| Word | Definition |
Lac virginis | (1) A cosmetic; used in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Literally (Latin), milk of the Virgin. Thomas Nashe in PIERCE PENNILESSE HIS SUPPLICATION TO THE DIVELL (1592) said: She should have noynted your face over night with lac virginis. (2) A wine; perhaps a translation of German Licbfraumilch. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE said, in a poem of 1820: The parsons should grow misty On good lac virginis or lachryma Christi. |
Lace | To catch in a net or snare; to variegate, streak with color (originally, from gold and silver lace) ; hence, to lash, whip (leaving streaks of the lash); to cut lines along the breast of a bird, for cooking -- laced fowl. Lace is via Old French from Late Latin laciare, Latin laqueare, to ensnare. Cp. laqueat. To lace coffee, from about 1675 to 1725, was to add sugar; Joseph Addison, in his satiric notes for A CITIZEN'S DIARY (SPECTATOR; 1711) wrote: Mr. Nisby of opinion that laced coffee is bad for the head. In most instances, a laced beverage is one to which a dash of brandy has been added. Laced mutton (sometimes just mutton), a strumpet, prostitute -- perhaps from wearing a bodice; or, with the waist drawn tight In William Shakespeare's THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (1591), Speed says of Julia: Aye, sir. I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a, laced mutton, and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour. Lost mutton, of course, suggests the more serious lost sheep, which would also include the laced mutton. |
Lachrymae | Latin for tears; used by Beaumont and Fletcher; see sippet Lacrima (lachryma, lachrymae) Christi, a strong, sweet red Italian wine; sometimes just lacrima (lacrimae): literally, the tears of Christ. Also lachrymable, tear-worthy; lachrymabund, with tears ready to fall; lachrymation, weeping, lachrymental, mournful. (All these, instead of chry, may be spelled cri or -- naturally -- cry). Caxton has a rare use of the verb, in his translation (1490) of THE BOOK OF ENEYDOS: Thenne she began somewhat for to lachryme and sighe upon the bed. Henry Fielding in THE AUTHOR'S FARCE (1731) boasted: Tokay I have drank, and lacrimae I have drank. Archaeologists have guessed that the tiny phials found in ancient Roman tombs were intended to hold tears, and call them lachrymatories (accent on the lack, which refers to evidence) . Thomas Carlyle in his MEMOIRS OF LORD TENNYSON (1842) declared: There is in me what would fill whole lachrymatories, as I read. The word was humorously applied to a lady's handkerchief, as in THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE in 1825: Women will be stationed in the pit with white cambric lachrymatories, to exchange for those that have become saturated with the tender tears of sympathy. |
Lackland | A person that owns no land; hence, a common person. Cardinal Vaughan in THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE of 29 August, 1899, declared that the transference of the great commons of England to the rich created a lackland and beggared poor. King John of England, the Plantagenet, who ruled 1199-1216, was called John Lackland, a common appellation of younger sons, said the PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA of 1839, whose age prevented them from holding fiefs. |
Laic | (1) A variant of lake, q.v., meaning play. (2) A variant of lay, pertaining to the laity, not of the church. Also used as a noun, meaning a layman, one not of the clergy. Charles Lamb in IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES (ESSAYS OF ELIA; 1833) points out that oath-taking creates a sort of double standard of truth: A great deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conversation; and a kind of secondary or laic truth is tolerated, where clergy truth -- oath truth -- by the nature of the circumstance, is not required. |
Lambitive | A medicine to be taken by licking, often given (in the 17th and 18th centuries) on the end of a licorice stick. Latin lambere, lambitus, to lick, whence lambent flames. Also lambative, lambetive; Steele in THE TATLER (1710, No. 266) has: Upon the mantle tree ... stood a pot of lambetive electuary. |
Lampadomancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using candles or what burns (and how it burns or how the wick floats about) in a lamp. |
Lancinate | To pierce, thrust through. Latin lancinare, lancinatus, to tear to pieces, was changed in meaning (in Cooper's THESAURUS, 1565) by association with lance. In the Near East, lancinated chunks of meat are cooked before an open fire. John Donne, in a Sermon of I630, declared that Every sin is an incision of the soul, a landnation. An acute, piercing pain Is a lancinating pain. |
