Tag: 1810 – 1819

Word of the Day: SYNONYMICON

ETYMOLOGY
from synonym + –icon, after lexicon

EXAMPLE
“…these were interspersed with original definitions of some contiguous terms peculiar to ourselves. His neat and useful, though not wholly trustworthy, book attained a second edition in 1783. It will not be superseded by the subsequent but inferior attempt of Mrs. Piozzi. Blair has deposited in his Rhetoric, and Dawson in his Philologia anglica, some further contributions to an english synonymicon …”

From: English Synonyms Discriminated
Introduction
By William Taylor, 1813

Word of the Day: ARTOPHAGOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἀρτοϕάγος (bread-eating) [from ρτο-, combining form of ἄρτος (bread) + ‑ϕάγος (eating)] + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… —give him a loaf, Tom] Again! Our old writers are never weary of this jest. In the ‘Rebellion,’ by Rawlins, allusions to this artophagous propensity of the tailors occur in almost every page…”

From: The Works of Ben Jonson
Edited by W. Gifford, Volume the Fifth, 1816
‘The Staple of News’

Word of the Day: IDIOTICON

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἰδιωτικόν, neut. sing. of ἰδιωτικός (idiōtikos – private, unprofessional, ordinary);
taken in the sense of peculiar to oneself

EXAMPLE
“…The one Idea which gives the Tone to each play not seldom implied in the Titles, which deserve to be mentioned as an Idioticon of Shakespears…”

From: Coleridge’s Lectures 1808–19: On Literature, 1987

Word of the Day: IMBRIFEROUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin imbrifer (from imber (a shower))

EXAMPLE
“…at a time when large mountainous cumulostrati and cumuli appear more stationary, somewhat higher up, and when flimsy features of cirrostratus, cirrocumulus, and cirrus are visible in a region still more elevated. When this Scud is abundant we may be sure the imbriferous quality of the atmosphere remains, and we may expect a return of the showers…”

From: Researches about Atmospheric Phaenomena
By Thomas Forster, 1815

Word of the Day: PODGER

ETYMOLOGY
for n. 1. – a variant of pottinger
for n. 2, 3, 4 – from podge (anything short or thick)  + ‑er 

EXAMPLE
“…He cannot deal the knock-me-down blows of Old Brough, and if you watch your opportunity you may give him a podger. I am seldom in a cause of any consequence before him without getting into some squabble with him…”

From: Life of John, Lord Campbell, 1881,
Letter dated 9 March, 1816

Word of the Day: BEFLUM

ETYMOLOGY
from be- + flum;
perhaps influenced by Scots blaflum, bleflum (to cajole)

EXAMPLE
“…that are but ill settled yet, till they durst na on ony errand whatsoever gang ower the door-stane after gloaming, for fear John Heatherblutter, or some siccan dare-the diel, should tak a baff at them: then, on the hand, I beflum’d them wi’ Colonel Talbot – wad they offer to keep up the price again the Duke’s friend? did na they ken wha was master?…”

From: Waverley; or, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since,
By Walter Scott, 1814

Word of the Day: DEMULCEATE

ETYMOLOGY
irreg. formed on Latin demulcere (to stroke down, to soothe caressingly) + -ate

EXAMPLE
“…Gallantry, sir, (said he, turning to me) or the exalted science of demulceating the amiable reservedness, and overcoming the attractive pudicity, of the gentler sex, by the display of rare and excellent endowments, was a discipline worthy of the accomplished chevaliers of these most memorable eras …”

From: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
Volume I, April – September, 1817
Fragment of a Literary Romance

Word of the Day: CULLIBLE

ETYMOLOGY
from the Oxford English Dictionary:
“This adjective, which is presupposed in the derivative cullibility (known 1728), would normally be derived from a verb cull ; but none such is recorded”

EXAMPLE
“…The cullibity of man praeterite, I allow, but because men are & have been cullible, I see no reason why shd always continue so, – Have there not been fluctuations in the opinions of mankind; and as the stuff which soul is made of must be in every one the same …”

From: The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Edited by Frederick Lafayette Jones, 1964,
– Shelley to Hogg, January 12, 1811