
humorously from Latin maritus (husband) + –orious

EXAMPLE
“…Tis grosse and fulsome: if your husbands pleasure
Be all your object, and you ayme at honour
In living close to him, get you from Court,
You may have him at home; these common put-ofs
For common women serve: “my honour! husband!”
Dames maritorious ne’re were meritorious:
Speak plaine, and say “I doe not like you, sir,
Y’are an ill-favour’d fellow in my eye,”
And I am answer’d. …”

From: Bussy D’Ambois: a tragedie
By George Chapman, 1607

Word of the Day: MUSSITATE

ETYMOLOGY
from past participial stem of Latin mussitare (to mutter),
from mussare (to mutter) + –itare (-itate)

EXAMPLE
“…those I meane which are not Neutralizers (if any such heare mee this day) Neutralizers, I say, or Interim-ists; such as dare secretly mutter and mussitate; Rome and the Reformed Churches agree in the substance of Religion, that there is no fundamentall difference betwixt them and vs; and againe that they teach no Heresies; …”

From: A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse Laying open the Beast, and his Marks
By Richard Sheldon, 1625

Word of the Day: VITUPERIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French vituperieus (implied in the adv. vituperieusement), 
or from late or medieval Latin vituperiōsus from vituperium (vitupery)

EXAMPLE
“…Muse I inuoke the vtmost of thy might,
That with an armed and auspitious wing,
Thou be obsequious in his doubtlesse right
Gainst the vile Athiests vituperious sting:
Where thou that gate industriously mai’st flie,
Which Nature striues but fainedlie to goe,
Borne by a power so eminent and hie,
As in his course leaues reason farre belowe,
To shew how Poesie (simplie hath her praise)
That from full Joue takes her celestiall birth,
And quicke as fire, her glorious selfe can raise
Aboue this base and euitable earth…”

From: Moyses in a Map of his Miracles
By Michael Drayton, 1604

Word of the Day: TEMPORANEOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin temporaneus (timely, opportune), from tempus, tempor- (time) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…For the further clearing of which there are these two things required 
1. To shew how the necessary Functions of life may be conserved and kept up while the Soul is 
separate from the Body 
2. To consider what those things are which may cause a Temporaneous disunion and disjunction of 
the Soul from the Body First then it will not seem at all strange that the principal Functions of life 
should be performed for some time without the presence of the Soul to them who will admit of the 
principles of the Cartesian Philosophy …”

From: Melampronoea,
or, A discourse of the polity and kingdom of darkness together with a solution of the chiefest objections brought against the being of witches
By Henry Hallywell, 1681

Word of the Day: AGNATICAL

ETYMOLOGY
from agnaticus (agnatic – related through the male line) [from Latin agnatus (a relation by the father’s side) + -ic] + ‑al

EXAMPLE
“… There are but two waies by which hereditary or successive Monarchies do descend; the one is Lineal descent, the other Lineal, Agnatical, Cognatical or Collateral; or as we say, the one descends to the heire general, the other to the heire male. This latter by vertue of a Salique law takes place only in France; we will therefore see what may be said and objected against the former, and how the latter hath been observed in France, and of what Authority it is…”

From: Justice vindicated from the false fucus put upon it,
by Thomas White gent. Mr. Thomas Hobbs, and Hugo Grotius:
As also elements of power & subjection; wherein is demonstrated the cause of all humane Christian, and legal society
‘Of Inheritance and Succession’
By Roger Coke, 1660