Tag: 1870 – 1879

Word of the Day: MAB

ETYMOLOGY
n. of uncertain origin uncertain;
perhaps from the female forename Mab, shortened in Middle English from Mabel, from Amabel
vb. related to mab (a promiscuous woman), perhaps as a variant of mob (to dress oneself untidily

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Mido. Take my life for a penny, whither shall I ren?
Esau. Come out, thou little fiend, come out, thou skittish gill.
Abra. Out, alas, alas! Esau will us all kill.
Esau. And come out, thou mother Mab; out, old rotten witch!
As white as midnight’s arsehole or virgin pitch. Where be ye? come together in a cluster. …”

From: A Newe Mery and Wittie Comedie or Enterlude, Newely Imprinted, Treating vpon the Hhistorie of Iacob and Esau, 1568

Word of the Day: GOOSTRUMNOODLE

ETYMOLOGY
? from goose (a foolish person) + noodle (a stupid or silly person); second syllable unknown

EXAMPLE
“… for “The Maister” seldom came there until much later in the evening, when he knew he should find some of those peculiarly constituted individuals there, whom Alrina generally designated “goostrumnoodles,” and whom he seldom found much difficulty in frightening to his heart’s content. …”

From: The Wizard of West Penwith,
A Tale of the Land’s-End,
By William Bentinch Forfar, 1871

Word of the Day: NOBS

ETYMOLOGY
of unknown origin

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… And I haue found it trew
Drinke now whyle it is new
And ye may it broke
It shall make you loke
yonger than ye be
yeres two or thre
For ye may proue it by me
Behold she sayd and se
How bright I am of ble
Ich am not cast away
That can my husband say
Whan we kys and play
In lust and in lykyng
He calleth me his whytyng
His mullyng and his nytyng
His nobbes and his conny
His swetyng and his honny
With bas my prety bonny
Thou art worth good and monny
This make I my falyre fonny
Tyll that he dreme and dronny
For after all our sport
Than wyll he rout and suort
Than swetely togither wely
As two pygges in a sty. …”

From: Here after foloweth certayne bokes
By John Skelton, 1545
The tunnyng of Elynour Rummynge

Word of the Day: MISOGELASTIC

ETYMOLOGY
from miso- (hatred or dislike of), + Greek γελαστός (laughable) + -ic;
apparently after agelastic (never laughing, hating laughter)

EXAMPLE
“… We have in this world men whom Rabelais would call agelasts; that is to say, non-laughers; men who are in that respect as dead bodies, which if you prick them do not bleed. The old grey boulder-stone that has finished its peregrination from the rock to the valley, is as easily to be set rolling up again as these men laughing. No collision of circumstances in our mortal career strikes a light for them. It is but one step from being agelastic to misogelastic, and the μῖσογέλως, the laughter-hating, soon learns to dignify his dislike as an objection in morality. …”

From: New Quarterly Magazine, Vol. 8, 1877
On the Idea of Comedy, and of the Uses of the Comic Spirit
By George Meredith

Word of the Day: RUMBUSTICAL

ETYMOLOGY
possibly an alteration of rumbustious (boisterous, unruly);
or perhaps an alteration of obsolete English robustic (robust, robustious), 
from robust + -ic + -al

EXAMPLE
“… I will, your worship: but I am glad his honour, the Major, is not to be jocum tenus for your worship, he’s so much upon the roguish order with the women, now and ten. I did not care to mention it to your worship before; but as true as I’m alive he was a little rombustical to our Bridget, no longer ago than last Sunday was se’night, as she was coming home from church. …”

From: The Flitch of Bacon; a comic opera
By Henry Bate Dudley, 1779

Word of the Day: SEGGER

ETYMOLOGY
from segge (to say) + -er

EXAMPLE (for n.1.)
“… As yoe are a lorde most lofsom of lyre
Vndir sir Pilate that lyfis in this empire,
Ȝone segger that callis hymselffe a sire
With tresoure and tene sall we taste hym.
Of yoone losell his bale schall he brewe,
Do trottes on for that traytoure apas
In hast. …”

From: York Mysteries, c1440
The Agony and Betrayal

Word of the Day: TIB

ETYMOLOGY
perhaps the same as Tib, a shortened hypocoristic form of the female name Isabel; now rather rude or slighting (except playfully);
also with dim. -y or -ie, Tibbie, a common female name in the north

EXAMPLE
“… .Trupeny. Mary then prickmedaintie come toste me a fig,
Who shall then know our Tib Talke apace trow ye?

An. Alyface. And why not Annot Alyface as fyne as she?

Trupeny. And what had Tom Trupeny, a father or none?

An. Alyface. Then our prety newe come man will looke to be one …”

From: Ralph Roister Doister 
By Nicholas Udall, a1556

Word of the Day: APTYCOCK

ETYMOLOGY
from apt (intelligent, quick-witted) + -cock – a well-known suffix in surnames, as Alcock, Badcock;
probably from the use of ‘cock’ as a familiar term of appreciation for a man who fights with pluck and spirit

EXAMPLE
“…Tom marched away to school earlier than usual that afternoon, while the women went to the door and watched him trudge off, both mightily proud of his performance and his battered brown face.
“He be a reg’lar li’l apty-cock, sure ‘nough!” said Joan.
Mrs. Tregenza answered with a nod, and looked along the road after her son. …”

From: Collection of British Authors
Vol, 3228, 1897
Lying Prophets, By Eden Phillpotts

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

Word of the Day: AGELAST

ETYMOLOGY
from agelaste (person who never laughs),  from Greek ἀγέλαστος (agelastos – not laughing),
from ἀ- (a– having sense without) + γελασ-, stem of γελᾶν (to laugh) + ‑τος

EXAMPLE
“…But let us beware lest in our laughter we commit the very sin which raised it, for through all laughter, the most benighted, must arise primarily from an, at least, imagined comic perception, in most the maximum is on the wrong side, Over-laughing, the sin of the ‘hypergelast’ as Mr. Meredith terms him, is even less tolerable to the muse than that of the ‘agelast‘ he who
‘Show his teeth in way of smile
Though Nestor swore the jest be laughable,’
and if we are guilty of it, the muse will but send out another laughter upon ours, which in its turn may need chastening…”

From: George Meredith: Some Characteristics.
By Richard Le Gallienne, 1890
‘The Comic Muse’

PRONUNCIATION
AJ-uh-lasst