archaic and alternate uses of words

When reading it is a pleasure to encounter the lesser used definitions of common words. A couple of my favorites are... [definitions courtesy of Meriam-Webster]

(1) Traffic The commercial exchange of goods; trade. Illegal or improper commercial activity: drug traffic on city streets. Mr. Jones was sent to jail for trafficking in narcotics.

(2) Fell transitive verb: to cut, knock, or bring down: KILL The lumberjack felled the tree with a few strokes of his axe.

[The adjective form, meaning "all at once also or with a single concentrated effort," as in in one fell swoop is another interesting use of "fell." Yet another use of "fell" is to mean "FIERCE, CRUEL, TERRIBLE b : SINISTER, MALEVOLENT (a fell purpose) c : very destructive : DEADLY (a fell disease)." This use of "fell" has a different etymology from the first definition, and is related to the word "felon."]

(3) Terrible: exciting extreme alarm or intense fear; TERRIFYING: formidable in nature; AWESOME a terrible responsibility.

I wonder if anyone else has words of this ilk that they enjoy coming across?

Habit a particular costume or dress.. obs., now, except as a nun's habit. but used in the first bit of text i posted (thank, in part to My dear Mr. Bingley) in the small feast thread.

and
truck to exchange, or barter, (and payment, or even vegetable (ie, a truck farm)) or dealings, I'll have no truck with the likes of him!

``Non amo te, Zabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.''

by Martial which Tom Brown translated to

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know, I know full well,
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

Well the past tense of to fall would be the use I encounter more often, but I don't consider to fell to be completely obscure either. As you said, you live in and around logging, so you encounter the phoneme in a different setting there. I am more likely to hear "my grandmother fell three times this month" than "we felled a great spruce tree the other day."

My dictionary says "fall" as a transitive is Dialectical

I do not like thee,� Dr. Fell
The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know, I know full well,
I do not like thee,� Dr. Fell.
�[I recall that as "love thee".]

In response, dr. bill:
A doctor fell into a well
And broke his collarbone.
Moral: Doctor, mind the sick
And leave the well alone.

How some things change. I can remember hearing in the twenties a joke about a psychiatrist writing a letter to parents of a of a young lady telling them "she needed more social intercourse". His secretary got him into hot water by typing that as "sexual intercourse". Now that last word is not used for anything else.Imagine trying to tell that joke now.

In reply to:
How some things change. I can remember hearing in the twenties a joke about a psychiatrist writing a letter to parents of a of a young lady telling them "she needed more social intercourse". His secretary got him into hot water by typing that as "sexual intercourse". Now that last word is not used for anything else.Imagine trying to tell that joke now.

No doubt when the girl's father read that he ejaculated "Good lord!" ejaculate: to utter suddenly and vehemently

And what, may I ask, is wrong with ejaculating during social intercourse? It's jest nacheral!

Dear CK Just be sure to operate the right end.

Which reminds me of ancient story about King and his jester getting lost in the woods. By the time they were rescued, the king was so hungry he was at his wit's end.

Regarding half-wits and wit's end: The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell' by W. S. Gilbert, before he hooked up with A. Sullivan. (Perhaps of particular interest to the nautically oriented.)

http://www.stormy.ca/marine/nancy_bell.html

No doubt when the girl's father read that he ejaculated "Good lord!"
Kiwi: And what, may I ask, is wrong with ejaculating during social intercourse? It's jest nacheral!

Just so, Kiwi. 'tis a normal and desired incident of conversation.

[per definition #5 at http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/conversation]

Traffic: The commercial exchange of goods; trade.

As in, "Charge as much as the traffic will bear."