Land-damn | To make a hell on earth for. William Shakespeare thus uses it (unless the text be corrupt) in THE WINTER'S TALE (1611): You are abus'd, and by some putter on, That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villaine, I would land-damne him. |
Langle | To fasten with a thong; especially, to tie together the legs of an animal to prevent its straying. Also, as a noun, a thong for such binding; a hobble. Probably from Latin lingula, thong, diminutive of lingua, tongue; but no intermediate French word has been found, John Trapp In his commentary (1647) on the BIBLE: ROMANS wrote of this carcase of sin to which I am tied and langold. |
Langrage | A kind of shot for cannon, 17th into the 19th century, of bolts, bars, and other Irregular pieces of Iron, used especially against the rigging and sails of enemy vessels. Also langridge, langrel, langrill. Horatio Nelson in 1796 declared: It is well known that English ships of war are furnished with no such ammunition as langrage. |
Lapidable | Worthy of being stoned. In 17th and 18th century dictionaries. John Phillips (1706), however, defined lapidable as marriageable, fit for a husband. Originally lap meant a fold in a garment; especially a fold of the toga over the breast, serving as a pocket or pouch; the use of this, in such phrases as the lap and bosom of the Church, led to the current sense. Latin lapis, stone, has given us many English forms, e.g., lapidify, to turn to stone; cp. lapidity. lapidescence, turning to stone, as was the lot of those that looked Medusa in the eye; petrifaction (Latin peter, rock, on which the Catholic church stands). |
Lardner | Keeper of the cupboard. |
Lavender | A washerwoman; early and rarely also a washerman. Old French lavandier, lavandiere; Latin lavanda, things to be washed; lavare, to wash, cp. laver, The plant probably derived its name from being used (at least as early as the 16th century) for perfuming baths or for laying in newly washed linen; it may, however, be from lividual, diminutive of lividus, livid, bluish, shifted in form by association with the use. A lavendry (14th to 16th century) was a laundry. To lay in lavender, to store away carefully for future use; hence (15th and 16th centuries) to pawn; to put where one can do no harm, as in prison. References to such pawning are frequent; George Chapman in EASTWARD HOE (1605) says: Good faith, rather then thou shouldest pawne a rag more lie lay my ladyship in lavender,, if I knew where. Greene in THE UPSTART COURTIER (1592) pictured a persistent evil: The poore gentleman paies so deere for the lavender it is laid up in, that if it lie long at a broker's housey he seems to buy his apparell twice. |
Lecanomancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using a bowl of water reflecting candle flames, a practice still current in some Slavic lands, especially at Christmastide. |
Lederer | Leather maker. |
Leechcraft | The art of healing. At leechcraft, under medical care. From leech, to heal; used from the 12th century into the 17th, as by John Fletcher in THE LOYALL SUBJECT (1618) : Have ye any crack maidenhead to new leach or mend?; revived by Walter Scott in IVANHOE (1820) : Let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. Also leche, lichc, leach; from the 9th to the 14th century, Icchne q.v., to give medicine, to heal. Also, 19th century, to leech, to bleed by applying leeches. The blood-sucking worm was probably named because it served as a leech, a physician. |
Leese | (1) The earlier form of lose, in all Its senses. A common Old English word, continuing through the 16th century. (2) To loose, to relax, to unfasten; hence, to set free, release. This also was used into the 17th century, as by Thomas Middleton in YOUR FIVE GALLANTS (1608) : Keep thou thine own heart . . . I leese you again now. From the past forms lorn, loren, came the noun lorel, meaning a 'lost' soul, a worthless fellow, a blackguard, used by Chaucer (1374) and rather frequent ( Edmund Spenser, THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR, 1579: Thou speakes lyke a lewde lortell), often in contrast to lord. A cock-lorel, cocklorel, was a jolly but thorough rogue; George Gascoigne in 1577 spoke of a piece of cocklorels musicke . . . such as I might be ashamed to publish in this company. This form came from the name of the captain of the boat containing a varied assortment of rogues, of all trades, in the satiric poem Cocke Lorelles