Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Quaffer:
To quaffer. (A low word, I suppose formed by chance.) To feel out. This seems to be the meaning.
"Ducks, having larger nerves that come into their bills than geese, quaffer and grope out their meat the most."
- Derham
"Ducks, having larger nerves that come into their bills than geese, quaffer and grope out their meat the most."
- Derham
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Idiotism:
Peculiarity of expression; mode of expression peculiar to a language.
"Scholars sometimes in common speech, or writing, in their native language, give terminations and idiotisms suitable to their native language unto words newly invented."
-Hale
"Scholars sometimes in common speech, or writing, in their native language, give terminations and idiotisms suitable to their native language unto words newly invented."
-Hale
Monday, June 21, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Cento:
A composition formed by joining scrapes from other authors.
"If any man think the poem a cento, our poet will but have done the same in jest which Boileau did in earnest."
-Advertisement to Pope's Dunciad.
"If any man think the poem a cento, our poet will but have done the same in jest which Boileau did in earnest."
-Advertisement to Pope's Dunciad.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Flit:
To remove. To migrate. In Scotland it is still used for removing from one place to another at quarter day, or the usual term.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Crab:
It is used by way of contempt for any sour or degenerate fruit; as a crab cherry, or a crab plum.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Mountebank:
A doctor that mounts a bench in the market, and boasts his infallible remedies and cures.
"She, like a mountebank, did wound
And stab herself with doubts profound.
Only to shew with how small pain
The sores of faith are cur'd again."
-Houdibras, p.i.
"She, like a mountebank, did wound
And stab herself with doubts profound.
Only to shew with how small pain
The sores of faith are cur'd again."
-Houdibras, p.i.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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