Tag: 1800 -1809

Word of the Day: NEEDLE-SPITTER

ETYMOLOGY
from needle (n.) + spitter (a person who spits)

EXAMPLE
“… At the instant I entered, all the parties were engaged in combat, and my landlady – a perfect needle-spitter – stood with a face like Gorgon, with the iron frying pan in her uplifted hands eagerly waiting to cut down the too powerful knight of the hammer…”

From: The Sporting Magazine,
Or Monthly Calendar of The Transactions of The Turf, The Chace, 
And Every Other Diversion Interesting to the Man of Pleasure, Enterprise, and Spirit
Vol. 25. For March, 1805
‘A Ramble; From Tiverton to Exeter’

Word of the Day: OLFACT

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin olfact-, ppl. stem of olfacere (to smell)

EXAMPLE
“…The Indian is indeed light, but black and amare; the Syrian is flave, tuberous, to the gust acrimonious, to the olfact fragrant. The Arabians constitute onely two sorts thereof, the amare, and the sweet. And Clusius thinks there is but one kinde of Costus, and that it is onely called sweet, in reference to the more amare and acrimonious. Such a difference as this in sapour, we daily experience in Plants, which while fresh and new, are more sweet and suave; when inveterate, croded with worms, and corrupted, more amare, acrimonious, and insuave…”

From: A Medicinal Dispensatory
Of such Medicinal Materials as are requisite for Compositions made and kept in Apothecaries Shops
By  J. de Renou
Translated by Richard Tomlinson, 1657

Word of the Day: MALLIFUFF

ETYMOLOGY
from Mallie (= English Molly (a girl,. a woman)) + fuff (something easily blown about, a puff)

EXAMPLE
“…And what for should I not be early abroad if I have business? Am I like one of your windlestrae mallifuff madams that cannot stir from their arm-chair till they are drammed up with their green-tea?…”

From: Elizabeth de Bruce
By Christian Isobel Johnstone, 1827

Word of the Day: SMELLFUNGUS

ETYMOLOGY
after Smelfungus, a hypercritical traveller in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768) by Laurence Sterne (died 1768 British novelist), who intended this character to satirize Tobias Smollett (died 1771 British novelist) for his descriptions in Travels through France and Italy (1766)

EXAMPLE
“…I was, however, much pleased to see that red maintains its ground against all other colors, because red is the color of Mr. Jefferson’s ********, Tom Paine’s nose, and my slippers. Let the grumbling smellfungi of this world, who cultivate taste among books, cobwebs, and spiders, rail at the extravagance of the age; for my part, I was delighted with the magic of the scene, and as the ladies tripped through the mazes of the dance, sparkling and glowing and dazzling, I, like the honest Chinese, thanked them heartily for the jewels and finery with which they loaded themselves, merely for the entertainment of bystanders, and blessed my stars that I was a bachelor…”

From: Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, (pseudonym) Esq. and Others
By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving, 1807

Word of the Day: YESTERN

ETYMOLOGY
? partly a) (in English editions of Scots texts) a variant or alteration of yestreen (adv. during the evening of yesterday), after yester (adv. yesterday); and partly
b) a variant or alteration of yester (adv.), yester (n.), and yester (adj.), respectively

EXAMPLE
“…Now wat ye wha I met yestern,
Coming down the street, my jo?
My mistress in her tartan screen,
For bony, braw and sweet, my Jo…”

From: Allan Ramsay in Aviary, 1745
‘Edinburgh Kate’

Word of the Day: HONEY-DROP

ETYMOLOGY
from honey + drop

EXAMPLE
“…The younges brother he stepped in,
            Took’s sister by the hand;
            Said, Here she is, my sister Maisry,
            Wi the hinny-draps on her chin.
             ‘O if I were in some bonny ship,
            And in some strange countrie,
            For to find out some conjurer,
            To gar Maisry speak to me!’…”

From: Bondsey and Maisry
in English and Scottish Popular Ballads
By Francis Child, 1886

Word of the Day: DOITRIFIED

ETYMOLOGY
blend of doited (having the faculties impaired by age) and petrified

EXAMPLE
“…“What passed, say ye? O, there wasna muckle: I was in a great passion, but she was dung doitrified a wee. When she gaed to put the key i’ the door, up it flew to the fer wa’. ‘Bless ye, jaud, what’s the meaning o’ this?’ quo she. ‘Ye hae left the door open, ye tawpie!’ quo she.…”

From: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
By James Hogg, 1824

Word of the Day: PIPPIN-HEARTED

ETYMOLOGY
from pippin, from Anglo-Norman pepin, pepine, popin and Middle French pepin (seed or pip of a fleshy fruit), possibly a derivative of a Romance base meaning ‘small’

EXAMPLE
“…and were put under the command of very valiant tailors and man-milliners, who, though on ordinary occasions the meekest, pippin-hearted little men in the world, were very devils at parades and court-martials, when they had cocked hats on their heads, and swords by their sides…”

From: A History of New York,
From the Beginning of the World to the end of the Dutch Dynasty
By Washington Irving, 1809