Tag: 1810 – 1819

Word of the Day: FLISKMAHOY

ETYMOLOGY
from flisk (vb. to move about in a frolicsome way);
Jamieson gives also Fliskmahaigo with similar sense; 
the unmeaning endings may have been suggested by the place-names Dalmahoy and Lesmahago

EXAMPLE
“… Now only think what a man my brother is, Mr. Blattergowl, for a wise man and a learned man, to bring this Yerl into our house without speaking a word to a body! And there ‘s the distress of thae Mucklebackits – we canna get a fin o’ fish; and we hae nae time to send ower to Fairport for beef, and the mutton’s but new killed; and that silly fliskmahoy, Jenny Rintherout, has taen the exies, and done naething but laugh and greet, the skirl at the tail o’ the guffa, for twa days successfully; and now we maun ask that strange man, that’s as grand and as grave as the Yerl himsell, to stand at the sideboard! …”

From: The Antiquary Volume 3
By Sir Walter Scott, 1816

PRONUNCIATION
flisk-muh-HOY

Word of the Day: PLISKY

ETYMOLOGY
of obscure origin

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… They ‘re fly’d at the heart, it’l be a black Bargain for poor Scotland: for the Engleses are owr auld farren for us, and there’s little Ground to think, they ‘ll gee
us a seen Vantage wee their will, they neer liked us sae well; and its naе forgotten yet, the foul Plisk they play’d us about our Caledonia Business; …”

From: The Scottish Antiquary Or Northern Notes and Queries
Volume XII, January 1898
A Copy of a Letter from a Country Farmer To His Laird, a Member of Parliament, 1706

Word of the Day: BUBBLY-JOCK

ETYMOLOGY
from bubbly (full of bubbles) + the Scots male forename Jock 

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… there was the turkey, whom the poetical Scott calls the bubbly-jock, gobbling in the distance, with a melodious gurgle as of an oboe played softly; …”

From: With Harp and Crown, A Novel
By Walter Besant and James Rice, 1800

Word of the Day: TARDIGRADE

ETYMOLOGY
from French tardigrade (slow-paced) or from Latin tardigradus (walking slowly); from Latin tardus (slow) + -gradus (stepping, going)

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1)
“… Once more a cruelly long passage fell to my lot. The Deborah proved a marine hackney-coach of the most tardigrade order. But it could not be helped; so, like Diogenes, I resolved to be satisfied with my tub, and as for sunshine, I found it within and without! …”

From: Our Antipodes:
Or, Residence and Rambles in the Australasian Colonies.
By Lt. Colonel Godfrey Charles Mundy, 1852

Word of the Day: POCOCURANTE

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

Word of the Day: LINGUACIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin linguaci-, linguax (loquacious, talkative) (from lingua tongue + -ax [-acious]) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…These and such like starting-holes and subtilties have made of Physick a Meander, a Wildernesse, and wild labirynth of incertainty and unstable formalities. We desire the linguacious Chymistry of these heads to tell us, how many bitter things there are in taste, which neverthelesse (according to the edict of that rule) are not hot at all?  …”

From: Matæotechnia Medicinæ Praxeōs, The Vanity of the Craft of Physick
By Noah Biggs, 1651

Word of the Day: DUBEROUS

ETYMOLOGY
corruption of ‘dubious’

EXAMPLE
“…The Squire,” said he, ” hadn’t a-made him no proposal at all, and was duberous if his charackter would serve. Now, says I to myself, seeing as how the cat jumps, if so be as I steps in, before nothing and scrape of pen, where ‘s the harm ? …”

From: Lawrie Todd, or, The Settlers in the Woods
By John Galt, 1830

Word of the Day: SISTER-FOLD

ETYMOLOGY
from sister + fold (a clasp or embrace, obs.)

EXAMPLE
“…Are these of such fantastic mould,
Seen distant down the fair arcade,
These Maids enlink’d in sister-fold,
Who late at bashful distance staid,
Now tripping from the greenwood shade,
Nearer the musing champion draw,
And, in a pause of seeming awe,
Again stand doubtful now? …”

From: The Bridal of Triermain
By Walter Scott, 1813

Word of the Day: CRYPTONYMOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek κρυπτός (hidden) + ὄνοµα (name)

EXAMPLE
“…The Ballad Book. Edinb. 1 827. 8vo. Maillet, Benedict de. Telliamed, being a Translation from the French.
A cryptonymous book — Telliamed being the anagram of M. de Maillet. It consists of * Discourses between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary on the diminuation of the sea, the formation of the earth, the origin of men and animals, and other curious subjects relating to natural history and philosophy. …”

From: The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature, Vol. III
By William Thomas Lowndes, 1834