I love this word so much that a friend made me a t-shirt embellished with it. I found it, appropriately enough, while playing dictionary with a 10-year-old girlfriend. According to the old dictionary we were using it means "an impudent or mischievous girl or woman." I like it because there are lots of words that describe men with these characteristics, but so few for women. When I asked around if anyone else had heard of this word, the two or three who had thought it meant slut!
So, I'd like to redeem and resusitate this forgotten gem, and encourage hoydens everywhere. Hoyden power!
BlanchePatch > "an impudent or mischievous girl or woman." -------------------------------------------------------- Hurrah! A great word. Much better than "tom boy" which isn't appropriate for the older set. The T-shirt emblazoned "Runs with scissors" comes close but Hoyden is spot on. Proudly hoydenish wow
Interestin;g though the etymology says it is related to heathen, and does not specify gender. But I guess there was a need for a gender specific word . Tomboys and hoydens are appealing, and now don't have to combat stifling restrictive prim mothers as much as they used to. I have known many mothers who bitterly resented the freedoms their daughters had.
Dear Faldage: I think you will wait a long time before you see VIRAGO on a T shirt. Though we all know some females for whom it would be appropriate. Fortunately none of them visit our board.
oh? there are two senses for the word virago. (YCLIU)
here are some 'women' from the wwftd files:
beldam - an old woman, esp an ugly one: hag cuckquean - a woman whose husband is unfaithful doxy - a woman of loose morals: prostitute; mistress fustilugs - a ponderous clumsy person, esp. a fat and slovenly woman gammerstang - a tall, awkward person, usu. a woman harridan - an ill-tempered scolding woman: shrew hoyden - woman of saucy, boisterous or carefree behavior inamorata - a woman with whom one is in love or has intimate relations maenad - a woman participant in orgiastic Dionysian rites malkin - [Brit] 1) an untidy woman: slattern; 2) cat; hare parvenue - a woman who is a parvenu rudas - [Scot] a hideous, vile and loathsome old woman sylph - a slender graceful woman or girl termagant - shrew; hard, overbearing woman viraginity - masculine characteristics in a woman (leading to...) virago - a woman of great stature, strength and courage; a loud overbearing woman Xanthippe - [Socrate's scolding wife] any nagging, peevish or irritable woman
and, just for fun, here is a very useless(?) word from the collection: tragolimia - in a man, an overwhelming and indiscriminate urge to have sex with any woman, regardless of her looks or age
Thanks, tsuwm. I have long wondered at the complementary term for "cuckold."
And as to "tragolimia" - in a man, an overwhelming and indiscriminate urge to have sex with any woman, regardless of her looks or age - I'm not gonna say it.
I remember a story about Sam Johnson's getting fish wife furious just by calling her a "gerund" or a similar grammatical term. So while your list is fun to read, I don't know anybody I could apply them to. But now I'm prepared, in any case. Thanks
virago - a woman of great stature, strength and courage; a loud overbearing woman
I suspect the latter definition is mostly a result of a wapman's (YCLIU) fear of women who refuse to be considered second class. There is a movement afoot among some feminists (feminist: one who holds the radical notion that women are human beings) to use the word hag in a positive sense.
What a fabulous list! I forgot about doxy, it sounds so cute!
But I can't help noticing that the list is short on words for forceful positive attributes, those that are have transmogrified into negatives (virago, and maybe bedlam). Tomboy is a phrase that was used to describe me in my childhood, but I never felt like I was acting like a boy, I just felt I was acting like me.
I've seen attempts to recover the word "crone"; some women are having "croning" ceremonies to celebrate the onset of menopause. I applaud the effort, though I gotta admit I'd hesitate to describe myself that way. Unless I can be like Baba Yaga and live in a chicken-legged house.
it seems to be a fact of the human condition that we end up with lots of words for 'negative' concepts. take the hundreds of words for the condition of being drunk for an example. or ask me about my 'ship of fools' sometime...