Bote (printed, 1515, by Wynkyn de Worde) From another past tense form of leese, losen (lost) , came a form losel, also meaning a lost one, a scoundrel; later, with weakened force, a ragamuffin, a ne'er-do-well. This form, from the 14th century, lasted longer, being used by Carlyle (1832), and Robert Browning in A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON (1843): Wretched women . . . tied By wild illicit ties to losels vile. Both these nouns developed further forms: lorelship, loselism, loselry, rascality, lewdness; lorelly, loseling, loselly, loselled, rascally, lewd; lazy. Note that leeser, from the two verbal meanings, developed several senses, two contradictory; (1) a loser; hence (2) a destroyer; (3) a deliverer: Wyclif (in the second sense) speaks in 1380 of lesars of mennys soulis; a PSALTER of 1300 (in the third sense) speaks of God as my helper and leser mine. |
Leesome | (1) Lovable; pleasant. Middle English leofsum; lief + some. Used since the 1 2th century. Robert Burns in his song IN SIMMER WHEN THE HAY WAS MAWN (1792) sighs for The tender heart o' leesome love, The gowd and siller canna buy. The form leesome lane, however, is a variant of leelane, all by one's lone. (2) Lawful; permissible; right. This sense is from Middle English lefsum, leave (permission) + some. In the same sense leeful (leveful, laifull, lyefull, etc.) was used from the 13th century to Burns (FOR A' THAT AN' A' THAT, 1814) . The form leesome (lesume, leisom, leifsome, etc.), lawful, was used from the 14th century into the I8th; Gavin Douglas in his AENEIS (1513) said: So that it lesum be Dido ramane In spousage bound. Blind brutal boy, said Montgomery in 1600, in a sonnet on Cupid, that with thy bow abuses Leill [loyal] leesome love by lechery and lust. |
Leet | (1) A court which lords of some manors were privileged to hold, once or twice a year; the jurisdiction of such a court; hence, a district in general. (2) A list of persons eligible for certain offices; hence, to be in leet, on the leets, etc. Short leet, a select list of candidates. (3) In phrases two-leet, two-way-leet, three leet, etc,, a orossway. THE READER of 21 October, 1865, speaking of a vacant professorship, said: The patrons are the Faculty of Advocates and the Curators, the former having the right of presenting to the latter a leet of two, from which the appointment must be made. For a further instance of its use, see waive. |
Legem pone | Cash down; ready payment. These are the first two (Latin) words of the fifth section of PSALM 1 19, which opens the Matins service on the 25th of the month; March 25 was quarter day, when payments were due. Hence, in the 16th and 17th centuries, legem pone was used to mean payment, as when Peter Anthony Motteux in his translation (1694) of Francois Rabelais said: They were all at our service, for the legem pone. Harvey in his NEW LETTER (1592) said bluntly: Without legem pone, wordes are winde. |
Leguleian | A petty befogged lawyer, a pettifogger; also as an adjective, pertaining to petty or verbal questions of the law. Accent on the third syllable, lee; Latin leguleius, a little dealer in law; lex, legem, law. Also leguleious: Henry More in AN EXPLANATION OF THE GRAND MYSTERY OF GODLINESS (1660) decried the leguleious cavils of some pragmatical pettifoggers. |
Lere | To teach; to guide; to learn. Also learen, later learn; laren, ler, leryn, leir, lear. A common Teutonic word; whence also lore. Note that (although this sense is now vulgar) as early as 1200 learn meant to teach; Shakespeare uses it in THE TEMPEST (1610): The red-plague rid you For learning me your language. Hence lered, learned; Chaucer says in THE DOCTOR'S TALE (1386) : For be he lewed man or ellis lered. [The earliest meaning of lewd was lay, not in holy orders; hence, unlearned, artless, vulgar; belonging to the lower orders.] The expression lered and lewed was common from the 12th to the 16th century; This lewde and learned, said Roger Ascham in THE SCHOLEMASTER (1568), by common experience know to be most true. |
Letating | Making glad. Latin laetare, to rejoice, make glad; laetus, cheerful. Peter Anthony Motteux in his translation (1694) of Francois Rabelais said that pleasant notes wake your soul with their letating sound. A rare but pleasant wor. |
