ETYMOLOGY
from Latin vigilat-, ppl. stem of vigilare (to remain awake)
EXAMPLE
“… Mountain Hawkweed with long slender stalks and small flowers. The flowers are in their expanded or vigilating state from five or six in the morning till about ten. …”
From: Philosophical Transactions
Volume L. Part II. For the Year 1758
Printed 1759
“Some Observations upon the Sleep of Plants”
ETYMOLOGY
Italian, poco curante, (caring little), from poco (a little, rather) + curante (present participle of curare (to care)); from Latin curare (to cure, to heal), ? from the name of Seigneur Pococurante, a fictional apathetic Venetian senator in Voltaire’s Candide (1759)
EXAMPLE
“…Leave we my mother – (truest of all the Poco-curante’s of her sex!) – careless about it, as about every thing else in the world which concerned her; – that is, – indifferent whether it was done this way or that, – provided it was but done at all …”
From: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
By Laurence Sterne, 1762
PRONUNCIATION
poh-koh-kyuh-RAN-tee
ETYMOLOGY
from cloth + market
EXAMPLE
“…Neverout. Miss, your Slave: I hope your early Rising will do you no Harm. I hear you are but just come out of the Cloth-Market.
Miss. I always rise at Eleven, whether it be Day or no.
Col. Miss, I hope you are up for all Day?
Miss. Yes, if I don’t get a Fall before Night …”
From: A complete collection of genteel and ingenious conversation, according to the most polite mode and method now used at court, and in the best companies of England,
By Jonathan Swift, 1738
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin vilior, comparative of vilis (vile) + -ate; after meliorate
EXAMPLE
“…Secondly, that there is a medium in the watery temperature of the earth, either extream of
which viliorates the juice, where there is not an equal heat of the sun or fatness in the earth to correct the juices of the superluxuriant grass. …”
From: Observations in Husbandry
By Edward Lisle, a1722
ETYMOLOGY
from Gaelic leanabh (baby, infant, child)
EXAMPLE
“…Ye’s neir pe pidden work a turn
At ony kind o’ spin, mattam,
But shug your lenno in a scull,
And tidel highland sing, mattam;
Had awa’, had awa’,
Had awa’ frae me, Donald;
Your jogging sculls and highland sang
Will sound but harsh wi’ me, Donald. …”
From: Scotish Song
By Joseph Ritson, 1714
Song XI. Had Awa’ Frae Me, Donald
ETYMOLOGY
apparently from Scots ram- (used with intensive force before words which generally imply something forcible, vigorous or disorderly) + the second element is obscure;
but perhaps feeze (to beat, to ‘do for’ – Eng dial.) + ‑le + ‑ed
EXAMPLE
“…The tappetless, ramfeezl’d hizzie,
She’s saft at best, an’ something lazy:
Quo’ she, ‘Ye ken we’ve been sae busy
‘This month an’ mair,
That trouth, my head is grown right dizzie,
An’ something sair.’ …”
From: Poems,
By Robert Burns, 1786
Epistle to J. L*****K,
An Old Scottish Bard.
April 21, 1785
ETYMOLOGY
from same (adj.) + -ly
EXAMPLE
“…and by making judicious openings, so as to break straight lines, and separate parts that were in some places too heavy and samely: so that the same extent of land has now not only a much larger appearance, but exhibits a much greater variety of ground …”
From: Transactions of the Society of instituted at London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce;
with Premiums offered in the Year 1799. Vol. XVII.
ETYMOLOGY
possibly a variant of prickle (vb.)
EXAMPLE
“…I’ll gar your Daup dirle. Footnote: prinkle, smart. …”
From: A complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs
By James Kelly, 1721
ETYMOLOGY
from Latin nemorivagus (that wanders in the woods) + -ous
EXAMPLE
She had enough problems living so close to the forest and keeping track of her nemorivagous child.
ETYMOLOGY
from pam ( a card-game in which the knave of trumps was the highest trump card) + child
EXAMPLE
“…Yet rake I am, and abominably so, for a person that begins to wrinkle reverently. I have sat up twice this week till between two and three with the Duchess of Grafton, at loo, who, by the way, has got a pam-child this morning; and on Saturday night I supped with Prince Edward at my Lady Rochford’s, and we stayed till half an hour past three…”
From: The Letters of Horace Walpole
Volume 3, Letter 9 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Jan. 14, 1760
Lexicophilia 