Tag: 1880 – 1889

Word of the Day: NEVER-SWEAT

ETYMOLOGY
from never + sweat

EXAMPLE
“… This would be received with peals of laughter, and followed by a general repetition of the same cry. Next, a hundred and fifty cat-calls of the shrillest possible description would almost split the ears. These would be succeeded by cries of ” Strike up, you catgut scrapers,” ” Go on with your barrow,” ” Flare up, my never-sweats,” and a variety of other street sayings. Indeed, the uproar which went on before the meeting began will be best understood if we compare it to the scene presented by a public menagerie at feeding time. …”

From: London Labour and the London Poor;
A cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work,
By Henry Mayhew, 1851

Word of the Day: DOSSY

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
Scots has doss (neat, spruce) and dossie (a sprucely dressed person)

EXAMPLE (for adj.)
“… I’ll tell you where they’ll get the pull of us,” (this very confidentially and in my ear.)
“There ain’t no weather down there,” (pointing to asphalt with this whip), “and what with the ladies’ bonnets and blokes’ dossy hats, that’s a big matter. …”

From: The Daily Colonist
Victoria, BC, Sunday September 2 1900

Word of the Day: BLANDANDER

ETYMOLOGY
probably an alteration of blandish (to charm or flatter in order to entice, etc.), perhaps after philander;
apparently intended as a form characteristic of Irish English; (Irish blanndar (dissimulation, flattery))

EXAMPLE
“… He looked at me wearily; his eyes were sunk in his head, and his face was drawn and white. ‘Eyah!’ said he; ‘I’ve blandandhered thim through the night somehow, but can thim that helps others help thimsilves? Answer me that, sorr!’…”

From: Soldiers Three
By Joseph Rudyard Kipling, 1888
With the Main Guard

Word of the Day: PERENDINATE

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin perendinat-, past participial stem of perendinare (to defer until the day after tomorrow, to postone for a day) from perendinus ((the day) after to-morrow), from perendie (on the day after to-morrow) + -inus, or from peren- + din- (day)

EXAMPLE (for vb. 1.)
The chairman of the board perendinated the meeting so that all members would be able to attend.

Word of the Day: POLYMATH

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek πολυµαθής (having learnt much), from πολυ- (poly-, much) + μάθη (learning) from the base of µανθάνειν (to learn)

EXAMPLE (for n.)
“… To be counted writers, scriptores ut Salutentur, to be thought and held Polumathes and Polyhistors, apud imperitum vulgus ob ventosæ nomem artis, to get a paper-kingdom: nulla spe quæstus sed ampla famæ, in this precipitate, ambitious age, nunc ut est sæculum, inter immaturam eruditionem, ambitiosum et præceps (’tis Scaliger’s censure); and they that are scarce auditors, vix auditores, must be masters and teachers, before they be capable and fit hearers. …”

From: The Anatomy of Melancholy 
By Robert Burton, 1624

Word of the Day: FRABBLE

ETYMOLOGY
n. of unknown origin
vb. diminutive or frequentative of frab (to harass, worry)

EXAMPLE (for n.)
“… And those more refined Arians, how near they were to the Truth, or how near they might be understood to have come to the Truth, and that it might be proved to be rather a frabble of words than a distinct disagreement of senses, it were too operose a matter to declare here. How much some Fathers have cryed out against the over-much curiosity of Definitions by Councils, History will teach us. …”

From: Paralipomena Prophetica containing several supplements and defences of Dr Henry More his expositions of the Prophet Daniel and the apocalypse
By Henry More, 1685

Word of the Day: RIGGISH

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin
n. 1. possibly from rig (a wanton girl or woman)

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1.)
“… As it is to be seene, namely at Rome, what reuenues and rents, that great and soueraign ruffian getteth by his whoores. And afterward of the drouning and killing of children, and secretly murthering, and casting in corners and ditches, as is vsually practised amongst these riggish and lecherous prelates. …”

From:  Jan van der Noot’s Theatre, wherein be represented the miseries that follow the Voluptuous Worldings
By Jan van der Noot
Translated by Theodore Roest, 1569

Word of the Day: GLADSTONIZE

ETYMOLOGY
from the alleged characteristics of British Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, 1809-1898

EXAMPLE
“… Before the capitalist proprietors woke up to our game and cleared us out, the competition of the Star, which was immensely popular under what I may call the Fabian regime, had encouraged a morning daily, the Chronicle, to take up the run¬ nings and the Star, when it tried to go back, found that it could not do so further than to Gladstonize its party politics. …”

From: Fabian Tract No. 41
The Fabian Society: It’s Early History
By G. Bernard Shaw, 1892

Word of the Day: ERGOPHOBIA

ETYMOLOGY
from Greek ἔργον (work) + -phobia

EXAMPLE
“… to which might be added ergophobia, or mobid shrinking from active effort of every sort, etc. But these expressions add very little to definiteness of description. …”

From: Essentials of the Principles and Practice of Medicine
A Handbook for Students and Practitioners
By Henry Hartshorne, 1881
Part I, Principles of Medicine. Section I. General Pathology
Neuro-Pathology

Word of the Day: FRIMPLE-FRAMPLE

ETYMOLOGY
of obscure origin;
possibly from frample (to put in disorder)

EXAMPLE
“… This is the laund that bigs the winds; winds big the cloods; 
the cloods, the weit, the weit, the grun; an antrin steer 
o syle an rain. Thon frimple-frample watter rowin 
frae Kenmore tae Dundee is cried the River Tay. …”

From: Wild Mushrooms: Writings
By Kate Armstrong, 1993