1word1day | Entries tagged with middle english

chary [chair-ee]

adjective:
1 cautious or careful; wary
2 shy; timid

Examples:

Instead, 'West Side Story' languished when it was first released, its core audience of older filmgoers still chary of venturing into theaters. (Ann Hornaday, Awards season this year is already a nothingburger. And that's okay., The Washington Post, January 2022)

With a writer so chary of detail, the reader rushes to fill in. (Caleb Crain, Sally Rooney Addresses Her Critics, The Atlantic, September 2021)

I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe the dinner in Gerrard-street, if we had not then come into a sudden glare of gas. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)

Prince Vasili knew this, and having once realized that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. (Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace)

Origin:

Middle English chari 'actively concerned, diligent; sorrowful, sad,' late 12c, earlier cearig (in early 12c homilies Martha sister of Lazarus is bisig and cearig), from Old English cearig 'sorrowful, full of care,' the adjective from care, qv.

The sense shifted 16c from 'disposed to cherish with care' to 'sparing, not lavish, frugal' (by 1560s, often with of). Compare the sense evolution of careful. Cognates include Old Saxon carag, Old High German charag 'full of sorrow, trouble, or care.' (Online Etymological Dictionary)

How did chary, which began as the opposite of cheery, become a synonym of wary? Don't worry, there's no need to be chary - the answer is not dreary. Chary's Middle English predecessor, charri, meant 'sorrowful,' a sense that harks back to the Old English word cearig, meaning 'troubled, troublesome, taking care,' which ultimately comes from an assumed-but-unattested Germanic word, karō, meaning 'sorrow' or 'worry,' that is also an ancestor of the word care. It's perhaps unsurprising then, that chary was once used to mean 'dear' or 'cherished.' Both sorrow and affection have largely faded from chary, and today the word is most often used as a synonym of careful. (Merriam Webster)

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ort, n.

: a morsel left at a meal : scrap

Etymology

Middle English, from Middle Low German orte

First Known Use

15th century

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gamut (GAM-uht) - n., the entire scale or range (of something); including specifically, a) the whole series of recognized musical notes, b) all the colors that can be presented by a device such as a monitor or printer.

Originally, a single note -- and this story will take a while. In medieval Western Europe, the names of the notes of the scale were ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, after the first syllables of successive lines of a hymn to John the Baptist*, which walked up the scale. (Later, ut became do, for reasons I haven't tracked down, and si became ti.) The 11th century music theorist Guido d’Arezzo used Greek letters to name the lines on the staff, with gamma being the lowest line of the bass staff -- which gave the lowest possible note over all scales the name gamma ut, which in Middle English was shortened to gam(m)ut. At some point, still medieval times, the gamut came to mean not the lowest note of the scale, but the whole scale, and by further extension, any sort of complete range. The color gamut is a specific usage, which is both technical and seems to be largely British English usage.

* In full:
Ut queant laxis
resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes

---L.

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makebate, make-bate [meyk-beyt]

noun:
(archaic) a person who causes contention or discord

Examples:

Barillon was therefore directed to act, with all possible precautions against detection, the part of a makebate. (Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II)

Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old makebate, and no one knows how long she will be here, falling on the poor lads if they do but sing a song in the hall after supper, as if she were a very Muggletonian herself. (Charlotte M Yonge, Under the Storm)

Angus answered somewhat sulkily, that "he was no makebate, or stirrer-up of quarrels; he would rather be a peacemaker." (Sir Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose)

Origin:

The rare noun makebate comes from the common English verb make and the uncommon, obsolete noun bate 'strife, discord,' a derivative of the Middle English verb baten 'to argue, contend; (of a bird) to beat the wings' (cf. abate), a borrowing from Old French batre 'to beat.' Makebate entered English in the 16th century. (Dictionary.com)

The earliest known use of the word makebate is in the early 1500s. OED's earliest evidence for makebate is from 1529, in the writing of Thomas More, lord chancellor, humanist, and martyr. (Oxford English Dictionary)

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pestiferous [pe-stif-er-uhs]

adjective:
1 spreading or bearing disease, especially deadly epidemic disease; pestilential
2 pernicious; evil

Examples:

Although its distinctly lobed leaves don't achieve great size, this vine can be as pestiferous as any plant in cultivation, with stems that scuttle under mulch, up trees and onto neighboring properties. (Charles Reynolds, Indoor plants can get out of hand outside, Herald Tribune, April 2014)

