Words We Don't Use

[LoveHistory]

I like frout!

Sistren was used in the "Our Mrs. Reynolds" episode of Firefly. I thought someone had cleverly invented a new word, and it was an old word all the time.

[Rowan]

quadrageminus - Quadrageminus day, the fortieth day of fever; the latest period an acute disease was supposed to be capable of reaching. ~ John Redman Coxe's Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817

barking-iron - A pistol. ~ Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912

ruttier - An old traveler acquainted with roads; from route, French, routier. ~ Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

A set of instructions for finding one's course at sea; a marine guide to the routes, tides, etc. ~ Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909

by the penny - To live by the penny, to be constantly in the habit of purchasing the necessaries of life, as opposed to the old custom of consuming one's own produce. ~ Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851

Flimp, to hustle, rob. Putting on the flimp, garotte robbery. ~ Ducange Anglicus's Vulgar Tongue: Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases, 1857

John Audley - An old phrase of the days of the portable theatre, and one which still exists in the theatre world today. It was used as a kind of code. The traveling or fairground theatre of the old days depended for its revenue on the number of shows it could get in during the period of the fair. If, while a performance was proceeding, a queue gathered outside which would fill another house, the showman called out from the door, "Is John Audley here?" This was a hint to the people on the stage to finish quickly and get rid of the audience to make room for those waiting outside. ~ Edwin Radford's Encyclopedia of Phrases and Origins, 1945

squiddled - Cheated; wheedled; Western England. ~ James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855

gutterblood - One whose ancestors have been in the same town or city for some generations; brought up in the same rank of life. ~ Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911

Persons are said to be gutterblood who have been brought up in the immediate neighbourhood of each other. ~ John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808

beneplaciture - Choice. ~ John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850

Hang-choice, the position of a persion who is compelled to choose between two evils. Scotch. ~ William Whitney's Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1889

[parthianbow]

Vespasienne - an old type of toilet on French streets, the name of which derived from the emperor Vespasian, who introduced a tax on urine!

[DianeL]

The government has squiddled everyone but the super-rich, and now we're all living by the penny.

Boy do I like gutterblood.

[LoveHistory]

I've seen barking-iron in books. Good to know what it means. Makes much more sense now.

[Rowan]

execration - A curse; an imprecation or wishing some evil to a person or thing. Execrate, to curse as an object containing the most abominable and wicked qualities. ~ Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775

quite the cheese - Quite the cheese means quite the correct thing, especially in the matter of costume or manner . . . This phrase is an adaptation from the word choose, and admits the interpretation, "what I should choose." By a sort of double refinement of this expression we hear things referred to as "that's prime Stilton" or "that's Double Gloucester." ~ A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895

bisque - A fault at tennis. ~ Elisha Coles's English Dictionary, 1713

A stroke [handicap] allowed to a weaker player. ~ Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749

athanor - A digesting furnace; an alchemical term. ~ Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857

A constant heat was maintained by means of a tower, which provided a self-feeding supply of charcoal. Also [used] figuratively. ~ Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888

bossack - Of an ailment, acute pain, or discomfort. "That give me the bossacks." ~ Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923

holm - An islet, or river isle. A low, flat tract of rich land on the banks of a river. ~ John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850

wherefore - For what reason? Why? "Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" ~ Daniel Lyons's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1897

couch a hogshead - To lye downe and sleepe. Peddelar's Frenche. ~ Thomas Harman's Caveat, or Warening, for Common Cursetors, 1567

To go to bed. ~ B. E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699

spendthrift sigh - The allusion in Hamlet to the current notion that sighs shorten life by drawing blood from the heart. The same notion is found in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: ["With sighs of love that locst the fresh blood dear"]. ~ John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopaedia and New Glossary, 1902

Hanover - Used in a variety of expressions. A Hanover job is a disagreeable job. To play Hanover is to do mischief. We also say, "I wonder how the Hanover she done it," and, "Go to Hanover ." The origin is no doubt the unpopularity of the Hanover succession [beginning in 1714 with England's Prussian-born king, George I] which was strongly resented in the eastern counties. ~ Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923

[LoveHistory]

Thank you for including the correct definition of wherefore. I've been correcting people on that for years. Hearing it misused always gives me the bossacks.

