Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Arrode:

To gnaw or nibble.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Scuddle:

To scuddle. To run with a kind of affected haste or precipitation. A low word.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Affabulation:

The moral of a fable.

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

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

Monday, June 21, 2010

Gibbe:

Any old worn-out animal.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Correption:

Objurgation; chiding; reprehension; reproof.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Dandiprat:

A little fellow; an urchin: a word used sometimes in fondness, sometimes in contempt.

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.

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

Clung:

Wasted with leanness; shrunk up with cold.

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.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Hist:

An exclamation commanding silence.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Leasy:

Flimsy; of weak texture.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Kicksy-wicksey:

A made word in ridicule and disdain of a wife.

-Hanmer

Tuesday, June 1, 2010