The people of New Philadelphia and Canal Dover have been rejoicing over her conviction and the prospect of abatement of this pestiferous sink of iniquity, but the laws' delays are proverbial and the realization of their hopes is not imminent. (Jon Baker, Hooked on History: Dorothy Bunch had notorious career as Tuscarawas County madam, TimesReporter, October 2020)

Structured as entries in Emily’s field journal, the novel lays out her aims, her curmudgeonly nature and her pestiferous relationship with one Wendell Bambleby - a charismatic fellow researcher and sometime rival who Emily suspects is a fairy himself. (Amal El-Mohtar, Your Guides to the World of Fairies and to the Multiverse, The New York Times, April 2023)

It is a region of stagnant waters, pestiferous exhalations, decrepit men, famished animals. (Arthur Mangin, The Desert World)

The air, too, was close and pestiferous, as if all the foul vapours had been forced up from the inward recesses of the hold. (W H G Kingston, Hurricane Hurry)

Well, he was done, he solaced himself. He had hitched his wagon to a star and been landed in a pestiferous marsh. (Jack London, Martin Eden)

Origin:

mid-15c, pestiferus, 'bringing plague, plague-bearing, pestilential,' also in a weakened or figurative sense, 'mischievous, malignant, pernicious, hurtful to morals or society,' form of Latin pestiferus 'that brings plague or destruction,' variant of pestifer 'bringing plague, destructive, noxious,' from pestis 'plague' + ferre 'carry,' from PIE root bher- 'to carry,' also 'to bear children.' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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alterity [awl-ter-i-tee]

noun:
otherness; the quality or condition of being different, especially of being fundamentally different from or alien to the sense of identity of a person or cultural group

Examples:

Her influential thought experiment The Left Hand of Darkness uses this strategy to explore gender and alterity. (Julie Phillips, The Fantastic Ursula K Le Guin, The New Yorker, October 2016)

Bourdain’s magic lies is in his capacity to formulate the most updated representation of readily consumable alterity. He doesn’t need to know Africa to do his work; he just needs to understand his customers, America and the appetite for a revamped experience of darkness. (Tunde Wey, The power of those who get to tell the stories, San Francisco Chronicle, March 2018)

Khatibi was, among other things, a sociologist, philosopher, novelist, poet, and literary critic; he described himself as 'a professional stranger' - ie, a traveling intellectual whose thinking is constantly open to variation and difference, and whose writing, as he once put it, functions as 'an exercise of cosmopolitan alterity.' (Khalid Lyamlahy, The Professional Stranger: On Abdelkebir Khatibi's 'Plural Maghreb', Los Angeles Review of Books, December 2019)

Throughout the nineteenth century, the concept of a Chinese typewriter was a popular signifier of Chinese alterity. (Ed Jones, REVIEW: The Chinese Typewriter: A History, The New Lens, December 2014)

During such encounters, we briefly return to a pre-economical state in which things can be 'tendered', as Adam Potkay puts it, 'that is, treated with tenderness - because of the generosity of their self-giving, as if alterity were itself pure gift.' (Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks)

Origin:

First recorded in 1425–75; Middle English alterite 'change, transformation, difference,' from Middle French alterité, from Late Latin alteritāt-, stem of alteritās 'alternation, change,' equivalent to alter 'other' + -i- connecting vowel + -tās noun suffix, modeled on Greek heterótēs 'otherness, difference'. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

You’re probably familiar with the verb alter, meaning 'to make or become different,' and you may not be surprised to learn that it is a relative of alterity. Both words descend from the Latin word alter, meaning 'other (of two).' That Latin alter, in turn, comes from a prehistoric Indo-European word that is also an ancestor of our 'alien.' Alterity has been used in English as a fancy word for 'otherness' ('the state of being other') since at least 1642. It remains less common than 'otherness' and tends to turn up most often in the context of literary theory or cultural studies. (Merriam Webster)

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dispiteous [dis-pit-ee-uhs]

adjective:
(archaic) without pity or mercy, ruthless

Examples:

Based on Sante Kimes, she is the most compulsive, dispiteous grifter in fiction I can think of. Identity theft, regular theft, fraud, arson, enslavement, murder—it's difficult to enumerate all the crimes Evangeline, her husband Warren, and their son Devin commit over the course of the novel. (Peter Goldberg, All-American Amnesia, The Baffler, January 2020)

