by Ammon Shea
Even though I do not feel a need to remember these words, I do feel a need to know that someone has remembered them. It is comforting to me to know that they have not been wholly cast aside, and are still available to anyone who cares to visit the OED, whether it is some poet trying to find the right word to make verse properly obscure or a head-scratching child trying to make sense of some obscure poet she’s been assigned to read in school. The fact that the OED cares so much about words that almost everyone else happily ignores is one of its finest traits.
Backfriend (n.) A fake friend; a secret enemy.
Backfriend is both useful and interesting, as we all seem to have friends who sometimes work against us. By no means is this the only word or phrase in the OED describing the type of friend who makes enemies seem more appealing. We also find:
Fawnguest—a person who pretends to be a friend in order to steal.
Hindermate—a companion who hinders more than helps.
Job’s comforter—someone who pretends to be a comfort, but who intends to cause distress.
Night-worm—a treacherous companion.
also see: well-woulder
Balaamite (n.) One who is religious for the sake of monetary gain.
According to the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, Balaam was a prophet whom the king of Moab directed to go meet with the Israelites so that he might place a curse on them. When he arrived at the Israeli encampment, however, Balaam refused to do so, on the grounds that Yahweh commanded him not to. A moving story, but unfortunately, somewhere after, in the neighborhood of 2 Peter 2:15, the story gets revised, and Balaam ends up being portrayed as a plain greedy bastard.
Balter (v.) To dance clumsily.
It’s nice to find a word I can use to explain why I’ve always hated to dance. I’m a balterer.
Barla-fumble (n.) In sport or play, a call for a pause or truce, from one who has fallen or is at a disadvantage.
Every generation seems to have its own schoolyard version of what one cries out when seeking a truce. My friends and I would say “time out,” and I’ve heard many other expressions such as “uncle,” “I give,” and so forth. It’s ignominious enough to have to admit defeat without having to use a word that sounds as foolish as barla-fumble. also see: superchery
Bayard (n.) A person armed with the self-confidence of ignorance.
The word bayard, in its oldest sense, referred to a bay-colored horse. Unfortunately, the etymology of this word is largely unknown, so the path the word traveled to get from “horse” to “horse’s ass” has been lost to us. also see: ignotism
Beadledom (n.) The sense of self-importance and officiousness seen as characteristic of beadles, or minor officials.
A beadle was a town crier, or one who made proclamations, a job that seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Stupid officiousness on the part of public officials, however, remains alive and well.
Bedinner (v.) To treat to dinner.
So many other verbs that begin with this prefix appear to entail the act of throwing or projecting something unpleasant upon someone. For instance, bespawl is to splatter with saliva, bescumber is to splatter with dung, and bevomit . . . you can figure that one out on your own. It’s pleasing to discover that bedinner, in contrast, does not connote a food fight. also see: deipnosophist
Bed-swerver (n.) An unfaithful spouse.
Bed-swerver sounds to me like a possibly gentler or more easily forgiven type of adultery, almost a euphemism, like “straying. ” After all, when one swerves, one can swerve back again.
Bemissionary (v.) To annoy with missionaries.
This would be a delightful and whimsical word were it not for the fact that missionaries tend to be so irritating.
Benedicence (n.) Benevolence in speech.
I suppose it makes sense that common occurrences should have more words to describe them, and less frequent occurrences should have fewer. Which would explain why the OED includes dozens of words that describe rudeness and ill will, whereas this is the only word I can remember finding that means kind conversation.
Benignant (adj.) Showing or having warm feelings toward one’s inferiors.
Further to the point above, how telling that malignant should survive, even flourish, while benignant has all but died out. The OED does mention in its definition that benignant has a suggestion of condescension to it.
Bouffage (n.) An enjoyable or satisfying meal.
Bouffage comes from an Old French word of the same spelling, and in the etymology we find that Randle Cotgrave defined it in his 1611 French-English dictionary as “cheeke-puffing meat.” Cheek-puffing just does not have the same currency as an indicator of satisfaction that it used to. also see: gramaungere, moreish, quaresimal
Bowelless (adj.) Having no bowels; lacking in mercy or compassion.
