ADOTW

Archaic Definition of the Week – Vates

vates: Latin: “prophet.” From earliest times, the poet has often been considered a seer or vates, divinely inspired, and his pronouncements have been accorded the status of prophecy.  Vergil, for example, was believed to have predicted the future literally in his Fourth Ecologue, which celebrated the birth of a child who was to bring back the Age of Gold.  For hundreds of years the poem was read as a pagan prophecy of the birth of Christ and Vergil held to be a vates.

- Literary Terms: A Dictionary by Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Pinnace

pinnace, small and fast warship employed in the sixteenth century for scouting and dispatch duties.

- The Dictionary of Nautical Literacy by Robert McKenna

Archaic Definition of the Week – Verjuice

publishingverjuice _ The sour juice of green or unripe grapes, crab apples, or other fruit, especially when made into an acidic liquor. This liquor was once much used in cooking, as a condiment, and for medicinal purposes.

- A Sea of Words : A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O’Brian’s Seafaring Tales by Dean King with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Tackle and Tail-Block

TACKLE, … a machine formed by the communication of a rope with an assemblage of blocks, and known in mechanics by the name of pulley.

Tackles are used in a ship to raise, remove, or secure weighty bodies; to support the masts; or to extend the sails and rigging.

TAIL-BLOCK, a small single block, having a short piece of rope attached to it, by which it may be fastened to any object at pleasure; either for convenience, or to increase the force applied to the said object, as explained in the first part of the article tackle.

- Wm. Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine (1780).

Archaic Definition of the Week – Tanglefoot

tanglefoot any alcoholic drink. Refers to the effect alcohol can have on one’s ability to walk. [colloquial, mid 1800s to pres.]

- Slang and Euphemism by Richard A. Spears.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Ostler

publishingostler _ One who attends to horses at an inn; a stable hand or groom.

- A Sea of Words : A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O’Brian’s Seafaring Tales by Dean King with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Nub

nub 1. to hang by the neck until dead. “Nub” is a cant word for “neck.” [cant, late 1600s] Synonyms and related terms: CARNIFICATE, CLIMB THE STALK, DANCE UPON NOTHING, DANGLE, DIE IN ONE’S SHOES, GO UP A LADDER TO BED, IN DEADLY SUSPENSE, JERK TO JESUS, KICK THE CLOUDS, LEAP FROM THE LEAFLESS, NECK, PATIBULATE, SCRAG, SHAKE A CLOTH IN THE WIND, STRETCH, TOP, TOTTER, TRINE, TUCK, TWIST.

- Slang and Euphemism by Richard A. Spears.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Doxy

DOXY

A mistress, paramour, or prostitute.

The word’s ultimate origin is uncertain but the Oxford English Dictionary suggests a connection with dock meaning ‘buttocks’ or ‘tail’.  As a verb dock originally meant to cut off a tail, a sense that we still preserve when we talk of docking a horse’s or dog’s tail.  (The more general idea of cutting or reducing, as when we talk of docking someone’s pay is a later extension of this idea.)

- Wordsworth Dictionary of Obscenity and Taboo by James McDonald.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Ancilia

This week, we go about as archaic as we can go….

ancilia (Latin).  Twelve archaic bronze shields kept in the sanctuary of MARS in the Roman Forum.  Tradition remembered that one shield had fallen from the sky on 1 March and a divinely instructed blacksmith had made the further eleven. An aristocratic group, the Salii, used the shields in the yearly OCTOBER HORSE festival, which is probably one of the oldest in the Roman calendar.

- Continuum Dictionary of Religion edited by Michael Pye.

Archaic Definition of the Week – Mageira

publishingmageira /muh JY ruh/ n • A woman’s sublimation of sexual desire through cooking.

-Depraved and Insulting English, by Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea.