Tag: 1830 – 1839

Word of the Day: SERVIGROUS

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
possibly an alteration of savagerous (barbarously savage); perhaps influenced by vigorous

EXAMPLE
“… It now came to Spivey’s turn. There was nothing remarkable in his person or manner. He took his place, lowered his rifle slowly from a perpendicular, until it came on a line with the mark — held it there like a vise for a moment, and fired.
” Pretty sevigrous, but nothing killing yet,” said Billy Curlew, as he learned the place of Spivey’s ball. …”

From: Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. : in the first half century of the republic,
By Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, 1835
“The Shooting Match”

PRONUNCIATION
suhr-VIGH-gruhss

Word of the Day: CANTANKERATE

ETYMOLOGY
from cantankerous

EXAMPLE
“… I never see’d a convart made by that way yet; but I’ll tell you what I have see’d, a man set his own flock a doubtin by his own writin. You may happify your enemies, cantankerate your opponents, and injure your own cause by it, but I defy you to sarve it. …”

From: The Clockmaker,
Or, Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick, of Slickville,
By Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 1836

Word of the Day: AGATHOKAKOLOGICAL

ETYMOLOGY
from. Greek ἀγαθός (agathos – good) + κακός (kakos – bad) + -logical

EXAMPLE
“… There may be an opposite fault; for indeed upon the agathokakological globe there are opposite qualities always to be found in parallel degrees, north and south of the equator. …”

From: The Doctor &c.
By Robert Southey

PRONUNCIATION
ag-uh-thoh-kack-uh-LOJ-uh-kuhl

Word of the Day: CACOPHONIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from cacophonie, from Greek kakophonia from kakophonos from kakos (bad) + phone (sound)

EXAMPLE
“… ”Every thing,” said she, ”depends on the sound of the name. He would be ruined forever, should I call him by any low, vulgar, or common-sounding name. It must be something lofty and cacophonious. Jupiter? Let me see-— Jupiter was the Gineral of the heathen gods— so that won’t do. …”

From: The Life and Adventures of Dr. Dodimus Duckworth
By Asa Greene, 1833

Word of the Day: LIVER-FACED

ETYMOLOGY
from liver (the bodily organ regarded as the seat of cowardice (usually characterized as light-coloured or white), obs.) + faced

EXAMPLE
“… “Only a little crack’d, ever since that one-eyed, liver-faced spalpeen came athurt us – a hard hiccup to his dying speech!“

“What one-eyed, liver-faced spalpeen do you mean?” asked Elwin.
“Did I say them words then, your honor ?” said Tade, ” ’cause if I did, I must be dreamin’, for divil sich a parson I ever see, since my mother weaned me.” …”

From: The Prediction
By Isabella Steward, 1834

Word of the Day: COLLOQUACIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin colloqui + –acious, after loquacious

EXAMPLE
“… What importance can be attached to the ipse divits of soliloquising Philosophy, when compared to the issue of those phrenological bumps which are developed by a numerous society of colloquacious philosophers knocking their heads together? What is the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, when compared with the volume of Reports just published by the C.N. K.C.? Is it not as the great clumsy castings of the Southwark lron Bridge, compared with the ferruginous refinements of the smithery, in which the bellows, the hammer, and the file, co-operate; …”

From: Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country
Vol, XVI. July to December 1837
Blue Friar Pleasantries
No. XV. Report of a Visit to the Consolidated National Knowledge Company

Word of the Day: UMBRACIOUS

ETYMOLOGY
irregular from Latin umbra (shade, shadow) + -acious

EXAMPLE
“… About the same period also an approach was made, by altering and levelling the ground, and planted with elms, sycamores, and chestnuts on each side, which have already become very umbracious, and will in the course of a few more years, when he who planted them rests beneath their shade, form a stately avenue. …”

From: The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme
By William Brocklehurst Stonehouse, 1839

Word of the Day: DUBITATE

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin dubitat-, participial stem of dubitare (to doubt)

EXAMPLE
“… as it shall now fare with him, the whole Future may be this way or be that. If, for example, he were to loiter dubitating, and not come; if he were to come, and fail: the whole Soldiery of France to blaze into mutiny. …”

From: The French Revolution: a History
By Thomas Carlyle, 1837

Word of the Day: MIFF-MAFF

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin;
possibly from maffle (to talk or act in a silly manner)

EXAMPLE
“… If I had a souple-jack in my hand, wouldn’t I ken whaar to lay it. Don’t ye stand there ogglin’ like a gowk, ye strackle-brain’d scollops! Not a word out o yer head. I’ll hae nane o’ yer miff-maff here. Sarts! it’s bonny doins; fires out, and narra pittayta, and the best pou’t o’ the lot stole, and you sittin’ here croodlin’ in a scog! …”

From: The Shorter Works of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Bird of Passage, 1838