She was battling for people she cared about: the dozens of condemned prisoners awaiting execution in dispiteous Southern cellblocks. (Colman Mccarthy, Marie Deans, 'courageous fool' of death row, National Catholic Reporter, July 2017)

Aeneas was our king, foremost of men in righteousness, incomparable in goodness as in warlike arms; whom if fate still preserves, if he draws the breath of heaven and lies not yet low in dispiteous gloom, fear we have none; nor mayest thou repent of challenging the contest of service. (Virgil, The Aenid)

Be but as sweet as is the bitterest, The most dispiteous out of all the gods, I am well pleased. (Algernon Charles Swinburne, 'Phaedra')

The morning had succeeded to the hopeless humidity of the night, and the drizzling rain fell with almost dispiteous persistence. (A M Sullivan, The Wearing of the Green)

Origin:

1795–1805; earlier despiteous, alteration, after piteous, of dispitous, despitous, Middle English from Anglo-French, Old French; see despite, -ous; later taken as dis-1 + piteous (Dictionary.com)

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peradventure [pur-uhd-ven-cher, per-]

noun:
1 chance, doubt, or uncertainty.
2 surmise
adverb:
(archaic) it may be; maybe; possibly; perhaps

Examples:

Peradventure they make sales on the January 31, they must ensure that they deposit the money in banks before the close of the working hours because old notes would cease to be legal tender from February 1, 2023. (Fear, anxiety as deadline to deposit old notes approaches, Nigerian Tribune, August 2022)

He could not feel any real happiness until he learned beyond peradventure that all was well. (Edward S Ellis, The Young Ranchers)

The trumpet and the opening coffin indicate peradventure the resurrection. (W T Vincent, In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious)

My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, thence, peradventure, to the gallows! (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter)

"Only," continued the postmaster, "if you will put up with a little carriage I have, I will harness an old blind horse who has still his legs left, and peradventure will draw you to the house of M. (Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask)

Origin:

Middle English peraventure, paraventure (late 14c), per auenture (c 1300), from Old French par aventure. Refashioned 17c as though from Latin. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

When Middle English speakers borrowed par aventure from Anglo-French (in which language it means, literally, 'by chance'), it was as an adverb meaning 'perhaps' or 'possibly.' Before long, the word was anglicized to peradventure, and turned into a noun as well. The adverb is now archaic, though Washington Irving and other writers were still using it in the 19th century. 'If peradventure some straggling merchant ... should stop at his door with his cart load of tin ware....,' writes Irving in A History of New York. The noun senses we use today tend to show up in the phrase 'beyond peradventure' in contexts relating to proving or demonstrating something. The 'chance' sense is usually used in the phrase 'beyond peradventure of doubt.' (Merriam-Webster)

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noisome [noi-suhm]

adjective:
1 noxious, harmful
2a offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell
2b highly obnoxious or objectionable

Examples:

It was six yards square and extravagantly swathed in purple and gold, from its velvet headboard and valance to its voluminous damask curtains. The Virgin Queen took it with her when she moved from one royal residence to the next, chased by winter drafts and the inevitable buildup of noisome effluvia emanating from the rudimentary sanitation of her privy. (Kathryn Harrison, The Body Politic, The New York Times, February 2014)

So, we get back from a few days away to the most appalling smell. Even the word 'noisome' (one of my favourites) doesn't cut it. This was a stench so hideous that it actually made me gag. (Lynne Barrett-Lee, Here's how I took on the stray cat causing mayhem in our home, Wales Online, April 2018)

An entire 'Seinfeld' episode revolves around Kramer's mad plan to swim in the East River and the noisome odors he begins to exude. (Tony Perrottet, How New York City Is Rediscovering Its Maritime Spirit, Smithsoniam Magazine, May 2017)

There's no furniture or bedding, and the only running water (whether for drinking, washing or flushing the noisome toilet) is the rain pouring through the leaking roof. (Nadia Wheatley, Writer Charmian Clift, her biographer and one surprising, Aussie-linked Greek island, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 2022)