[DianeL]

Execrate sheds some light on execrable for me - thank you, as always!

Hanover gives me a laugh. I live very near a county with this name. Apparently an execrable place name!

[Rowan]

pomander - This term was applied both to a ball composed of perfumes and to the case used for carrying them about the person. . . Pomanders were carried either in the pocket or suspended from the neck or girdle, and were sometimes looked upon as amulets, sometimes as an efficient means of preventing infection. An old recipe for making them directs a mixture of carefully prepared garden soil, labdanum, benzoin, storax, ambergris, civet, and musk. These, when well incorporated, are warranted "to make you smell as sweet as my lady's dog, if your breath be not too valiant." ~ John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopaedia and New Glossary, 1902

full of - In frequent use in various parts of South Africa in the sense of covered with. "The child is full of mud" means the child is covered with mud. It is an imitation of a Dutch idiom. ~ Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913

rift in the lute - This phrase symbolizes a breach in the harmony of friendship, usually of lovers, over a petty matter. As a small crack in a lute tends to make its music dull and discordant, through causing the air to escape in the wrong place, so is the intercourse of friendship or love strained by trifles, which turn harmony into discord. ~ J. B. :ippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913

gardyloo - A common cry in former days of the dwellers in the high flats of Edinburgh, who were in the habit of throwing urine, slops, &c. out of the window; from French gare l'eau, beware of the water. ~ Leo de Colange's Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871

ebolition - A particular method of smoking. [William] Gifford says, "We may conjecture that it means a forcible and rapid ejection of smoke." ~ Robert Hunter's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1895

snaffling-lay - The trade of [a] highwayman. ~ Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919

welkin - An old word for the clouds. . . in the phrase "to make the welkin ring." ~ James Greengouch's Words and Their Ways in English Speech, 1901

A cloud. In Old English, especially in poetry, frequently in plural, especially in the phrase under wolcnum, under the sky or heaven. The apparent arch or vault of heaven overhead; the sky; the firmament. Welkin-wizard, an almanac-maker who makes astrological forecasts. ~ Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926

like winkin - Though it has been plausibly suggested that the comparison has reference to the rapid passage of the welkin, or cloud, through the heavens, the last word of the expression is probably a contraction of winking, meaning the time taken to wink the eye. We have, moreover, almost an exact parallel in the French clin d'oeil, and our own expression, in a wink, an abbreviation of twinkle, the opening or shutting of the eye, and again in German augenblick, a moment. ~ A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895

[Rowan]

dew-drink - A draught before breakfast. In harvest the men are allowed, in some counties, a drink of beer before they begin work. ~ Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898

Dew-droppings, dew-cup, the first allowance of beer to harvest men. ~ Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905

aeolipile - A round, hollow metallic ball having a neck with a slender pipe opening to the ball which, being partly filled with water and laid on the fire, the steam or vaporous air is forced out with great noise and violence. It is used to blow the fire, and in Italy as a cure for smoky chimneys. ~ John Coxe's Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817

cerulifick - Having the power to produce blue colour . . . Lutarious, the colour of mud. ~ Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

vastation - A laying waste; depopulation. Devastation is generally used. ~ John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850

tumbies - Ablutions; tubbing. ~ John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904

To do one's tumbies, to have a bath. Possibly a corruption of tubbing. Oxford. ~ Morris Marples's University Slang, 1950

thumb-licking - An ancient mode of confirming a bargain. In a bargain between two Highlanders, each of them wets the ball of his thumb with his mouth and join them together, esteemed a very binding act. It was customary with these kings, in concluding a peace or striking an alliance, to join their right hands and bind their thumbs together. Immediately, when the blood had diffused itself to the extremities, it was let out by a prick and licked by the contracting parties. Their covenant was henceforth deemed sacred. ~ John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808

stabulation - A harbouring of beasts. ~ Henry Cockeram's Interpreter of Hard English Words, 1623

Stabulist, one learned in stable management. Stabularian, belonging to a stable. ~ Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919