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Forgotten Words

Started by Hob, November 03, 2018, 04:51:22 PM

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Hob

Screever

noun

  • a pavement artist
  • an artist who draws pictures on sidewalks, as with colored chalks, earning a living from the donations of spectators and passersby.

British, cited as early as 16th Century
More commonly found 19th Century
earlier screeve (v.) from Italian scrivere "to write" (< Latin scrībere ) + -er

The name comes from the Copperplate script (not the font) most often used by such artists.
Pictures often included poems, Biblical verses, bits of news, morality tales, and the like.

Rinzler

Quote from: Justric on November 16, 2018, 04:47:18 AM
Screever

Finally - one which I was already familiar with, featuring as it does in Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. This means the word was probably still in general use in the 1930s.

Hob

Quote from: DeMalachine on November 16, 2018, 09:28:16 AM
Finally - one which I was already familiar with, featuring as it does in Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. This means the word was probably still in general use in the 1930s.

Most people would be familiar with the concept, at least, through Disney's Mary Poppins. One of Bert's professions was that of a screever.

"Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey
Chim chim cher-oo!
I does what I likes and I likes what I do
Today I'm a screever and as you can see
A screever's an artist of 'ighest degree
And it's all me own work
From me own memory
Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey
Chim chim cher-oo!
I draws what I likes and I likes what I drew
No remuneration do I ask of you
But me cap would be glad of a copper or two
me cap would be glad of a copper or two
Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey
Chim chim cher-oo!
La dum, de da dum
da da da da dum
Mmm hmm...
"

Hob

#28
    Feague

    verb
    • To increase the liveliness of a horse by inserting an irritant, such as a piece of peeled raw ginger or a live eel, in its fundament.
    • To punish by inserting peeled raw ginger or radish into one's anus. Also as a sexual fetish.
    • To beat or whip; to drive.
    • To subject to some harmful scheme; to ‘do in’.
    • To have sexual intercourse with. (chiefly Irish)
    • To set in quick motion or aggitate.
    • To decorate or improve in appearance through artificial means.
    • To fake.

    noun
    • An unkempt, slatternly person

    British, 18th-19th Century
    Alternatively, "feak"
    From Dutch vegen (“to sweep, to strike”), from Middle Dutch vēghen (“to cleanse”), from Old Dutch *fegōn (“to cleanse”), from Proto-Germanic *faginōną (“to decorate, make beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *pōḱ-, *pēḱ- (“to clean, to adorn”).


    Edit:  An interesting side article about the word that I found - https://www.haggardhawks.com/single-post/2016/04/08/Feague[/list][/list]

    Hob

      Lunt

      noun
      • A slow burning match or torch.
      • Smoke with flames, especially from a pipe.

      verb
      • To smoke or emit smoke.
      • To walk quickly
      • To emit smoke in puffs or columns.
      • To smoke a pipe while walking.
      • To blaze vehemently.
      • To light or kindle a fire.

      Scottish, 16th Century, popular in 18th-19th Century
      From Dutch lont (a fuse, a wick)
      From German Lunte (cord that conveys the fire to some explosive device)
      [/list][/list]

      Hob

      Yemeles

      adjective
      • Careless or negligent.
      • Heedless.
      • Characteristic of one who does not take yeme (care.)[/i]
      Old and Middle English, also Scottish 19th Century
      Pronounced YEEM-lis
      From Scottish yeme/yheme/yym - To keep or take care of.

      Sain

      Gonna try use lunt somewhere. Yemeles seems a bit trickier since it is so funny sounding.
      PM box is open. So is my discord: Sain#5301

      Hob

      Palter

      verb
      • to equivocate or prevaricate in action or speech.
      • to trifle or tamper with.
      • to act insincerely or deceitfully
      • to haggle or chaffer
      • to lie by making unreliable statements of fact or intention or insincere promises

      English, first known use 1580
      "Paltering isn't outright lying, but it's close."

      Hob

      kedgebelly

      noun
      • a large, protruding stomach
      • someone who eats until they are more than full, a glutton.
      • someone who is fat from overeating


      Northern England, 17th-19th Century
      From Old English kedge (a small keg or cage, to catch, to stuff or fill, to be quick)

      (Edit:  Thinking back, I should have just done kedge. No one seems to agree on what it means!!)

      Hob

      wend

      verb
      • go
      • present tense of "went"
      • traveling from once place to another
      • go in a specified direction, typically slowly or by an indirect route.


