Now dern ya, Jackie, you went an' forced me into this. I've been holding on to a whole set of words that I became acquainted with, and started using regularly, at the 1800's historical village where I've been working as an interpreter, mostly from Marc McCutcheon's A Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800's. Absquatulate is at the top of my list! I love this word, the way it sounds, the way it feels when you say it, the way it looks, I love everything about it...and I'm aimin' to bring it back to life again! Take the "worthless" out of it, as it were (hi, tswum!...wwftd's been kickin' this word around for awhile now, evidently ) The intro paragraph to the word-list is great, but it gives away too many words I want to introduce, so I'll just quote the final sentence: "And, so, dear reader, here be but a microcosm of America's nineteenth-century colloquialisms and slang, some from the upper class, some from the lower, and much from the strata in between.

absquatulate: to take leave, to disappear.
1843: A can of oysters was discovered in our office by a friend, and he absquatulated with it, and left us with our mouth watering.
Missouri Reporter, February 2
1862: Rumor has it that a gay bachelor, who has figured in Chicago for nearly a year, has skeddadled, vamosed, and cleared out.
Rocky Mountain News, Denver, May 10

So let's all start absquatulatin' and bring it back to life again. Now don't you go and absquatulate with this thread, hear?

(The First of a Series)

By the way, I found a copy in the library and cornobbled just ain't there!

>cornobbled just ain't there!

haven't you been paying attention Juan? it's been found.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

cornobbled just ain't there!

haven't you been paying attention Juan? it's been found.

Sure, I know. But during the search I was so adamant that this book listed it, that I had to mention that it doesn't. [egg-on-my-face-for-Easter-e]

And who's Juan?

I've been holding on to a whole set of words
Well, my goodness, you'd better let go, I think, or you'll get cramps...
But your meaning of absquatulate sounds like what I'd use abscond for. The inimitable source I got it from says (more or less) that it means to hop up in a hurry and run over and squat (as in settle) somewhere else. There was no mention of anything necessarily being taken along. I still don't know if there's such a word as squatulate, but I think there ought to be scond, and that it should mean punishment: "You dirty rat, I'll scond you for that"!

I can't hear "absquatulate" without thinking of the marvelous Alpha Beta Chowder, Jeanne Steig & William Steig, an illustrated collection of whimsical poetry.

A sample:

An Appetizer for Alexander

Abhorent axolotl, scat!
Unless you'd like to feed my cat.

Come at once, dear Alexander,
Have a bit of salamander.
See its tasty little gills?
Don't they look like lamb-chop frills?

Amphibian, avoid thy fate.
Slither off! Absquatulate!

Absquatulate was considered clever in Abraham Lincoln's day. Much later came "23 skidoo" and not very long ago "scram" . When will the latter two be recycled?

Here's an interesting etymological note on absquatulate from American Heritage. When I was first introduced to the word, both sight and sound, I thought it had a decidedly Native American ring to it, and thought it could be traced back to an aboriginal tongue. Did the word strike anyone else in the same way?

absquatulate:

SYLLABICATION: ab·squat·u·late
PRONUNCIATION: [deleted-wouldn't copy properly]
INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: ab·squat·u·lat·ed, ab·squat·u·lat·ing, ab·squat·u·lates
Midwestern & Western U.S. 1a. To depart in a hurry; abscond: “Your horse has absquatulated!” (Robert M. Bird). b. To die. 2. To argue.
ETYMOLOGY: Mock-Latinate formation, purporting to mean “to go off and squat elsewhere”.
REGIONAL NOTE: In the 19th century, the vibrant energy of American English appeared in the use of Latin affixes to create jocular pseudo-Latin “learned” words. There is a precedent for this in the language of Shakespeare, whose plays contain scores of made-up Latinate words. Midwestern and Western U.S. absquatulate has a prefix ab–, “away from,” and a suffix –ate, “to act upon in a specified manner,” affixed to a nonexistent base form –squatul–, probably suggested by squat. Hence the whimsical absquatulate, “to squat away from.” Another such coinage is Northern busticate, which joins bust with –icate by analogy with verbs like medicate. Southern argufy joins argue to a redundant –fy, “to make; cause to become.” Today, these creations have an old-fashioned and rustic flavor curiously at odds with their elegance. They are kept alive in regions of the United States where change is slow. For example, Appalachian speech is characterized by the frequent use of words such as recollect, aggravate, and oblige.


The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.

Anything to add from the OED, tsuwm?