The cavern that had swallowed his emeralds in a fashion so nefarious was a steep incline running swiftly down into darkness. It was low and narrow, and slippery with noisome oozings; but the money-lender was heartened as he went on by a glimpse of the glowing jewels, which seemed to float beneath him in the black air, as if to illuminate his way. (Clark Ashton Smith, 'The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan')

As the light sank into the noisome depths, there came a shriek which chilled Adam's blood - a prolonged agony of pain and terror which seemed to have no end. (Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm)

Origin:

late 14c, noisom, 'harmful, noxious', from noye, noi 'harm, misfortune' (c 1300), shortened form of anoi 'annoyance' (from Old French anoier, see annoy) + -some. Meaning 'bad-smelling, offensive to the sense of smell' is by 1570s. (Online Eytymology Dictionary)

Noisome looks and sounds like a close relation of noisy, but it's not. While noisy describes what is excessively loud, noisome typically describes what is excessively stinky. (It is also used to describe things offensive to the senses generally, as well as things that are highly obnoxious, objectionable, or simply harmful.) Noisome comes from the synonymous Middle English noysome, which combined the suffix -some, meaning 'characterized by a specified thing', and the noun noy, meaning 'annoyance'. Noisy, incidentally, comes ultimately from Latin nausea, meaning 'nausea'. (Merriam-Webster)

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nethermost [neth-er-mohst, -muhst]

adjective:
farthest down, lowest

Examples:

Zheng Ruiyu from China Academy of Art uses her collection to display the mildness and poetic vibe of Jiangnan (lower reaches of south Yangtze River). The crisscrossed lanes and alleys in Huzhou, her hometown in nethermost Zhejiang Province, and Hangzhou inspire her. (Wu Huixin, Hangzhou still China's No 1 fashionistas, Shanghai Daily, November 2018)

All we want for Christmas is... Besides Chelsea FC being cast into the nethermost abysses of the Non Leagues and Stamford Bridge getting ploughed under? (John Ashdown, Championship 2013-14: the fans' half-term report, The Guardian, December 2013)

From the topmost hair of his shocky head to the nethermost sole of his tough little feet, Bootsey Biggs was a Boy. (Lemuel Ely Quigg, Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York)

Looking back, I think that Mrs Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. (W Somerset Maugham, Moon and Sixpence)

The gloom which surrounded that horrible charnel pit, which seemed to go down to the very bowels of the earth, conveyed from far down the sights and sounds of the nethermost hell. (Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm )

Origin:

'lowest, undermost,' early 14c, from nether + -most. Nethermore (late 14c) is now rare or obsolete. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

First recorded in 1250–1300, nethermost is from the Middle English word nethermast. (Dictionary.com)

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obloquy [ob-luh-kwee]

noun:
1 strongly condemnatory utterance : abusive language
2 the condition of one that is discredited : bad repute

Examples:

In the slew of rightist culture-war bogeymen, from 'cultural Marxism' to 'critical race theory', one of the most surprising candidates for obloquy is postmodernism. (Richard Seymour, How postmodernism became the universal scapegoat of the era, The New Statesman, June 2021)

The three-member panel on Feb 28 ruled Czuprynski engaged 'in conduct that exposed the legal profession to obloquy, contempt, censure and reproach.' (Cole Waterman, Ex-federal prosecutor’s law license suspended for misrepresenting information in biker gang case, Michigan Live, March 2019)

But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects. (Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)

And therefore I cannot rest, I cannot be silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness, health and good repute - and go out into the world and cry out the pain of my spirit! Therefore I am not to be silenced by poverty and sickness, not by hatred and obloquy, by threats and ridicule - not by prison and persecution, if they should come - not by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth, that was, or is, or ever can be created. (Upton Sinclair, The Jungle)

Origin:

mid-15c, obloquie, 'evil speaking, slander, calumny, derogatory remarks,' from Medieval Latin obloquium 'speaking against, contradiction,' from Latin obloqui 'to speak against, contradict,' from ob 'against' (see ob-) + loqui 'to speak,' from PIE root tolkw- 'to speak.' (Online Etymology Dictionary).

