Tag: 1600 – 1699

Word of the Day: FROPPISH

ETYMOLOGY
? from frop, variant of frap (to strike, to beat) + -ish

EXAMPLE
“…God doth usually, if not constantly, break their wills by de∣nying them, as one would cross a froward. Child of his stub∣born humour: or else puts a sting into them, that a man had been as good he had been without them, as a man would give a thing to a froppish Child, but it may be with a knock on his Fingers, and a frown to boot.…”

From: Christian letters full of spiritual instructions tending to the promoting of the power of godliness, both in person and families.
By Joseph Alleine, 1659

Word of the Day: NOVERCAL

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin novercalis (characteristic of a stepmother),
from noverca stepmother + -ālis (-al)

EXAMPLE
“…But Fortune that lends her smiles as Exctors do mony, to undoe the Debtor, soone cald for the Principall and Interest from this Prince, to whom she was meerly Novercall, and he might well call her with the expert Heros …”

From: The History of the Life and Reigne of Richard the Third
By Sir George Buck, 1646

Word of the Day: HOG-GRUBBER

ETYMOLOGY
from hog + grubber (a person who gets wealth by sordid or contemptible methods)

EXAMPLE
“…The next that in our little Ease,
Came to be bit with Lice and Fleas,
Was a spruce Knave, like none of these, But sober,

As the Strand May-pole, – he did go,
In russe, – His thumb th’row ring, did show
A Gentleman seal’d, – for he was no Hog-grubber:

It was a Petty-fogging Varlet,
Whose back worse freez, but burn no scarlet,
And was tane napping with his Harlot, At noddy: …”

From: The Counter-Scuffle
Whereunto is added, the Counter-Ratt
By Robert Speed, 1626

Word of the Day: PEDISSEQUOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin pedisequus (following on foot, a foot-follower), 
from pedi- (foot) + -sequus (following), sequī (to follow)

EXAMPLE
“…not onely melancholical and contumacious ones, but viscid and pituitous also, which sometimes put on the habit of Melancholly, and some adust bilious humours: and therefore we adde Rhabarb and Turbith, that we may with the Melancholical Captain-humour, educe the Pituitous, his companion inseparable, and also the Bilious, which is pedissequous.
And because this Medicament most respects melancholy, we have selected black Hellebore for this black humour; rejecting the white, as more convenient for Phlegm…”

From: A Medicinal Dispensatory: Containing the Whole Body of Physick
By Jean de Renou
Translated by Richard Tomlinson, 1657
The Apothecaries Shop: Of Liquid Electuaries

Word of the Day: GADZOOKS!

ETYMOLOGY
from gad (used to express strong feeling) + zooks (origin unknown)

EXAMPLE
“…Buz. Ile first take tother cup, and then out with’t altogether—And now it comes—If my Mistress do bring him home a bastard, she’s but even with him.

Nat. He has one I warrant. Has he cadzooks?…”

From: The English Moor or the Mock-Marriage,
in Five Nevv Playes, viz. The English Moor. The Love-sick Court. Covent Garden Eeeded. The New Academy. The Queen and Concubine,
By Richard Brome, 1659

Word of the Day: SARCASMOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from sarcasm + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Like th’ Hebrew-calf, and down before it
The Saints fell prostrate, to adore it.
So say the Wicked—and will you
Make that Sarcasmous Scandal true.
By running after Dogs and Bears,
Beasts more unclean than Calves or Steers?…”

From: Hudibras: in three parts, the first part
By Samuel Butler, 1663

Word of the Day: VERILOQUOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin veriloquus (speaking truly)

EXAMPLE
“…Those ungrateful disingenuous Galenists (who always resisting the truth, set this Brazenface on work deceitfully to oppose Haematias.) contrived heretofore a scurrilous Pamphlet against a veriloquous treatise of mine, (namely A Chymical tryal of the Galenists) and injoyned Johnson their Pseudo-Chymist to patronize it…”

From: A Letter Sent to Mr. H. Stubbe,
By George Thomson, 1672
‘Animadversions on Mr. Stubbe’s Answer’