I (very) recently did a theme week on lost positives (or not); since it's not inapt, I'll post some here.the worthless word for the day is:
sheveled[by shortening] (also shevelled)
rare, archaic disheveled
"He bowed his tall white head into my shevelled hair."
- Richard Blackmore,
Erema (1877)
"After the prisoner was delivered to Lexington the
next day in sheveled and humbled state, the posse was
dismissed..."
- Reese Prescott;
The Rockbridge County Gazette, June 28, 1904
(but)
"She was a descript person, a woman in a state of
total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled,
and she moved in a gainly way."
- Jack Winter;
The New Yorker, 25 July 1994
"Is sheveled the opposite of disheveled? Recreational
linguists call these words lost positives."
- Charles Elster,
What in the Word? (2005)
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you never know how a prefix is going to affect things;
some expect that sheveled existed as a positive form
(as happened with couth and kempt), but in this case
the word was formed (as per OED) by
aphesis.
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