Tag: 1700 – 1799

Word of the Day: STIVER-CRAMPED


ETYMOLOGY
– a stiver was a small coin (originally silver) of the Low Countries:
applied to the nickel piece of 5 cents of the Netherlands


EXAMPLE
“…as, according to a very nice calculation, that cutaneous reservoir, vulgarly called the breeches-pocket, and notorious for its unaffected sympathy with the animal spirits, will be stiver-cramped: I shall then indulge them with a touch of the sublime!…”

From: The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of James Molesworth Hobart
By N. Dralloc, 1794

Word of the Day: GRIEVEMENT

ETYMOLOGY
from grieve + -ment

EXAMPLE
“…The manner of his Marching forth,
Some Authors tell us, and his Worth,
His Stature, Courage, Strength and Age,
His Armour and his Equipage,
His Warlike Feats in former Days,
Perform’d in Scotch and Gallick Frays,
His Battels won and great Atchievments,
Wounds, Bruises, Bangs, and other Grievments;
Which Happen’d oft to be his Fate,
For no Man’s always Fortunate:
All which I leave to Ancient story;
Now see the end of all his Glory…”

From: England’s Reformation from the time of King Henry VIII to the End of Oates’s Plot,
A Poem in Four Canto’s
By Thomas Ward, 1708

Word of the Day: VAUDIE

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin;
possibly an altered form of vandie, vauntie

EXAMPLE
“…How lang shall our land thus suffer distresses,
Whilst traitors, and strangers, and tyrants oppress us!
How lang shall our old, and once brave warlike nation,
Thus tamely submit to a base usurpation?
Thus must we be sad, whilst the traitors are vaudie,
Till we get a sight of our ain bonnie laddie…”

From: Jacobite Songs, 1871
How Lang Shall Our Land
By William Meston,

Word of the Day: AVITOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin avītus of or pertaining to the avus (grandfather) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Being a leucothiop, he was not even a mediocrist, but a mere polypragmatical hafter or barrator. His inscience of avitous justicements, and of lexicology, his perissology and battology, imparted to his tractation of his cause, an imperspecuity which rendered it immomentous to the juratory audients…”

From: Letters to Squire Pedant in the East
Letter No. IX, 1843
By Lorenzo Altisonant (pseudonym Samuel Klinefelter Hoshour),
an Emigrant to the West, 1856

Word of the Day: LACHRYMABUND

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin lacrimābundus (weeping, in tears),
from lacrimāre (to shed tears) + -bundus

EXAMPLE
“…that I must soon inevitably succumb, unless you most charitably applicate the balsamic lenitives of complyance to your most agonized,
and lachrymabund slave,
TIMOTHY BLUNDERBUSS…”

From: The Adventures of Jerry Buck
By John Slade, 1754

Word of the Day: MONNISHER

ETYMOLOGY
probably from Angloromani (English Romani) mónoshi (woman, wife),
from Romani månuš (man) + -ī (feminine suffix)

EXAMPLE
“…I was standing near the prosecutor’s shew-glass, talking to a young man; the prisoner and another came to the glass, where I saw the medal lying: I saw them point at it; the other said, it would just do for him, and bid the prisoner look who was in the shop; he answered there was a Monisher in the shop; I suppose a cant word for a woman: Mrs. Storey was there: they went in; then I went into the house where I live; they came out in about three or four minutes: I went after them to the corner, and saw them running along Leicester-fields as fast as they could: I came back, and asked Mrs. Storey whether that medal was gold? she said it was she looked, and it was gone…”

From: The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court
18th September, 1765