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Seldom-Used Words

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Now, I understand the differences in quality paper, thanks, gentlemen.

There are so many things I simply take for granted, like good toilet paper. The Indians and early prospectors in this area used mullen leaves, a very, soft, velvety leaf that becomes a very tall plant. It is all over my backyard, because it used to be a railroad camp. I still find cast-iron train parts, when eradicating my land from the relentless blackberriy bushes.

radicate - vt to cause to take root
 
Yes, Handley, what a difference an 'e' makes.

I heard this word in the context of health and had to look it up;

fettle(2) - noun 1. a state of fitness or order: CONDITION 2. FETTLING
 
AllardChardon said:
Yes, Handley, what a difference an 'e' makes.

I heard this word in the context of health and had to look it up;

fettle(2) - noun 1. a state of fitness or order: CONDITION 2. FETTLING
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Oh Boy did you pick a tricky one. There are three in my little Oxford. These days, in the UK, there's the verb used, and an actual job of "Fettler" (not used a lot, to be truthful); used, I understand in the Pottery industry.

fettle v. Now dial. & techn. [f. FETTLE n.1]
1 v.t. Make ready, arrange, put to rights, tidy; groom (a horse etc.).
b Hit (a person). dial.
c techn. Prepare, clean, trim, (the rough edge of a metal casting, pottery before firing, a furnace, etc.).
2 v.refl. & i. Get oneself ready, prepare, (for battle etc.). Long obs. exc. dial. L
b v.i. Busy oneself, fuss.
fettler n. a person who fettles; esp. a repairer of railway lines: L19.


fettle /fet()l/ n.1 obs. exc. Sc. & north. chain, band, ON fetill bandage, strap, f. Gmc base meaning 'grasp, hold'.]
A strip or band of material; a belt, a bandage, a handle on a pannier etc.




---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 
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I must have missed these entries in my haste;

raddled - adj 1. CONFUSED, BEFUDDLED 2. broken down: WORN

racy(1) - adj 1. having the distinctive quality of something in its original or most characteristic form 2.a. full of zest or vigor b. PIQUANT, PUNGENT c. RISQUE', SUGGESTIVE

rack rent - noun an excessive or unreasonably high rent ; esp: one equal to the full annual value of the property

rackle - adj chiefly SCOT: IMPETUOUS, HEADSTRONG

rackety - adj 1. NOISY 2. FLASHY, ROWDY 3. RICKETY

racketeer - noun one who extorts money or advantages by threats of violence, by blackmail, or by unlawful interference with business or employment

And that is a lot to miss on a 1/4 page.
 
Interesting, Allard, about the "rack rent." I've often seen rates posted in hotel rooms in some States where the "rack rate" is listed. It always is the highest (and definitely exhorbitant) rate possible for the room.
 
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oggbashan said:
Rag paper is more expensive now. The rags that were used for 18th and early 19th Century newspapers were collected from the slums. Mummies were wrapped in linen - far removed from shoddy rags collected by rag and bone men.

There was and is a whole industry about quality paper. I have some French books from the 19th Century that proudly claim that they were printed on English Whatman paper from Maidstone, Kent. Whatman also produced filter papers for the chemical industry.

Until the 20th Century, newspapers weren't recycled, except cut up for use as toilet paper, or for lighting coal fires. I remember that there was a pecking order for used newspapers for toilets. The quality papers, such as The Times, The Manchester Guardian, The Telegraph and The News Chronicle were preferred because the ones that were or became red-top tabloids used a cheaper printing process that left printers' ink on your backside.

During WWII in the UK, paper recycling became important because importing wood or wood pulp was a waste of scarce shipping resources.
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Cat mummies were shipped to England, where the linen wrappings became fine papers. The ancient bones,we find, were excellent as temper for porcelain and provided the essential ingredient for bone china. Human mummies seem to have been shipped to Canada, though the ships' manifests don't explicitly identify them as such. The wrappings went for paper, but we can only surmise what happened to the bodies. We do know, however, that Canadian paper producers in the 19th Century also sold high-calcium "potash" garden fertilizer, and that such is not a by-product of paper manufacture.
 
Tio, my dear unspouse, I had no idea bone china had anything to do with real bones, but I should have guessed. I will let my other entries ride...
 
Dictionary of Historical Slang - R

rabbit - A new-born babe, mostly in rabbit-catcher, a midwife.

rabbit or rabbits, buy the. To have the worst of a bargain.

rabbit, live. The male member whence skin the live rabbit or have a bit of rabbit-pie.

rabbit pie. A harlot.

rabbit-pie shifter. A policeman. He tells harlots to 'move along'.

rabbit-skin, occ. cat-skin. An academical hood.

rabbit-skin, to get one's. To obtain the Bachelor of Arts degree.

rabbit-sucker. A young spendthrift.
 
Og, I immediately thought of poor old Beatrix Potter. Did anyone share the slang meaning of those words with her before she starting writing about Peter Rabbit. God forbid what that really means?! hahaha

Still letting my earlier entries ride for the day, but I do appreciate the interaction, gents, even if I am taking the afternoon off.
 

noetic • adj., of, relating to, originating in, or apprehended by the intellect.



 
This word has nine entries, but I am posting only number one for now;

rack - noun a wind-driven mass of high often broken clouds
 
I used this word this morning to describe a plant in my garden and decided to post it, ahead of schedule;

persnickety - adj PERNICKETY

pernickety - adj [perhaps an alteration of particular] 1. having extremely exacting standards: FINICKY 2. requiring great precision: TICKLISH
 
Boondoggle

boon·dog·gle
n.

