Friday, July 30, 2010

Conycatch:

To catch a cony, is, in the old cant of thieves, to cheat; to bite; to trick.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Recreant

Cowardly; meanspirited; subdued; crying out for mercy; recanting out of fear.

"Thou Must, as a foreign recreant, be led With manacles along our street."

-Shakespeare

Monday, July 26, 2010

Jackalent:

A simple sheepish fellow.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Nugacity:

Futility; trifling talk or behavior.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Meeting-house:

A place where dissenters assemble to worship.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Lag:

(1) The lowest class; the rump; the fag end.

"The rest of your foes, O gods, the senators of Athens, together with the common lag of people, what is amiss is in them, make suitable for destruction."

-Shakespeare, Timon of Athens.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Procerity:

Talness; height of stature.

"We shall make attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to its ancient procerity."

-Addison

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Doughbaked:

Unfinished; not hardened to perfection; soft.

For when, through tasteless flat humility,
In doughbak'd men some harmlessness we see,
'Tis but his phlegm that's virtuous, and not he.

-Donne

Monday, July 12, 2010

Keen:

To sharpen. An unauthorized word.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Meretricious:

Whorish; such as is practiced by prostitutes; alluring by false show.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Pernicious:

(2) Quick. An use which I have found only in Milton, and which, as it produces ambiguity, ought not to be imitated.

Part incentive reed Provide,
pernicious with one touch of fire.

-Milton

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Gullcatcher:

A cheat; a man of trick; one who catches silly people.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Antilogy:

A contradiction between any words and passages in an author.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Micher:

A lazy loiterer, who skulks about in corners and by-places, and keeps out of sight; a hedge-creeper.

-Hamner.

Mich or Mick is still retained in the cant language for an indolent, lazy fellow.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Bombycinous:

Silken; made of silk.