Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Snicker:

To laugh slily, wantonly, or contemptuously; to laugh into one's sleeve.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Absonous:

Absurd, contrary to reason.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Inmate:

Inmates are those that be admitted to dwell for their money jointly with another man, though in several rooms of his mansion-house, passing in and out by one door.

-Cowell.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Dilucidate:

To make clear or plain: to explain; to free from obscurity.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Atter:

Corrupt matter. A word much used in Lincolnshire.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Anthropophaginian:

A ludicrous word, formed by Shakespeare from anthropophagi, for the sake of a formidable sound.

"Go, knock, and call; he'll speak like an anthropophaginian unto thee; knock I say."

-Shakespeare The Merry Wives of Windsor

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Urchin:

(1) A hedge-hog.

(2) A name of slight anger to a child.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Scurrilous:

Grossly opprobrious; using such language as only the licence of a buffoon can warrant; loudly jocular; vile; low.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Fub:

A plump chubby boy.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Kingsevil:

A scrofulous distemper, in which the glands are ulcerated, commonly believed to be cured by the touch of the king.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Tory:

(A cant term, derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.) One who adheres to the antient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig.

"The knight is more a tory in the country than the town, because it more advances his interest."

-Addison.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Paraphernalia:

Goods in the wife's disposal.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Linguacious:

Full of tongue; loquacious; talkative.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Irregular:

Not being according to the laws of virtue. A soft word for vitious.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Exantalate:

(1) To draw out.

(2)To exhaust; to waste away.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Fit:

A paroxysm or exacerbation of any intermittent distemper.

It is used without an epithet of discrimination, for the hysterical disorders of women, and the convulsions of children; and by the vulgar for the epilepsy.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Distiller:

One who makes and sells pernicious and inflammatory spirits.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Punster:

A quibbler; a low wit who endeavors at reputation by double meaning.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Chouse:

To cheat; to trick; to impose upon.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Mushroom:

An upstart; a wretch risen from a dunghill; a director of a company.

"Mushrooms come up in a night, and yet they are unsown; and therefore such as are upstarts in state, they call in reproach mushrooms."

-Bacon's Natural History.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Insult:

The act of leaping upon any thing. In this sense it has the accent on the last syllable: the sense is rare.

"The bull's insult at four she may sustain,
But after ten from nuptiles rites refrain"

-Dryden's Virgil.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Regrate:

To offend; to shock.

"The clothing of the tortoise and viper rather regrateth than pleaseth the eye."

-Derham's Physico-Theology.

(2) To engross; to forestal.

"Neither should they buy any corn, unless it were to make malt thereof; for by such engrossing and regrating, the dearth, that commonly reigneth in England, hath been caused."

-Spencer.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Qualm:

A sudden fit of sickness; a sudden seizure of sickly languor.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Blench:

To hinder; to obstruct.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Nomancy:

The art of divining the fates of persons by the letters that form their name.