      Middle English wenden (to turn, depart)
      Old English as windan/wendan (to twist, to wind)
      Old High German wenten
      Also related to "wander"

      Hob

      hight

      adjective
      • named or called
      • "Childe Harold was he hight."

      verb
      • to command or call
      • to name
      • to bid
      • "I hight ye take me with ye."

      15th Century English
      Middle English, past tense of hoten (to command, call, or be called)
      Old English heht/hātan (to name, call, promise, command)
      Old High German heissen/heizzan (to call, be called, mean)
      Modern German heißen (named)
      Related to English behest (a command, directive, or strongly worded request)

      AnaisdeLuxxx

      I'm still loving this thread so much. Where do you get these words? The only one I've ever encountered before is "wend", which I'm pretty sure was in a poem I read back in high school.

      "Feague" in particular was pretty revelatory for me. So that's why it's called "figging" even though ginger isn't a fig! XD

      Hob

      Quote from: AnaisdeLuxxx on November 26, 2018, 02:30:58 AM
      "Feague" in particular was pretty revelatory for me. So that's why it's called "figging" even though ginger isn't a fig! XD

      You got it! Although being in the Non-Adult section of the site, I'll forebear going into that in any further detail.   ;D  I'm glad you're enjoying the thread, though. Here's a little bonus for you that I just figured out this morning.

      One possible origin of feague/figging might be from the Spanish Figo which was common around the 17th Century, a hand gesture of contempt that mimicked sexual intercourse or sexual bits of the anatomy; the thumb is put between the first and second finger. So to say that something "isn't worth a fig" or that "I don't give a fig" is basically stating that "it isn't worth a f**k" or "I don't give a f**k."

      As for where I find the words? A combination of sources, starting with the works of Jeffrey Kacirk; he's done a number of books, calendars, and cards (of all things) regarding "Forgotten English."  I've several other books about obscure words, idioms, and bits of slang, too. I also use words from various website articles and clickbait lists, but only so long as I can verify both the word and its meaning/origin through unrelated sources.

      Hob

      twitter-light

      noun
      • twilight
      • dusk, half-light
      • also "twatterlight"

      17th Century English
      uncommon dialect
      possible combination of Old English "twi-" (double or half) and "flitter" (move or pass quickly).


      Blythe

      #39
      How on earth did I not notice this thread before? Fabulous thread, Justric!

      Bookmarked. There's some amazing words in here that I just know I'm going to have to use.

      gaggedLouise

      Quote from: Justric on November 13, 2018, 08:38:52 PM
      Pornocracy

      noun

      • a government run by prostitues
      • the dominating influence of courtesans
      • a government controlled by corrupt officials


      Germany, 19th Century
      Reference to the corrupt papacy of the 10th Century, also callled saeculum obscurum (Latin: "The Dark Age")
      from Greek πόρνη "female prostitute" + -κρατία "-cracy" a suffix indicating government or rule
      related to hetaerocracy ("government of mistresses/paramours/courtesans")

      Göran Persson, at the time prime minister of Sweden, remarked after a visit to North Korea that "the country is in a sense a Necrocracy, a state where a deceased person is formally in charge". Kim Il Sung was given the title of "Eternal President" in his last years, and he is still referred to that way.

      Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

      Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

      "I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
      Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

      gaggedLouise

      #41
      Quote from: Justric on November 25, 2018, 06:50:14 PM
      hight

      adjective
      • named or called
      • "Childe Harold was he hight."

      verb
      • to command or call
      • to name
      • to bid
      • "I hight ye take me with ye."

      15th Century English
      Middle English, past tense of hoten (to command, call, or be called)
      Old English heht/hātan (to name, call, promise, command)
      Old High German heissen/heizzan (to call, be called, mean)
      Modern German heißen (named)
      Related to English behest (a command, directive, or strongly worded request)

      Yep. Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) once refers to Dante (d. 1321) as "this great poet of Italie, that highte Dent". I think that's the first mention of Dante in the English language.[/list]

      Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

      Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

      "I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
      Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

      Hob

      Quote from: Blythe on November 29, 2018, 12:52:34 AM
      How on earth did I not notice this thread before? Fabulous thread, Justric!

      Bookmarked. There's some amazing words in here that I just know I'm going to have to use.