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catch-as-catch-can [kach-uhz-kach-kan]

adjective:
using any available means or method, hit or miss
adverb:
without specific plan or order

Examples:

But you can now see a significant shift toward empowering audience members to make their own choices: Ravinia, for example, will have two kinds of lawn seating, one in predetermined pods, the other the traditional catch-as-catch-can. (Chris Jones, Chicago’s great cultural comeback is coming much faster than we thought. Here’s why., Chicago Tribune, May 2021)

As we follow Lucas home, we learn that he’s living a life of struggling self-sufficiency – his house a dark mess and each meal is catch-as-catch-can with no money and resources. (Eric Eisenberg, Antlers Review: A Well Made Horror Movie That Doesn’t Stick The Landing, CinemaBlend, October 2021)

I was riding around in my car with a trunk full of books, going around bookstores, [attending] events. It was very much a catch-as-catch can sort of existence. (Ashish Ghadiali, SA Cosby: The holy trinity of southern fiction is race, class and se’, Patch, August 2021)

Origin:

Variants of this term go back as far as the fourteenth century ('Was none in sight but cacche who that cacche might,' John Gower, c 1394) and appeared in John Heywood's 1546 collection of proverbs ('Catch that catch may'). More specifically, it is the name of both a children's game and a style of wrestling (also called freestyle) in which the wrestlers may get a hold on each other anyhow and anywhere. (The Free Dictionary)

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adjective:
(Scot and North England) disgusting, horrid; loathsome

Examples:

In a sometimes ugsome, plague-filled world of violence and adventure that evokes the swashbuckling nature of The Count of Monte Cristo, you're presented with so many super heroic abilities, you feel like an omniscient kid in a candy store. (Harold Goldberg, 2012 In Review: The Best Games Of 2012, NPR, December 2012)

              When doukin in the River Nile
              I met a muckle crocodile.
              He flicked his tail, he blinked his ee,
              Syne bared his ugsome teeth at me.
                                                 J K Annand, 'Crocodile'

At all events, the statute literally recites the 'ugsome oaths' that are used by the old versifier. (Julian Sharman. A Cursory History of Swearing)

I found my Vivien full sick, and a weariful and ugsome time had I with her ere she recovered of her malady. (Emily Sarah Holt, In Convent Walls)

Origin:

1350–1400; Middle English, equivalent to ugg(en) to fear, cause loathing (Old Norse ugga to fear, dread; cf. Ugly) + -some-some (Dictionary.com)

If this reminds you of the inarticulate cry of disgust that most often appears as ugh! then you’re on the mark. The conventional spelling of ugh! was probably influenced by that of ugsome, something loathsome or horrible. In a case of linguistic turn-and-turn-about, ugsome derives from the ancient and long defunct word ug, which about a millennium ago came into English from the Old Norse ugga, to dread. That Old Norse word is also the source of ugly (which meant frightful or horrible before it weakened to refer to something merely unpleasing in appearance). You could argue that ugsome is the opposite of handsome.

In the centuries before Shakespeare, ugsome was common enough, mostly in Scotland and northern England, but then almost completely died out except in dialect. It was resurrected in the eighteenth century by writers seeking an archaic word to help set a historical scene. The following century, popular authors such as Sir Walter Scott (“Like an auld dog that trails its useless ugsome carcass into some bush or bracken”), Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (“‘’Tis an ugsome bit of road!’ said the Corporal, looking round him”) and Charles Dickens ('One very ugsome devil with goggling eyes, seems to hold up frightful claws, to bar the traveller’s way') regained it some small exposure, though it was never very popular. (World Wide Words)

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flibbertigibbet [flib-er-tee-jib-it]

noun:
1 a silly, scatterbrained, or garrulous person
2 (archaic) a gossip

Examples:

This is how we will stay strong through this crisis. Why, just last night I entered my bathroom a mild-mannered person sliding quickly into madness and emerged a self-proclaimed flibbertigibbet with red hair and a weird husky voice modeled after Angelica, the second of Ryan's characters in the film. Is this what the public (my houseplants) wants? No. Is it what the public (my houseplants) needs? Absolutely. I am an altruistic flibbertigibbet and you're welcome. (R Eric Thomas, Finding Solace in Life's Absurdity and Terror in Joe Versus the Volcano, yahoonews, April 2020)

A flibbertigibbet in a Little Red Riding Hood raincoat, with a reckless habit of stepping out on to life’s busiest roads? (Kiran Sidhu, How my farmer friend Wilf gave me a new perspective, The Guardian, August 2021)

As blue chips turn into penny stocks, Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America's macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs. Bennet, a flibbertigibbet always anxious about getting richer and her 'poor nerves'. (Kiran Sidhu, Well-toned first lady brings style to her job, South Florida SunSentinel, March 2009)

All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet. (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five)

Origin:

1540s, 'chattering gossip, flighty woman,' probably a nonsense word meant to sound like fast talking; as the name of a devil or fiend it dates from c. 1600 (together with Frateretto, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto). OED lists 15 spellings and thinks flibbergib is the original. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

It's a fine word to throw out, in the appropriate circumstances, though there's a risk of tripping over all those syllables. That's no doubt why it has had so many spellings.

