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I haven't proffered one of these for a while..
flabuginous: something which is deceptive or fraudulent
from Bird's Grandiloquent Dictionary. I can find it nowhere else, and the def'n is suspect, presented as a thing, since the form is obviously adjectival. (you'd expect it to be "relating to deception or fraud", or the like.)
-joe (I carry no badge) friday
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Is this Grandiloquent Dictionary noted for such miscasting of words or otherwise generally suspect?
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Who would trust a dictionary that puts Grandiloquent up front of itself? Looks like the perfect dictionary for the otherwise entertaining word-pedant Tom Coryate, who brought in the word 'umbrella', but also tried words like : antipriscianisticall. Early 17th century.
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flabuginous: something which is deceptive or fraudulent
The inkhorn terms can be fun sometimes. First off, maybe who wrote the definition replaced of things with something. It doesn't look like any Latin-derived word. flabellum is a 'small fan', flabello 'to fan'. The Greeks borrowed flabellum from the Romans and Hellenized it to φλαβίλλιον (phlabillion).
This is the problem with most of these rare words lists, they give no examples and merely copy from some previous, uncigted competitor. The word only shows up in Google for websites and in no books.
Good luck in your search.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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antipriscianisticall
Not bothering to check my copy of Grandiose Flatigenous Wordhoard, two can play that game, I have to say I like antipriscianistical, but can only guess at its meaning. Perhaps, a 17th century synonym for descriptivist. From Priscian, a Roman grammarian.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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That surely will be it. He was fond of inventing new words, so he may often have had confrontations with prescriptivists. I wouldn't be surprised if he was responsable for flabuginous as well. He was a rather fanatic Reformed moralist as well, quite obsessed with gallows, which he loved to describe to the tiniest detail as well as pillars and fertile landscapes. A very eccentric character but a good observer.
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I departed from Oppenheim the twelfth day of September being munday about sixe of the clocke in the morning, and came to the city of Mentz about tenne of the clocke in the morning, which was tenne miles beyond it. It was my hap in this journey betwixt Oppenheim and Mentz to have such a notable companion as I never had before in all my life. For he was both learned and unlearned. Learned because being but a wood-cleaver (for he told me that he was the Jesuits wood-cleaver of Mentz) he was able to speake Latine. A matter as rare in one of that sordid facultie as to see a white Crowe or a blacke Swanne. Againe he was unlearned, because the Latin which he did speake was such incongruall and disjoynted stuffe, such antipriscianisticall eloquence, that I thinke were grave Cato alive (who for his constant severity was called αγελαστος [ agelastos], because he never or very seldome laughed) he should have more cause to laugh if he should heare this fellow deliver his minde in Latin, then when he saw an Asse eate thistles. ( link)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Is this Grandiloquent Dictionary noted for such miscasting of words or otherwise generally suspect? I'd have to say an emphatic "yes!" to that. someone did a study of the GD: "946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings". and goes on to list some of the misspellings: abcedarian, anaxiphillia, anklyosis, antedeluvian, anthrophobia, arachibutyrophillia, autovoxiphillia, chilihedron, dendrophillia, divigate, dolichprosopic, eleutherophillist, gerontophillia, hisbid, lucelence, misandronist, neophillia, nuciverous, olfactphobia, onamatophobia, orthpraxy, pathenophillia, pathenophobia, pedantrocracy, puellaphillist, schrecklichkreit, shistaceous, sorocide, taphephillia, tonitruphobia, tyrophillia, valedutinarian, vespertillian* link earlier this year I did a week of wwftds on words taken from GD: imparlibidinous (Bird had this as inparlibidinous) schrecklichkeit (misspelled as schrecklichkreit) percribrate (the misspelling in C. S. Bird was percribate) mutuatitial (misspelled as mutatitial) obaceration (Bird actually had this spelled correctly, but dropped it for lack of verification; as of Dec. 2008 it has a definitive headword in the online OED, whereas it was pretty well obscured (under obacerate) in OED2.) [one of the disclaimers on my site: "You try spell-checking this stuff!"] I've tried various knock-offs of the word in question here , flabuginous; no joy.
*you might actually recognize some of these; e.g., abecedarian, antediluvian, divagate, schistaceous, valetudinarian, etc.
Last edited by tsuwm; 11/29/09 05:50 PM.
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Lessee abcedarian.
OK, it spots it as a misspelling but doesn't offer the correct abecedarian. Google(R), however, when faced with abcedarian asks "Did you mean: abecedarian.
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Lessee abcedarian.
OK, it spots it as a misspelling but doesn't offer the correct abecedarian.]. I did. interestingly, OED(online) gives abcdarian as a variant.
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