Level-coil | A noisy game formerly played at Christmas: each player in turn must leave his seat, which another takes. Played in the 16th and 17th centuries; later called Going to Jerusalem (the route was crowded; Mary had to seek shelter in a stall) . From French (faire) lever le cult to make (someone) lift his buttock. Later, in the interest of decent speech, the game was called level-sice, levell-suse; French assise, seat; as Josuah Sylvester in his translation (1608) of Du Bartas wrote: Ambitious hearts do play at level sice. The word came to be used generally: to keep level-coil, to engage in noisy sport or noisy activity or riot. Also, as an adverb, alternately, each in turn, Thomas Nashe, in THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELER (1594) : The next daie they had solempne disputations, where Luther and Carolostadius scolded levell-coyle. Ben Jonson, in A TALE OF A TUB (1655) : Young Justice Bramble has kept level-coyl Here in our quarters, stole away our daughter. |
Levet | A trumpet call for awakening. Italian levata, Latin levare, levatus, to raise. The word was used in the 17th and 18th centuries, then supplanted by the French word reveille. |
Levigate | To smooth, polish; to reduce to a paste or smooth powder. From Latin levigare, levigatus, to smooth; levis, smooth. Hence also levigation; levigable: (I) able to be smoothed: John Evelyn in POMONA (1664): Useful is the pear-tree . . . for its excellent coloured timber, hard and levigable; (2) able to be powdered; Robert Browning in CHRISTMAS EVE: Dust and ashes levigable. |
Levin | Lightning. Used from the 13th century, as noun and as verb, especially by poets: Gower, Chaucer, William Dunbar, Edmund Spenser, Walter Scott, Edgar Allan Poe, Longfellow, Swinburne. Other forms were leven, leyven, levyn, leaven. Hence levining. Also combined, as in levin-brand (earlier brond), levin-fire, levin-darting. Spenser in THE FAERIE QUEENE (1596) speaks of when the flashing levin haps to light Upon two stubborne oakes. For a use of levin-brond, see quooke. |
Liatico | A red Tuscany wine; from Aleatico. Also leaticke, leathick. Drunk in the 17th century. |
Lib | This was a common form, with various meanings. (1) From the 8th century; a charm. (2) As a verb. From the 14th century, to castrate; also, figuratively, to cut off, as when William Fulke wrote in TWO TREATISES AGAINST THE PAPISTS (1577) : In the latter end, where he libbeth off the conclusion of Origens wordes... In the 17th century, to suckle, to suck persistently. From the 15th century (also lyp) , to sleep; defined in a CANT DICTIONARY of 1700 as lib, to tumble or lye together. Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker wrote in THE ROARING GIRL (1611): Oh I wud lib all the darkemans. [Lightmans, the day; darkmans, the night; thieves' cant of the 16th to 18th century.] Hence libbege, 16th to 18th century cant for a bed. |
Libanomancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --by the burning of incense (so the Fates are not incensed). |
Libido | The post-Freudian spread of this word may deserve the reminder of its earlier use. In the BIBLE (I JOHN) appear the warnings against the lust of the flesh (voluptas) lust of the eyes (curiositas), and pride of life (vana gloria). Christopher Marlowe in his day was accused of these enormities; Thomas Beard's THEATRE OF GODS JUDGMENTS (1597) for example, described him as "suffering his lust to have the full raines". St. Augustine (died 430 A.D.) in his CONFESSIONS stressed this triple danger. In his commentary on the saint, AUGUSTINUS (1641), Cornelius Jansenius listed the urges as libido sentiendi, libido sciendi, libido excellendi: lust to experience, to know, to surpass. Pascal (died 1662) in his PENSEES stressed not pride but the will (the flesh, the mind, the will) and therefore made the third urge libido dominandi, lust to dominate. These desires mark the main figures of Marlowe's plays. |
Licious | Short for delicious; possibly, also, the origin o luscious. Also licius. Used from the 15th to the 17th century. |
Licitate | To bid for, set a price on. Latin licitari; liceri, licitum, to make a bid. Also licitation, bidding; putting up the price; offering for sale at auction, licitator, a bidder at an auction. Ecclesiastical persons, said a pamphlet of 1601, are not to study how to murder princes, nor to licitate kingdoms. The form licit, lawful, is from Latin licere, licitum, to be permitted. |