The original seems to have been recorded about 1450 as fleper-gebet, which may have been just an imitation of the sound of meaningless speech (babble and yadda-yadda-yadda have similar origins). It started out to mean a gossip or chattering person, but quickly seems to have taken on the idea of a flighty or frivolous woman. A century later it had become respectable enough for Bishop Latimer to use it in a sermon before King Edward VI, though he wrote it as flybbergybe.

The modern spelling is due to Shakespeare, who borrowed it from one of the 40 fiends listed in a book by Samuel Harsnet in 1603. In King Lear Edgar uses it for a demon or imp: "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet... He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth".

There has been yet a third sense, taken from a character of Sir Walter Scott's in Kenilworth, for a mischievous and flighty small child. But despite Shakespeare and Scott, the most usual sense is still the original one. (World Wide Words)

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duplicity [doo-plis-i-tee, dyoo-]

noun:
1  a  deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech
   b  an instance of deliberate deceptiveness; double-dealing.
2  the quality or state of being twofold or double

Examples:

The act of imitating a famous artist’s work, and profiting off it, is seen as a sleazy low-life con, as well as a major crime (which, of course, it is). Yet art forgery isn’t just about the eye candy of duplicity and profit. (Owen Gleiberman, 'Made You Look: A True Story of Fake Art' Review: The Most Spectacular Art Forgery Ever?, yahoonews, February 2021)

The plot thickens into a turbid gumbo of greed, blackmail, megalomania, brain science and duplicity. Clones disappear and reappear; people who seemed to be dead are perhaps not dead at all; there are several potential evil masterminds. (Sarah Lyall, A Human Cloning Error and Existential Questions Fuel This Science Fiction Romp, The New York Times, August 2021)

That was a feeble evasion, but Godfrey was not fond of lying, and, not being sufficiently aware that no sort of duplicity can long flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods, he was quite unprepared with invented motives. (George Eliot, Silas Marner)

Origin:

'deceptiveness, character or practice of speaking differently of the same thing or acting differently at different times or to different persons,' early 15c, from Old French duplicite (13c), from Late Latin duplicitatem (nominative duplicitas) 'doubleness,' in Medieval Latin 'ambiguity,' noun of quality from duplex (genitive duplicis) 'twofold,' from duo 'two' (from PIE root dwo- 'two') + -plex, from PIE root plek- 'to plait.' The notion is 'a state of being double' in one's conduct (compare Greek diploos 'treacherous, double-minded,' literally 'twofold, double') (Online Etymology Dictrionary)

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caterwaul [kat-er-wawl]

verb:
1 make a harsh cry, make a very loud and unpleasant sound
2 protest or complain noisily
3 utter long wailing cries, as cats in rutting time.
noun:
a shrill, discordant sound, an utter shrieking as of cats

Examples:

But their critics and coaches continue to caterwaul like spoiled Little League brats. (Sally Jenkins, If colleges prioritize football during this pandemic, their true sickness will be revealed, The Washington Post, August 2020)

There are, of course, those who find Dylan's singing something of a caterwaul. Bell is rather kinder about the “voice of a generation” but he can’t deny that decades of touring have taken their toll on Dylan’s untutored pipes. (Christopher Bray, Now I'm in my sixties, this is what I wish I'd known when I was 50 , Financial Times, July 2013)

Jellicle Cats are merry and bright
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul. (T S Eliot, 'The Song of the Jellicles')

Origin:

'disagreeable howling or screeching,' like that of a cat in heat, late 14c, caterwrawen, perhaps from Low German katerwaulen 'cry like a cat,' or formed in English from cater, from Middle Dutch cater 'tomcat' + Middle English waul 'to yowl,' apparently from Old English wrag, wrah 'angry,' of uncertain origin but somehow imitative. As a noun from 1708. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

