Tag: 1830 – 1839

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

Word of the Day: QUISBY

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
possibly from quiz (n.) + -by

EXAMPLE
“… Alibi. What wou’d I do then?
Air. Aye, Sir, what wou’d you do then?
Soph. Cou’dn’t he push a little feeble old quisby like you down into a chair?
Alibi, How, pray?
Soph. Shew him how, Robin?
Air. Why there – (puts him into a chair) Just that way
Alibi. Well, now Old Quisby’s down in the chair – what wou’d he do then?…”

From: The Toy
By John O’Keeffe, 1789

Word of the Day: SIT-UPONS

ETYMOLOGY
from sit (vb.) + upon (prep.), after to sit upon

EXAMPLE
“… I need scarcely say that he kept a tiger, and that the tiger was a perfect model of a brute. He wore a sky-blue coat with silver buttons, a pink-striped waistcoat, green plush sit-upons, and flesh-coloured silks in-doors; out of doors the lower garments were exchanged for immaculate white doeskins, and topboots — virgin Woodstocks on his hands, and a glazed hat upon his head with forty-two yards of silver-thread upon it to loop up the brims to two silver buttons. …”

From: Peter Priggins, The College Scout
By Theodore Hook, 1841

Word of the Day: BUCOLISM

ETYMOLOGY
from bucol-ic + -ism

EXAMPLE
“…The attempt produces a farrago which, in point of Greek, is disgraceful to the reputation of the University; for what can be more lamentably absurd than to see the lowest” bucolisms” of Theocritus thrust in as the necessities of a Sapphic ode require? The Greek Professor might very profitably publish a canon on this subject. …”

From: Introductions to the study of the Greek classic poets
By Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1830

Word of the Day: EPICHORIAL

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἐπιχώριος (in or of the country) (from ἐπί- (epi-) + χώρα (country) + ‑ιος) + -al

EXAMPLE
“…this double suffering will shortly be succeeded by a very peculiar, perfectly epichorial, and most distracting method of separating dust from carpets (of which more anon); while you must, at all times, be prepared for the infernal bagpipe, modulated by the blind for the benefit of the deaf, to say nothing of the stridulous flute, which it hath pleased Pan, Apollo, or Nemesis, hitherto to restrain to the classical region of the college. …”

From: The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal
Volume 3, 1833
“The City of the Clyde”
Letter from Henry d’Arcy, Esq., to Charles Vernon, Esq.

Word of the Day: BLAGUE

ETYMOLOGY
noun: from the French
verb: French blaguer, from the noun

EXAMPLE
“…In later editions of The French Revolution Carlyle did not alter a word of his original account. Instead, he added directly to the main text a new concluding paragraph correcting Barere’s story, which he terms a ‘masterpiece; the largest, most inspiring piece of blague manufactured, for some centuries, by any man or nation. As such, and not otherwise, be it henceforth memorable’…”

From: The French Revolution
By Thomas Carlyle, 1839