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
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
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
ETYMOLOGY
from carrion (the human body) + case (a covering)
EXAMPLE
“He wore a tight, white, long-sleeved, button-up carrion-case.”
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
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
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
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
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
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
Lexicophilia 