IAn angry (or amorous) cat can make a lot of noise. As long ago as the mid-1300s, English speakers were using caterwaul for the act of voicing feline passions. The cater part is, of course, connected to the cat, but scholars disagree about whether it traces to Middle Dutch cāter, meaning 'tomcat,' or if it is really just cat with an '-er' added. The waul is probably imitative in origin; it represents the feline howl itself. English's first caterwaul was a verb focused on feline vocalizations, but by the 1600s it was also being used for noisy people or things. By the 1700s it had become a noun naming any sound as loud and grating as a tomcat's yowl. (Merriam-Webster)

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replete [ri-pleet]

adjective:
1 abundantly supplied or provided; filled (usually followed by with):
2 stuffed or gorged with food and drink.
3 complete

Examples:

The Nepal-born executive chef, Min B. Thapa, is no stranger to the Chicago dining scene. His cooking is replete with wonderfully rich flavors and unique methods. (Josh Noel, 58 Chicago restaurants awarded Bib Gourmand designation by Michelin Guide, including 10 first-timers, Chicago Tribune, April 2021)

Rock and pop are replete with styles that came about as the result of happenstance. (In music, accidents are the mother of invention, The Economist, April 2021)

Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator; - has this mind perished? (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)

Over her shoulders the newly risen moon poured a flood of silvery light, stretching from her feet across the shining bars of the river to the opposite bank, and on up to the very crest of the Devil's Spur--no longer a huge bulk of crushing shadow, but the steady exaltation of plateau, spur, and terrace clothed with replete and unutterable beauty. (Bret Harte, Devil's Forde)

Origin:

Late 14c., from Old French replet 'filled up' (14c.), from Latin repletus 'filled, full,' past participle of replere 'to fill; fill again, re-fill,' from re- + plere 'to fill' (from PIE root pele- 'to fill'). (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Given that one of the roots of replete is the Latin verb plēre, meaning 'to fill,' it isn't surprising that the word has synonyms such as 'full' and 'complete.' 'Replete,' 'full,' and 'complete' all indicate that something contains all that is wanted or needed or possible, but there are also subtle differences between the words. 'Full' implies the presence or inclusion of everything that can be held, contained, or attained ('a full schedule'), while 'complete' applies when all that is needed is present ('a complete picture of the situation'). 'Replete' is the synonym of choice when fullness is accompanied by a sense of satiety. (Merriam-Webster)

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lief [leef]

adjective:
1 (archaic) dear; beloved; treasured.
2 (archaic) willing, glad

adverb:
soon, gladly (commonly in the phrase 'as lief')

Examples:

Depend upon it, sir, many a rich man dining tonight upon roast swan would as lief exchange his vittles for a plate of this cooked cheese! (Marcel Theroux, Strange Bodies)

He wants no boisterous notes of artificial passion: he would as lief the town-crier spoke his lines. (Michael Phelan, The Young Priest's Keepsake)

Lief should I rouse at mornings. And lief lie down of nights. (A E Houseman, Last Poems)

Origin:

Lief began as 'lēof' in Old English and has since appeared in many literary classics, first as an adjective and then as an adverb. It got its big break in the epic poem 'Beowulf' as an adjective meaning 'dear' or 'beloved.' The adverb first appeared in the 13th century, and in 1390, it was used in John Gower’s collection of love stories, 'Confessio Amantis.' Since that time, it has graced the pages of works by William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and D.H. Lawrence, among others. Today, the adjective is considered to be archaic and the adverb is used much less frequently than in days of yore. It still pops up now and then, however, in the phrases 'had as lief,' 'would as lief,' 'had liefer,' and 'would liefer.' (Merriam-Webster)

'dearly, gladly, willingly' (obsolete or archaic), c. 1250, from Middle English adjective lief 'esteemed, beloved, dear,' from Old English leof 'dear, valued, beloved, pleasant' (also as a noun, 'a beloved person, friend'), from Proto-Germanic leuba- (source also of Old Norse ljutr, Old Frisian liaf, Dutch lief, Old High German liob, German lieb, Gothic liufs 'dear, beloved'), from PIE root leubh- 'to care, desire, love.' Often with the dative and in personal constructions with have or would in expressions of choice or preference ("and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom, as the morality of imprisonment", 'Measure for Measure'). I want and I'd love to are overworked and misused to fill the hole left in the language when I would lief faded in 17c. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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perambulate [per-am-byuh-leyt]

verb:
1 walk or travel through or round a place or area, especially for pleasure and in a leisurely way.
1a (historic British) walk round (a parish, forest, etc.) in order to officially assert and record its boundaries.

