Seldom-Used Words

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Is it possible that the Grimm Brothers used a pseudonym, even though historians say otherwise, for their tales were full of grim characters?

indagate - investigate

indagation - investigation

New to me!
 
Is it possible that the Grimm Brothers used a pseudonym, even though historians say otherwise, for their tales were full of grim characters?

indagate - investigate

indagation - investigation

New to me!

Grimm is the German word for Grim. However it is documented that their father Philip Wilhelm Grimm worked for the Prince of Hessen.
 
More of Thomas Love Peacock's Headlong Hall

From Chapter 4:

Of garden-making:

"Your system of levelling, and trimming, and clipping, and docking, and clumping, and polishing, and cropping, and shaving, destroys all the beautiful intricacies of natural luxuriance, and all the graduated harmonies of light and shade, melting into one another, as you see them on that rock over yonder."

Other words in the chapter:

picturesque, perfectability, concatenated (intelligence), singleness, extraneous, impinged, precipitate, amelioration.

Og
 
Ogg, Mr. Peacock sure knows his English and how to use it. The lists you have posted here attest to that!

Read this one this morning in a quote from Tom Robbins;

salubrious - beneficial, healthful

Salubrious sex was the subject.
 
DJIN A mischievous spirit (arabic)

AFRIT A ghost or spirit.

Djin immediately brings Scheherazade ( شهرزا ) and The Arabian Nights to mind. That's where I first encountered the word lo those many years ago whilst reading a child's version.

 
Ah the Arabian Nights and my childhood, yes, those were good years. My parents introduced me to the musical version of Schereazade and I still listen to it regularly to bring forth those feelings of wondrous places in long past times.

I love this word from the same language;

vizier - high executive in Muslim countries, especially The Grand Vizier.
 
blae - chiefly Scottish and Northern English, black-blue. From Old Norse word blá.
 
laird - a landed proprietor

from the Scottish for lord

There are several companies that will sell you a square foot of land in Scotland.

They claim that by owning that square foot you are entitled to describe yourself as a laird.

A better description might be "mug".

Og
 
Ogg, that is hilarious, a sq. ft. of Scottish land makes one a lord.

The guys selling the land could be called shysters or pettifoggers. LOL
 
Torpid and turgid are both somewhat archaic, still in use, but not particularly common, and they both sound a bit like what they mean - turgid, I think I did have to look up originally, but torpid can usually be gleaned from context.
 


Djin immediately brings Scheherazade ( شهرزا ) and The Arabian Nights to mind. That's where I first encountered the word lo those many years ago whilst reading a child's version.


For me, it's Gilbert & Sullivan's The Sorcerer, when Mr. John Wellington Wells sings " . . .you need only look in on your resident djin, number Seventy Simmery Ax!"
 
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The word Genius is derived from Djin, meaning "a force of nature".
 
The word Genius is derived from Djin, meaning "a force of nature".

Does not. IT comes from the same root word as djin but not derive from djin. The root word is Proto-Indo-European *gen, "produce".
 
I like

defenestrate - to make someone else leave through the window, usually by physical force, as in throwing or tossing. A popular method both of murder and suicide (i.e., to defenestrate oneself), assuming the window is not on the ground floor.

niggardly - cheap, parsimonious. I've heard of racial tempests in teapots over the use of this word, followed by reluctant apologies after it's been explained that the word has neither racial undertones nor etymology.
 
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When it comes to Gilbert & Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance wins my heart with:

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy—
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

Please excuse me, I simply could not resist posting this wonderful song!
 
I prefer "Hail Poetry" from the same G&S opera.


Hail, Poetry,
Thou heaven-born maid!
Thou gildest e'en the pirate's trade.
Hail, flowing fount of sentiment!
All hail, all hail, divine emollient!


Og
 
I had to stop myself from posting "Three little girls from school are we," from Mikado because this is not a Gilbert & Sullivan thread. hehehe

mikado - an emperor of Japan
 
I had to stop myself from posting "Three little girls from school are we," from Mikado because this is not a Gilbert & Sullivan thread. hehehe

mikado - an emperor of Japan

I was an understudy for one of the Three Little Girls in a school production. I, and the producer, were pleased that I wasn't needed. At the time I was a foot taller than their Nanki-Poo.

Back on topic: Pie-eyed = drunk, as does sloshed, slaughtered and many other synoynms.

Og
 
"mamelon"
A small hillock.

"ravelin",
part of fortifications.

Vizier.
He was the equivalent of the Grand Chamberlain of the Royal House. Think of a cross between The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
 
Ogg, I suspected you might have had to be a part of that production in school, thank god you did not have to go on! And thanks for the laugh, I envisioned you much younger with rosier cheeks and had quite a giggle. hehehe

hilding - a base contemptible person
 
Old English (Anglo-Saxon) words for sex:

hǽmed; hǽmed-þing (haemed or haemed-thing, can't think of a modern term that uses this word as a root for anything. Hammed?) - n. coitus, intercourse, bedding

ge-hǽman - v. (in positive light) to marry; (in negative light) to fuck, fornicate.

unriht-hǽmed (unright-haemed) - n. illicit intercourse, fucking

for-licgan (for-licken or for-lichen - possible connection with the words lickerish/lecher discussed a few months back) - v. (1) to either lie unnoticed or negected, or more to the point, (2) fornicate; fuck.

ge-licgan v. to assume a prostate position; to do it doggy-style.

mengan; ge-mang (root word for the modern terms mangle and mingle) - v. (of certain expressions) to mix, mingle with people, intercourse, to purchase intercourse as in prostitution.

rest-gemána - n. conjugal intercourse

wíf-lác - n. sapphic sex; sex amongst women

wíf-þing (wife-thing) - n. matters pertaining to women; marriage, sex

tíman (modern: teem) - v. to teem, be productive. With regards to women: bear children. With regards to men: to beget, to have intercourse with a woman.

leger-teám - n. Matrimony, sexual intercourse (lawful or unlawful). In this sense, I think it is of women but not referring to women doing such.

grétan (modern word: greet) - a round-about way of saying one took his wife and made love.
 
Xelebes, I love the etymology of words and obviously so do you, thank you for such an informative post. When I read the words, I could hear myself saying hymen for haeman and it all made a lot of sense suddenly. Ah, those light bulbs over the head that mark illumination...

Sazerac - a cocktail of bourbon, absinthe flavoring, bitters, and sugar with lemon peel
 
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