A growing assortment of words and definitions used in the Early Modern era. See the Guide for more information.
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Word
Definition
Changeling
(1) A fickle person; a waverer; a turncoat. (2) A person or thing secretly substituted for another. Especially, of a child -- particularly, of an ugly or stupid child -- supposedly left in infancy, by the fairies, in exchange for the real (and of course beautiful and bright) child stolen. Hence, a half-wit (as in Samuel Pepys' DIARY, 28 December, 1667) . Shakespeare in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1590) has the King of the Fairies say: I do but beg a little changeling boy, to be my henchman. [Note that Oberon refers to the child taken; the word usually refers to the child left amongst us humans.]
Justaucorps
A tight-fitting garment; especially, a woman's outer garment of the 17th century. Also justacor, justycoat; chesticore, and more. From the French juste, right + au corps, to the body. Samuel Pepys in his DIARY for 26 April, 1667, has the entry: With her velvet cap . . . and a black just-au-corps. THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE of 28 July, 1896, observed that in the Pyrenees the women look gorgeous in red justaucorps.
Taille
Shape; especially, one's shape from shoulder to waist. From the French, used in the 17th century; in the 14th century, tail was used in the same sense. Samuel Pepys in his DIARY (13 July, 1663) said that Mrs. Stewart, with her sweet eye, little Roman nose, and excellent taille, is now the greatest beauty I ever saw.
Virginal
A popular musical instrument of the 16th and 17th centuries, with keys; like a spinet but without legs (hence virginal? or because favored by young ladies?). The spinet was triangular; the virginal, rectangular. Usually in the plural, the virginals, referring to one instrument; also a pair of virginals] there were also double virginals, the first in 1581. The triangle (tryangle) and the harpsicon were names for other varieties of the instrument, the harpsicon (also harpsical; an early harpsichord) being the largest. Samuel Pepys, ever gallant, on 16 March, 1663 (his DIARY tells) went home by coach, buying at the Temple the printed virginall-book for her. Pepys delighted in giving music lessons in his household; in the DIARY (19 June, 1666) he gives a teasing account of some delightful and perhaps virginal playing. The instrument was then as popular in England as the piano in pre-radio America; watching the loading of household effects into boats on the Thames during the great London fire (2 September, 1666) Pepys observed that hardly one boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginalls in it. The harpsichord, from its earliest days, was not only an instrument but a work of art, with paintings and jeweled inlay, a collector's item; Duke Alfonso II of Modena in 1598, for example, owed fifty-two harpsichords.