Examples:

Built over two years by engineer Thomas Cargill, it reached over 1,000 feet into the sea and featured an impressive castellated entrance. Visitors paid a penny a head to perambulate over the beach, the waves and way out across the sea. (Dave Lee, Why unique Withernsea stands apart from its Yorkshire coast counterparts, Yorkshire Post, August 2020)

"We can sometimes spot them at night when we perambulate the forest," the official added. (Keerthi P, Rare sighting of slender lorises in Tirumala amid COVID-19 lockdown, The News Minute, May 2020)

It happened more than once that they would thus perambulate three or four times the distance, each seeing the other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection. (Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea)

If the gentleman wishes to perambulate America, it is probable he will get there with a little patience. (H+James Fenimore Cooper, Homeward Bound)

Origin:

Late Middle English from Latin perambulat- 'walked about', from the verb perambulare, from per- 'all over' + ambulare 'to walk'. (Oxford English Dictionary)

"walk through, about, or over," 1560s, from Latin perambulatus, past participle of perambulare "to walk through, go through, ramble through," from per "through" (from PIE root per- (1) "forward," hence "through") + ambulare "to walk, go about". (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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pettifogging [pet-ee-fog-ing, -faw-ging]

adjective:
1 placing undue emphasis on petty details; petty or trivial
2 dishonest or unethical in insignificant matters; meanly petty.

Examples:

Has this forced him to recalibrate his pettifogging fussiness? Far from it — he now has more to get gloriously grumpy about in his latest show, entitled Old Man. (Bruce Dessau, Jon Richardson, review: Pedant’s well worth the fuss, Evening Standard, November 2017)

Oh, how I long for the days of political debate when pettifogging blatherskites held no truck with mollycoddling. (David Kittredge, Renaissance Redneck: A blatherskite’s delight, Eagle Times, August 2020)

A pair of pettifogging lawyers had been kicking up a legal dust, and one of them, Bordens lawyer, was still at it. (John H Whitson, Justin Wingate, Ranchman)

However, I was obliged to begin a prosecution in form, and accordingly my governess found me out a very creditable sort of a man to manage it, being an attorney of very good business, and of a good reputation, and she was certainly in the right of this; for had she employed a pettifogging hedge solicitor, or a man not known, and not in good reputation, I should have brought it to but little. (Daniel Defoe, The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders)

Origin:

In the later middle ages, there was a class of lawyers who earned their livings making a great deal of fuss over minor legal cases. About 1560 they came to be called pettifoggers. They often had limited concern for scruples or conscience and the term was deeply contemptuous.

Petty, then as now, meant something minor or trivial (from the French petit, small), so that part is obvious enough, but where does fogger come from?

Theories abound. One of the better known, and quoted as fact in a few dictionaries, is that it originated in a German family named Fugger, who were successful merchants and financiers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, based in Augsburg. German, together with Dutch and other Germanic languages, also had variations on fugger as a word for people who were wealthy or grasping about money, or whose business methods were disreputable. Hence in English fogger, dating from the later sixteenth century but long obsolete, was a word for an underhand dealer. The German word might be the source.

The lawyers called pettifoggers spent their time arguing about matters of small importance. The term became popular, and spawned derivatives like pettifogging. These survived the original term, which is now considered archaic, but we retain in the latter word the idea of somebody who places too much emphasis on trifles or who quibbles about minor matters. (World Wide Words)

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Word of the Day!

Entries tagged with middle english

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Thursday Word: Ort

Thursday Word: Gamut

Sunday Word: Makebate

Sunday Word: Pestiferous

Sunday Word: Alterity

Sunday Word: Dispiteous

Sunday Word: Peradventure

Sunday Word: Noisome

Sunday Word: Nethermost

Sunday Word: Obloquy

Sunday Word: Catch-as-catch-can

Sunday Word: Ugsome

Sunday Word: Flibbertigibbet

Sunday Word: Duplicity

Sunday Word: Caterwaul

Sunday Word: Replete

Sunday Word: Lief

Sunday Word: Perambulate

Sunday Word: Pettifogging

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