And I love that poem, Sparteye!

Came across absquatulate as a crossword puzzle definition just yesterday. The desired light was "take to the hills".

If eighteenth-century America could have "squatter's rights," why not absquatulate if it was appropriate?

Ok, Sweet WO'N, ab--means 'away from'--thank you! But this absolutely ties me in knots: an old-fashioned and rustic flavor curiously at odds with their elegance. They are kept alive in regions of the United States where change is slow. For example, Appalachian speech is characterized by the frequent use of words such as recollect, aggravate, and oblige.
I don't know what to do first: bristle up at being called old-fashioned, rustic, and slow (for the record, I do not live in Appalachia), or ask in genuine astonishment: "Do you mean to tell me these three words aren't common all over the U.S.?" 'Cause they sure are alive and kickin', here.

"Do you mean to tell me these three words aren't common all over the U.S.?" 'Cause they sure are alive and kickin'!

Nope...sorry, Jackie! Y'all absquatulated with 'em!

... use of words such as recollect, aggravate, and oblige.
I don't know what to do first: bristle up at being called old-fashioned, rustic, and slow (for the record, I do not live in Appalachia), or ask in genuine astonishment: "Do you mean to tell me these three words aren't common all over the U.S.?" 'Cause they sure are alive and kickin', here.

Well, Jackie, I'd be happy to oblige you. As near as I can recollect, some folks do tend to aggravate you by telling you they don't use those words! I, myself, use them often, and I am not in Appalachia either!

absquatulate is also a favourite of mine ever since, some years ago, I was asked by a crossword-addict if there was such a word. I LdIU in the OED at work and was given an etymology that derived the word from "abscond" cross-bred with "squattle."

The latter word, claimed the OED, was used in C19 USA to describe the action of Indians (Native Americans) when they upped tents and disappeared overnight, without any one being aware of their departure.

The main word, absquatulate, was said to be used mainly in respect of people who ran off with money which had been entrusted to them - e.g, the club's treasurer or the bank cashier.

The main word, absquatulate, was said to be used mainly in respect of people who ran off with money which had been entrusted to them - e.g, the club's treasurer or the bank cashier.

Yes, Rhuby...my encounters with the word in the writings of the time seem to point to it being used more often in the sense of embezzlement or embezzler than anything else. Yet this particular word (embezzle) never seems to show up in any of absquatulate's definitions as a synonym.

my recollection, having LIU when I used it for wwftd, was that OED didn't have much to say at all; I didn't get an impression of embezzlement:

[A factitious word, simulating a L. form (cf. abscond, gratulate) of American origin, and jocular use.]
To make off, decamp.
1837–40 Haliburton Clockmaker (1862) 363 Absquotilate it in style, you old skunk,+and show the gentlemen what you can do. 1858 Dow Serm. I. 309 in Bartlett Dict. Amer., Hope's brightest visions absquatulate. 1861 J. Lamont Seahorses xi. 179 He [an old bull-walrus] heard us, and lazily awaking, raised his head and prepared to absquatulate.


edit: on third thought, Juan, could you have been thinking of the word 'defalcate', which means 'to engage in embezzlement'?

I was curious to see what Mencken might have to say about absquatulate; he merely includes it in a discussion of some other curious words:

Yet again, there are the purely artificial words, e.g., sockdolager, hunky-dory, scalawag, guyascutis, spondulix, slumgullion, rambunctious, scrumptious, to skedaddle, to absquatulate and to exfluncticate. 25 In the use of the last-named coinages fashions change. In the 40’s* to absquatulate was in good usage, but it has since disappeared. Most of the other inventions of the time, however, have to some extent survived, and it would be difficult to find an American of today whom did not know the meaning of scalawag and rambunctious and who did not occasionally use them.

http://www.bartleby.com/185/pages/page96.html

*1840s : )

pardon me whilst I look up guyascutis....

(errare est humanum)

pardon me whilst I look up guyascutis....

Well, I reckon you found it right quick, eh tsuwm?
Amazing. But that's what makes you the biggest toad in the puddle. Can I absquatulate with some of that there magic of your'n?

>I reckon you found it right quick..

actually®, it took a bit longer than usual -- Mencken spelled it... in a different way.

(hoooah!)

Do you mean to tell me these three words aren't common all over the U.S.?"

Aggravate is in common use in Michigan, and I occasionally hear oblige, but I don't hear recollect used except as a humorous affectation.

Mencken spelled guyascutis hoooah???