| | - Airling.
- A young, light, thoughtless person.
- Anthropophaginian.
- A ludicrous word, formed by Shakespeare from anthropophagi, for the
sake of a formidable sound.
- Bopeep.
- To look out, and draw back as if frighted, or with the purpose to fright
some other.
- Brainsick.
- Diseased in the understanding; addleheaded; giddy; thoughtless.
- Circumforaneous.
- Wandering from house to house. As a circumforaneous fiddler; one that
plays at doors.
- Compotation.
- The act of drinking or tippling together.
- Disrelish.
- Bad taste; nauseousness.
- Dogbolt.
- Of this word I know not the meaning, unless it be, that when meal or
flower is sifted or bolted to a certain degree, the coarser part is called
dogbolt, or flower for dogs.
- Edacious.
- Eating; voracious; devouring; predatory; ravenous; rapacious; greedy.
- Equinoctial.
- The line that encompasses the world at an equal distance from either
pole, to which circle when the sun comes, he makes equal days and nights
all over the globe.
- Fancymonger.
- One who deals in tricks of imagination.
- Fiddlefaddle.
- Trifling; giving trouble, or making a bustle about nothing.
- Gas.
- [A word invented by the chymists.] It is used by Van Helmont, and seems
designed to signify, in general, a spirit not capable of being coagulated: but
he uses it loosely in many senses, and very unintelligibly and inconsistently.
- Gulosity.
- Greediness; gluttony; voracity.
- Habnab.
- At random; at the mercy of chance; without any rule or certainty of effect.
- Horologe, Horology.
- Any instrument that tells the hour; as a clock; a watch; an hourglass.
- Illaqueate.*
- To entangle; to entrap; to ensnare.
- Jiggumbob.*
- [a cant word.] A trinket; a knick-knack; a slight contrivance in machinery.
*In Johnson’s Dictionary, entries for I and J were combined; historically J had
been considered an alternate form of I.
- Keelhale.
- To punish in the seamen’s way, by dragging the criminal under water on
one side of the ship and up again on the other.
- Knuckle.
- To submit: I suppose from an odd custom of striking the under side of
the table with the knuckles, in confession of an argumental defeat.
- Lacklinen.
- Wanting shirts.
- Lucubration.
- Study by candlelight; nocturnal study; any thing composed by night.
- Makebate.
- Breeder of quarrels.
- Mouth-friend.
- One who professes friendship without intending it.
- Network.
- Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices
between the intersections.
- Nugacity.
- Futility; trifling talk or behaviour.
- Odontalgick.
- Pertaining to the tooth-ach.
- Opiniatrety, Opiniatry.
- Obstinacy; inflexibility; determination of mind; stubbornness. This word,
though it has been tried in different forms, is not yet received, nor is it
wanted.
- Patron.
- 1. One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who
supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
- Perukemaker.
- A maker of perukes; a wigmaker.
- Quaffer.
- [a low word, I suppose, formed by chance.] To feel out. This seems to be
the meaning.
- Quinch.
- [this word seems to be the same with queech, winch and queck.] To stir;
to flounce as in resentment or pain.
- Rakehelly.
- Wild; dissolute.
- Rhetoricate.
- To play the orator; to attack the passions.
- Salsuginous.
- Saltish; somewhat salt.
- Slubberdegullion.
- [I suppose a cant word without derivation.] A paltry, dirty, sorry wretch.
- Terrestrify.
- To reduce to the state of earth.
- Tonguepad.
- A great talker.
- Unloose.*
- To loose. A word perhaps barbarous and ungrammatical, the particle
prefixed implying negation; so that to unloose, is properly to bind.
- Vaticide.*
- A murderer of poets.
*In Johnson’s Dictionary, entries for U and V were combined; historically U
had been considered an alternate form of V.
- Waggery.
- Mischievous merriment; roguish trick; sarcastical gaiety.
- Witling.
- A pretender to wit; a man of petty smartness.
In Johnson’s Dictionary, there were no entries for the letter X.
- Yellowboy.
- A gold coin. A very low word.
- Youthy.
- Young; youthful. A bad word.
- Zany.
- One employed to raise laughter by his gestures, actions and speeches;
a merry Andrew; a buffoon.
- Zootomist.
- A dissector of the bodies of brute beasts.
back to Stuff
|