1. An unnecessary or wasteful project or activity.
 
Welcome, Lord Emu. Boondoggle is a great word. Makes me think of this next word, which was not in my dictionary at all;

boondocks - noun, plural, slang 1. wild, desolate, or uninhabitable country 2. a remote rural or provincial area (sometimes shortened to the Boonies) [from Tagalog bundok - mountain]

There was a song when I was young, "Down in the Boondocks," that I loved to sing, even though I did not know what it meant exactly. I always envisioned a remote, dilapidated dock in a swampy place for some reason, but the definition says nothing about a dock.
 
AllardChardon said:
Welcome, Lord Emu. Boondoggle is a great word. Makes me think of this next word, which was not in my dictionary at all;

boondocks - noun, plural, slang 1. wild, desolate, or uninhabitable country 2. a remote rural or provincial area (sometimes shortened to the Boonies) [from Tagalog bundok - mountain]

There was a song when I was young, "Down in the Boondocks," that I loved to sing, even though I did not know what it meant exactly. I always envisioned a remote, dilapidated dock in a swampy place for some reason, but the definition says nothing about a dock.
Click to expand...

The Australian equivalent of in the boondocks is 'beyond the Black Stump' because Australian bush land was featureless and directions in remote areas used whatever marks were available such as a fire-blackened tree stump.

When visiting some relations in 1961 the directions included 'follow the track for 30 miles and turn left at the striped oil drum, drive twenty miles further and turn left at the wrecked car. We're only eight miles further...'.

When we actually got to the striped oil drum, someone had painted directions on it, and more again on the wrecked car so navigation was easy.

But my relations admitted that they lived 'beyond the Black Stump' as far as most of their city-dwelling relations were concerned.
 
Og, I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear myself say those very words to describe the dockless boondocks, "They lived so far out there, they were beyond the Black Stump."

Here in the forest that doesn't work so well. We have directions like, "Take the dirt road after the Hwy 97 road sign, watching out for deep ruts, until you come to a fork in the road. Go past that and take the next right, but look closely or you will miss it. Stay on that little road for 3 miles and turn left up the steep drive to the landing. Park there and walk a quarter mile to the shack. In good weather only!

Rabelaisian - adj 1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Rabelais or his works 2. marked by or manifesting gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature,or bold naturalism
 
A friend used this word earlier and, even though I know its use, I do not know its origin, so I had to look it up;

Pandemonium - noun 1. the capital of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost 2. HELL 3. not cap: a wild uproar: TUMULT
 
More Rs from Historical Slang

rack off - to piss

rackaback = a gormagon = 1. A hypothetical monster with six eyes, three mouths, four arms, eight legs, five on one side and three on the other, two penises and a cunt on its back; or 2. a man on horseback with a woman riding sidesaddle behind him. The Gormagons were an English secret society, a lay offshoot of the Masons; evidently there was some ridiculous initiation rite.

raclan - A married woman (tramps' cant)

raddled - drunk

rafe or Ralph - a pawn ticket

raffle-coffin - A ruffian, especially a resurrectionist.

The Rag - The regimental brothel

rag-bag or rag-doll - A slattern

rag-gorger or rag-splawger - a rich man

rag-water - Any inferior alcoholic spirits

ragged-arse - Tattered, disreputable, ruined

raggery - clothes, especially women's 'Old hags... dressed in majestic raggery'

raggie, raggy - a particular friend (with whom you would share your brass cleaning cloth) Naval, usually pejorative with homosexual connotations.

(on) the rags, (have) the rags - be menstruating
 
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Good idea, Tio. I will join you in that.

What a wonderful addition to the R section, Og. Please enlighten us with entries from that book anytime, I love them all. There is so much history hidden in words.

One question, was Pandemonium associated with Pan at all, or is that just a coincidence?

rabble-rouser - noun one that stirs up (as to hatred or violence) the masses of the people: DEMAGOGUE
 
AllardChardon said:
One question, was Pandemonium associated with Pan at all, or is that just a coincidence?
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From wikipwedia: Pan- as a prefix (Greek πᾶν, pan, "all," "of everything," "involving all members" of a group),

If the god Pan is involved it is a v ery indirect involvement.
 
Since the word sprang from Milton's imagination, we really don't know if the satyr Pan was an influence or not. And we can't ask Milton or Pan, for that matter, so I guess it is a moot point, Harold. Thanks for checking, anyway.

rabble(1) - noun 1. a pack or swarm of animals or insects 2. a disorganized or confused collection of things 3.a. a disorganized or disorderly crowd of people: MOB b. the lowest class of people
 
Pan the deity's name comes from the word paein (πάειν), meaning "to pasture."

Pan the prefix, commonly used in formation of words such as pantheism, panacea, pansexual, and similar, comes from πᾶν (pan), the neuter form of πᾶς (pas), meaning “all, every.”

Not that I've learned Greek, but it seems rather certain Milton had this in mind. :)

As a side note, though, I’m reminded of this painting from Pompeii that shows, as one detail, an Amor figure fighting a Pan figure. Turns out the painting is a delightful bilingual (Greek and Roman) visual pun: “Amor omnia vincit”—‘love’ conquers ‘all’.
 
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