|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Charing Cross Not from chère reine, in honour of Eleanor, the dear wife of Edward I., but la chère
reine (the Blessed Virgin). Hence, in the Close Roll, Richard II, part I (1382), we read that the custody of
the falcons at Charryng, near Westminster, was granted to Simon Burley, who was to receive 12d. a day
from the Wardrobe.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Cheese Something choice (Anglo-Saxon, ceos-an, to choose; German, kiesen; French, choisir). Chaucer
says, “To cheese whether she wold him marry or no.”
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
A man may be an ass in whole
by nought but term of art
But be he but a fraction ass
whole, it's his most prominent part
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Chic Fashionable; comme il faut; the mode. This is an archaic French word in vogue in the seventeenth
century. It really is the Spanish chico, little, also a little boy, and chica, a little girl or darling. Similarly,
wee in Scotch is a loving term of admiration and pride. (Chic is an abbreviation of the German geschickt,
apt, clever.)
I haven't heard the word "chic" lately. It used to irritate me to hear it pronounced "chick".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Child at one time, meant a female infant, and was the correlative of boy.
“Mercy on `s! A barne, a very pretty barne. A boy or a child, I wonder?”- Shakespeare:
Winter's Tale, iii. 3.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Chiliasts [kiliasts]. Another word for Millenarians; those who believe that Christ will return to this earth
and reign a thousand years in the midst of His saints. (Greek, chilias, a thousand.)
Where have all the silly-assed chiliasts gone?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Chios (Kios). The man of Chios. Homer, who lived at Chios, near the Ægean Sea. Seven cities claim to
be his place of birth-
“Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athe'næ.”- Varro.
I know the word "colophon" meaning the publishers identifying emblem on title page of boods, I
did not know it was name of an island. I wonder how the emblem meaning arose.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Cue (1 syl.). The tail of a sentence (French, queue), the catch-word which indicates when another actor
is to speak; a hint; the state of a person's temper, as “So-and-so is in a good cue (or) bad cue.”
I think this etymology makes more sense than the one given in my dictionary.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Culverin properly means a serpent (Latin, colubrinus, the coluber), but is applied to a long, slender piece
of artillery employed in the sixteenth century to carry balls to a great distance. Queen Elizabeth's “Pocket
Pistol” in Dover Castle is a culverin.
I had a Tory ancestor who made them, but sold them to the British, and had to flee to Halifax and thence to England. When I was a boy, "Go to Halifax!" was a permissible euphemism for "go to Hell".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Cur A fawning, mean-spirited fellow, a crop-tailed dog (Latin, curtus, crop-tailed. French, court; our
curt). According to forest laws, a man who had no right to the privilege of the chase was obliged to cut
off the tail of his dog. Hence, a degenerate dog or man is called a cur.
I have also read that nobles had peasants' dogs' toenails cut off so that they could not chase deer.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,318
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
775
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