Lickerish | Pleasant to the palate, hence sweet, delightful; skilful in preparing dainties; fond of delicious fare, having a keen relish for pleasant things, especially food and love. Hence, lustful, wanton. Also liquorish (q.v.) , liccorish, licorish; in another form, lickerous, liquorous, lykerowse, likerose, and many more -- all of them variants of lecherous. From Old High German leccon (French lecher), to lick, as when one licks the lips. Shakespeare in TIMON OF ATHENS (1607) has licourish draughts and morsels unctions. The holy man, said Robert Southey in THE QUARTERLY REVIEW of 1828, had a licorish tooth. Go to, Nell, warned Thomas Heywood in EDWARD IV, PART ONE (1600) , ye may be caught, I tell ye; these be liquorish lads. Chaucer pictures a lady (in THE MILLER'S TALE, 1386) : And sikerly she hadde a likerous eye; Hoccleve called adultery (1420) this likerous dampnable errour. Francis Bacon, said Wilson in THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN (JAMES I; 1652), was one of those that smoothed his way to a full ripeness by liquorish and pleasing passages. Note the warning, however, In THE BOOK OF THE KNIGHT OF LA TOUR (1450) : No woman shulde ete no lycorous morcelles in the absens ... of her husbond. |
Lift | The sky; the heavens (in this sense, sometimes plural) ; the air, the atmosphere. Related to loft, aloft; German Luft, air. Also in combinations: lifttike, like the heavens; lift-fowl, high-lying birds. Used from BEOWULF to the 15th century; later in Scotland, as in RURAL LOVE (1759) : The dearest lass beneath the lift, and in CenErr6543' WILLIE BREWED A PECK O' MAUT (1780) : It's the moon, I ken her horn, That's blinkin' in the lift saw hie. To lift meant, originally, to move up into the air; hence a modem airlift doubles the idea. |
List | (1) Short for listen. (2) To be pleasing to. An impersonal verb form, common Teutonic; also leste, lyste, lust, and more. Me list, I like, I desire. Bishop Joseph Hall, in the Prologue to his SATIRES (VIRGIDEMIARUM; 1597) said: I first adventure: follow me who list, And be the second English satyrist. The word lingered In poetry; James Russell Lowell in THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL (1848) tells that the musing organist First lets his fingers wander as they list And builds a bridge from dreamland for his lay. |
Lithomancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using (precious) stones. |
Litster | A man who makes his living by dyeing. Used by Chaucer, and into the 18th century. |
Lock | Short for lovelock, so called because it secured a loved one: a long strand of hair, hanging at the left ear, often plaited and tied with a riband. Fashionable among men in the 16th and 17th centuries; King Charles I wore one until 1646. William Prynne wrote a treatise The Unlovelyness of Lovelocks, objecting also in his HISTRIOMASTIX (1632; for this aspersion on the king, he was imprisoned in London Tower, was fined £5,000, and had his ears sliced): More especially in long, unshorne, womanish, frizled, love-provoking haire, and lovelockes, growne now too much in fashion with comly pages, youthes, and lewd, effeminate, ruffianly persons. Dogberry, in his usual confusion (Shakespeare, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING; 1599) mixes his terms: And also the watch heard them talk of one deformed; they say he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it. Locks were also artificial. They were worn by women as well; Samuel Pepys in his DIARY for 29 October, 1666, records: My wife (who is mighty fine and with a new pair of locks). From the supposed effect of the lovelock, it was sometimes called a heartbreaker; Samuel Butler In HUDIBRAS (1664) said: Like Samson's heart-breakers it grew In time, to make a nation rue. |
Logomancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using words. |
Long | Short for belong. Samuel Rowlands, in HUMORS ORDINARIE (1607) cried: Bid me go sleepe; I scorne it with my heeles, I know my selfe as good a man as thee: Let goe mine arms I say, lead him that reeles, I am a right good fellowf doest thou see? I know what longes to drinking, and I can Abuse myself as well as any man. |
Longanimity | Forbearance, long-suffering. Common, especially In religious use (the longanimity of God) from the 15th to the 18th century. In a TRACT of 1724, Warburton exclaims: Constancy is a word too weak to express so extraordinary a behavior, 'twas patience, 'twas longanimity. Even more of a lay application appeared In THE SPECTATOR of 11 January, 1890: His longanimity under the foolishness of the young woman is really marvellous. James Russell Lowell misused the word, as though it meant long-drawn, In THE BIGLOW PAPERS (1861) and in CAMBRIDGE THIRTY YEARS AGO (1854) : He is expected to ask a blessing and return thanks at the dinner, a function which he performs with centenarian longanimity. |
Longshoreman | Stevedore |