I can't help noticing that the list is short on words for forceful positive attributes, those that are have transmogrified into negatives
In a male-dominated society, that is surely to be expected. Similar bias can be seen in the way our dextral world describes the blessed few born sinistral. Personally, I think it's just amino acid envy
I am right-handed, but almost every especially significant person in my life is left-handed, including my father, my husband, my older son, my younger son, my best male friend, and my best female friend, and several others within my near circle. I have often wondered why I have a right-brain personality but am right-handed.
I don't care, you get 1 squajillion bonus points for using a word that I thought I had coined! The truly ambisinistrous have my admiration, all the more so now that I know I am not alone in using the word.
you may have merely given it another sense, max. the ambidextrous of the world have previously defined it as "clumsy, maladroit (the opposite of ambidextrous): ambilaevous" - as usual, you've come up short.
Right handed, although ambidextrous in many tasks. (Which I regard as unremarkable) Aries. (1 in 12 chance there) Red hair. (Now we're talking some serious recessive alleles!)
I had three brothers, two of us right handed, two left handed. To this day when I have to seat people around a table I ask if anyone's left handed and place them appropriately. wow February 10 1929 Year of the Earth Snake.
When I have to seat people around a table, I ask if anyone's left handed and place them appropriatey.
Very considerate of you, wow. When I was in high school, my Bio teacher seated me (a right-hander) on the left side of a lab table. My lab partner, of course, ended up being left-handed! We bumped elbows all semester. Ow.
Just spotted this thread. Virago was claimed by the publishing world in the early seventies. Styled as 'the first mass-market publisher for 52% of the population – women. An exciting new imprint for both sexes in a changing world'. They have continued to publish fascinating works, especially those re-discovered from the days when women writers were not so highly regarded (Unimaginable now, sic)!
See their website for their history: http://www.virago.co.uk "One of the most vigorous, stylish and successful British publishing imprints, Virago is the outstanding international publisher of women's literature. It is the largest women's imprint in the world and has made commercial success of publishing books of quality and originality."
Virago was claimed by the publishing world in the early seventies. I just checked out the Virago site and their splash page features a book by one of my favorite science writers, Natalie Angier. Lots of other cool books, too. Thanks for the link!
I am right handed, but have some double dexterity-- which falls short of being ambidextrous-- so can use a screw driver in either hand, but i write with my right-- I eat european style (left handed), and i knit and sew left handed. there are other things i do left handed, but i can't think of them-- i don't really think about it-- i just pick up and do, and some time i do it with a right hand and some times with a left-- but each hand has, for the most part 'assigned' jobs. there are very few things i can do equally well with either hand.
Basically ambi, but write with left since screamed at by hideous baggage of a primary school teacher! Still use hands for most tasks without particular favour, though for some reason I would prefer to pick up a saw in my left and a hammer in my right.
Having jumped on the lefty bandwagon early in this poll, I guess I have to amend things a bit. I seem to work a bit like of Troy and Maverick - occasionally I don't know which hand I prefer in a particular task until I pick up the appropriate implement. But since we tend to describe ourselves by which hand we write with, I call myself a lefty. For writing and many finer motor skills, I use my left, but I mouse with my write, and can write on a chalkboard/whiteboard with either hand, and sometimes switch back and forth. For most sports and other large-muscle activities I use my right, but I can bat either way (but hate baseball) and can fence equally well (in fact, equally badly) with either hand. "I have something to tell you. I'm not left-handed either."
There was a man whose right arm was two inches longer than his left arm. He used the right arm to reach everthing on the table he wanted. He used the left arm to miss the dinner check by two inches.
And the cognomen "Scaevola" meant literally "shitwing". In the days before Charmin was available, the left hand was used instead, and was socially unacceptable.
Still true among the more traditionally minded here. The paper provided in more upmarket conveniences is often used as paper towels after washing the hands.
Disclaimer: Wordsmith.org is not responsible for views expressed on this site.
Use of this forum is at your own risk and liability - you agree to
hold Wordsmith.org and its associates harmless as a condition of using it.
Personally, I think it's just amino acid envy