      Thanks, Blythe!  Originally, it was going to be an official project sort of thing, but I decided to keep it light and informal for fellow logophiles, lexophiles, etymologists, and inkhorns.  :D




      Hey, Louise, glad to have you with us!  Feel free to fill in relevant details where you will!

      Hob

      Titivullus

      noun
      • A demon who was said to collect all the fragments of words from the Bible which the priests had skipped over or mutilated in the performance of the service, and to carry them to hell to be counted against the offenders
      • A demon who writes down the gossip and idle chatter of people to use against them in hell.
      • A demon responsible for errors written into religious texts. The inevitable little accidents that happen when copying manuscripts, such as jogging of elbows and skipping of pens that caused blots, false strokes, and ink smears, were also attributed to him
      • The patron demon of writers.
      • a very small trifle, a bagatelle
      • a mischievous tale-bearer or more generally a ne’er-do-well or scoundrel
      • also as tut, a general term applied to British supernatural creatures

      13th - 17th Century English
      from Latin titivillitium (a mere trifle or a trivial bit of gossip in comedic plays)
      also as tutivillus and titivil
      Possibly the source of latter "twit" and "tit" in sense of an insult

      Rinzler

      Quote from: Justric on November 29, 2018, 05:40:59 PM
      Titivullus

      noun
      • A demon who was said to collect all the fragments of words from the Bible which the priests had skipped over or mutilated in the performance of the service, and to carry them to hell to be counted against the offenders
      • A demon who writes down the gossip and idle chatter of people to use against them in hell.
      • A demon responsible for errors written into religious texts. The inevitable little accidents that happen when copying manuscripts, such as jogging of elbows and skipping of pens that caused blots, false strokes, and ink smears, were also attributed to him
      • The patron demon of writers.
      • a very small trifle, a bagatelle
      • a mischievous tale-bearer or more generally a ne’er-do-well or scoundrel
      • also as tut, a general term applied to British supernatural creatures

      13th - 17th Century English
      from Latin titivillitium (a mere trifle or a trivial bit of gossip in comedic plays)
      also as tutivillus and titivil
      Possibly the source of latter "twit" and "tit" in sense of an insult

      There's a disturbing phonetic similarity between 'Titivullus' and 'Twitterverse'.

      A cloud crossed the moon and somewhere a wolf howled...

      Hob

      #45
      Lackaday

      exclamation
      • an expression of surprise, regret, or grief
      • possibly meaning "the day is lacking"

      English 17th Century
      from  alack the day (regret the day) -> lackaday -> modern lackadaisy/lackadaisical (passionless)
      often used with Middle English alas (from Anglo-French, ah + las (weary), from Latin lassus (weary)
      the idea that the day is just too full of sorrow to bother doing anything


      Hob

      Jitney

      noun
      • term for an American nickel (five-cent piece)

      American, early 20th Century
      possibly from French New Orleans jeton (coin-sized metal disk, slug, counter)
      jitney was also used in reference to something cheap
      "Jitney bus" was a private bus you could ride for five cents
      "Jitney box" was another way of saying "jukebox" (jitney and juke are not thought to be related)

      "I'll give a nickel for a kiss,"
      Said Cholly to a pretty miss.
      "Skiddo," she cried, "you stingy cuss,"
      "You're looking for a jitney buss."
      ["Jitney Jingle," 1915]

      Flower

      Hahaha @ the example for jitney. xD

      Hob

      Cacoethes

      noun
      • An urge to do something inadvisable.
      • A mania or irresistable urge.
      • uncontrollable urge or desire, esp for something harmful
      • an itch for doing something
      • a bad habit

      English, mid-1600s
      from Latinized form of Greek kakoethes (ill-habit, wickedness)
      from kakos (bad) + ethe- (disposition, character)

      insanabile scribendi cacoethes "incurable passion for writing."

      Sain

      Quote from: Justric on December 02, 2018, 10:04:18 AM
      Cacoethes

      noun
      • An urge to do something inadvisable.
      • A mania or irresistable urge.
      • uncontrollable urge or desire, esp for something harmful
      • an itch for doing something
      • a bad habit

      English, mid-1600s
      from Latinized form of Greek kakoethes (ill-habit, wickedness)
      from kakos (bad) + ethe- (disposition, character)

      insanabile scribendi cacoethes "incurable passion for writing."

      Well this is especially nifty term. How come could something so useful have been forgotten?
      PM box is open. So is my discord: Sain#5301