Loricate | To put a protective coating on; e.g., military armor, or clay on a chemical retort (18th century) "before it is set over a naked fire." Latin loricare, loricatus, to clothe in mail; lorica, a leather cuirass or corselet of thongs; lorum (vlorum) , a leather strap or strip. Hence also in English, loric (Robert Browning, 1855) , a cuirass, more often lorica; lorum, lore, a thong, a rein. By way of Late Latin and old French, lorain came into English meaning the straps of a horse's harness, often jewelled or studded with metal. Hence (French lorenier, loremier) from the 12th to the 19th century, English lorimer, maker of mountings for horses' bridles, of bits and other small iron ware; a worker of wrought iron. Hence lorication (by error, occasionally, lorification), covering with a protective coat. |
Lormer | Maker of horse gear |
Lotium | Stale urine, used by barbers (15th to 18th century) as a hair wash, etc, Latin lavare, lautum, lotum, to wash, whence also the current form, lotion. Cp. lant. In Ben Jonson's THE SILENT WOMAN (1609), heaping execrations upon a barber, Morose says: Let him be glad to eat his sponge for bread; Truewit adds: And drink lotium to it. |
Lout | As a verb: (I) To bend, stoop; make obeisance; to bow, submit. Used from the 9th into the 19th century. In MERLIN (1450), we read: The archebisshop lowted to the sword, and sawgh letters of golde in the steel; In Conan Doyle's THE WHITE COMPANY (1891): I uncovered and loutcd as I passed. Also luten, lowte. (2) To lurk, lie hid; sneak. Used 9th to 16th century; Gower in CONFESSIO AMANTIS (1390) said that love luteth in a mannes herte. (3) To mock, treat with contempt; also, to lout someone out of something. Udall In RALPH ROYSTER DOYSTER (1553): He is louted and laughed to skorne, For the veriest dolt that ever was borne; Shakespeare In HENRY VI, PART ONE (1591): I am lowted by a traitor villaine, And cannot helpe the noble chevalier. Hence louter, a worshipper; louting, bowing, cringing; John Keats in a letter to J. Taylor (23 August, 1819) : Is this worth louting or playing the hypocrite for? |
Lovee | One that is loved; an 18th century term. Samuel Richardson in SIR CHARLES GRANDISON (1754) said: The lover and lovee make generally the happiest couple. |
Lovertine | Fond of making love. A 17th century coinage, after libertine. Thomas Dekker in THE PATIENT GRISSILL (1603) : These gentlemen lovertine, and my selfe a hater of love. (The early libertine sought political, not amatory, freedom.) |
Lozen | A thin pastry-cake. Enjoyed in the 14th and 15th centuries, with cheese and wine. From Old French loseingne, a variant of losange whence English lozenge. Hence lozen was later (17th century) used for a lozenge-shaped pane of glass, etc. John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall's JOURNAL of 1665 noted: One of his servantes brook a lossen. |
Lucripetous | Eager for gain. Latin lucrum, gain (whence the current lucre) + petere, to seek. Used in the 17th century. Also lucrify, to put to gainful use; lucrific, lucriferous, bringing gain; lucrous, gainful, covetous (J. G. Cooper, in THE TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE, 1755: Free from the muck-worm miser's lucrous rage). |
Luculent | Full of light, shining; brilliant; lucid. Thus Thomson in THE SEASONS: WINTER (1746) : Luculent along the purer rivers flow. Ben Jonson in EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR (1599) speaks of a most debonaire, most luculent ladie. Also lucid; lucent, shining, luminous, but also translucent, dear, as in John Keats' EVE OF ST. AGNES (1820): lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon. Latin lux, lucem, light. Cp. crepuscular. Lucific, producing light; lucifugous (accent on the sif), shunning the light; lucigenous, begotten or born in the daytime. |
Lud | (1) A euphemistic form of Lord, used especially in mild oaths of the 18th century, and by clerks and lawyers In court. (2) In the plural (and Scotland), the buttocks. Also, luddock, buttock. (3) A variant form of loud. |
Lunt | A slow match; a torch. To set lunt to, to light Also smoke, especially from a pipe; hot vapor. Dutch lont, match; lonstock, matchstick, gave us English linstock (limstock, linestoke, lyntstock), a three-foot staff, pointed to stick in the ground or a ship's deck, with a forked head to hold a lighted match; used from the 16th century, for firearms, rather than tobacco. To lunt, to kindle; to smoke (a pipe) ; (of smoke) to rise up, to curl, Hence lunting, smoking, glowing; (of the eyes) flashing. There was also a Danish lunte, lazy, used of a horse, spiritless, tame. A HISTORY OF JAMES VI (1588) mentioned a man that had a loose lunt, quhilk negligently fell out of his hand amang the great quantity of pouldcr. |
Luscous | One-eyed. Latin luscus; hence luscition, dimness of sight. A 17th century term. |
Luskin | A sluggard, a lazy or idle fellow. Also lusk. There was also a verb, to lusk, to lie hid; to skulk; to lie idly or lazily; used from the 14th into the 17th century. Hence lusking, skulking; idling; luskish, lusk, sluggish, lazy. It does seem a bit like old-time slander for Sir Thomas More to have said, in THE CONFUTACYON OF TYNDALES ANSWERS (1532) : Frere Luther and Gate Calate hys nonnc lye luskynge togyther in lechery. Well may they bee cowards, said Holland in his version (1600) of Livy, and play the idle luskes. |
Lusorious | Relating to or used for sport or as a pastime. Of speech or writing; in a playful style. Also lusory; Latin lusorius, belonging to a player; lusor, player; ludere, lusus, to play; whence also ludicrous, delusive, allude, and all the illusions that play upon us. In the 17th century, lusory was also used for delusory, illusory., deceptive. Shaftesbury In CHARACTERISTICS (1711) said that God, as a kind tutor, was pleased to . . . bear with his anger, and in a lusory manner expose his childish frowardness. Benjamin Disraeli In CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE (1823) observed: There is a refined species of comic poetry, lusory yet elegant. |
Lustre | Also lustir, luster. (1) A period of five years. Occasionally used for four years, as in college references. Also lustral and (directly from latin) lustrum; probably from lucre, lavere, to wash. The lustrum was originally the purificatory sacrifice made for the people by the censors, after the census. The first year of the lustrum, during which the census was taken, was the lustran (Latin lustrum annum) . Lustral is also an adjective, relating to the lustrum or to purification by sacrifice. Thus lustrant. lustrical day, Christening day. lustrific, purifying; lustrative, lustratory. lustrable, that which may be purged. Latin lustrare, lustratum, to make bright, to purify by propitiatory sacrifice; hence English to lustrate, to lustre; lustration. Lustratory is humorously applied to washing, as in lustratory applications of the brush. (2) A den; a cave (17th century), From Latin lustrum (from luere) a bog; a wilderness, a haunt of beasts; hence (in Latin) a house of ill fame; debauchery. (3) Latin lustrare, to make bright, is associated with lux, lucem, light (luc-strare) ; hence, in addition to the still current sense of shining by reflected light, sheen (lustrious, lustrant, lustry, lustreful; lustrement; lustrification; lustrify. lustring, lutestring, q.v.; lustrée, a glossy silk fabric), other meanings developed: lustre, a lustrous wool; a thin dress material, of cotton warp and woollen weft, highly lustrous; a glass ball set among lights to increase the brightness; a prism of glass hanging from a vase or a chandelier; often pendants of these tinkled with wafted air; a chandelier. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (a bluestocking and perhaps the first English woman writer of note) in a letter to her sister (8 September, 1716) described the magnificence of the apartments in Vienna: All this is made gay by pictures and vast jars of Japan china,, and large lustres of rock crystal. And at table the variety and richness of their wines is what appears the most surprising; the constant way is to lay a list of their many names upon the plates of the guests along with their napkins, and I have counted several times to the number of eighteen different sorts, all exquisite in their kinds. |
Lutestring | A glossy silk fabric; a garment or ribbon made thereof. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in AURORA LEIGH (1856) : As if you had . . . held your trailing lutestring up yourself. Horace Walpole in his MEMOIRS OF GEORGE in (1797) used the word figuratively, of a very pretty lutestring administration which would do very well for summer wean Hence, to speak in lutestring, to use silken, polished phrases. The word is probably a corruption of lustring, with the same meaning, from lustrine, which is both English and French; named because of the lustre of the fabric. Also, of course, lutestring means a string for a lute. |
Lycisk | A fabulous beast, hybrid of wolf and dog. Greek lykos, wolf. In Guillim's book on HERALDRY (1610) two hybrids are together: castorides, dogges ingendred by a fox and a bever; lydscus, of a wolfe and a mastiffe. |
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A growing assortment of words and definitions used in the Early Modern era. See the Guide for more information.
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