It was certainly news to me that having bowels was once a synonym for having compassion or pity. However, it existed not
only with bowelless, meaning “having no pity,” but also in such
archaic phrases as bowels of compassion and bowels of mercies.
I have decided that this is one of those word mysteries I would
rather not delve into.
also see: immiserable
Bully-scribbler (n.) A bullying writer.
It is difficult for me to take the notion of a bullying writer too seriously. Perhaps once upon a time this was a fearsome thought, but there is a good reason why today people think of the oafish thug in the schoolyard when they think of a bully— a punch to the jaw hurts more than an unflattering squib. also see: anonymuncule
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TO SIMPLY DESCRIBE THE OED as “large” is akin to saying that the bubonic plague was “unpleasant.” It has 21,730 pages. Fifty-nine million words, give or take a few thousand. The most recent print edition, published in 1989, runs to twenty volumes and weighs exactly 137.72 pounds. It defines many hundreds of thousands of words and illustrates those words with almost two and a half million quotations. But it is not special simply because it is so large.
What is it that makes the OED special? The OED was not the first large multivolume work to be released: the seven-volume Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Robert Hunter was published in 1879, five years before the first fascicle of the OED. Neither was the OED the first large and multivolume English dictionary to be completed: the six-volume Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, edited by Dwight Whitney, was finished in 1891 and subsequently rereleased in sets of five, eight, ten, and twelve volumes.
When it was first completed, in 1928, the OED didn’t even have the most headwords of any dictionary. Various editions of Funk and Wagnalls, the Century, and Merriam-Webster’s all claimed more headwords.
It was not the first dictionary to include citations from literature to show how words were used. Thomas Blount began doing that in 1656; Samuel Johnson did it a bit more enthusiastically in 1755; and from 1836 to 1838 Charles Richardson wrote an entire two-volume dictionary using only quotations, and no definitions, to illustrate the meanings of words.
So what exactly does it do that is so different?
Bigger does not necessarily mean better, except that the OED was designed to be bigger in ways that are better. One of the goals of the OED was, and still is, to trace the roots of each English word as far back as possible—not merely saying that a word entered the language in 1620 or 1750 and leaving it at that. The editors have spent an unknowable amount of time searching for the point at which a word (or a usage of a word) first entered the language, and they have also enlisted the services of an army of volunteer readers—thousands—to assist in this task.
If it didn’t have more headwords than some other dictionaries at the time (it does now), how did the OED get to be so much bigger than the other dictionaries? Primarily through its citations of quotations to illustrate usage. The makers of the OED did not consider it enough simply to show how a word may have been used at some point in the past several hundred years; they wanted to show ho
w it has been used at all points. Thus, a word that has been a part of the English language for the past eight hundred years will have myriad citations to show how it has changed in use as the language has also changed.
It is resolutely, obstinately, and unapologetically exhaustive. These qualities make it both a tremendous joy to read at some times and unbearably boring at others. I never have to worry that the OED has left out some crucial information about a word because the editors were trying to save space. True, the delegates from Oxford University Press who funded and published the OED did try their best to get the size winnowed down. But to give an idea of how expansive and learned this work is: at one point in the late nineteenth century, the delegates were demanding that the average entry in the OED be no more than eight times as long as the corresponding entry in Webster’s Third.
It seems to me that the OED frequently assumes a certain level of scholarship in its readers—a level of scholarship that is not as common today as it was when the OED was first being written. For instance, the etymologies of words that come from ancient Greek are written in Greek. I do not find this terribly helpful, as I do not read Greek, ancient or modern. Under the entry for syllogism , the OED gives a nice, detailed definition and then proceeds to give an example of a syllogism. Which would be illuminating if not for the fact that the entire example is in Latin.
There are no pictures in the OED. Almost every other major dictionary of the past one hundred years has included illustrations. As the marketplace for reference books became more competitive, dictionary makers fell into the habit of becoming more and more encyclopedic, including information such as pictures of all the state flags, color charts, and anatomical drawings. Even Webster’s Third (which when published in 1961 was widely criticized for, among other things, moving away from encyclopedic information) has a full-page color plate with drawings of cats, and many other illustrations as well.
I do not mind the etymologies in Greek, and I do not mind having to dig out my old Latin dictionary from time to time. I certainly do not mind the absence of pictures, which I have always thought superfluous in books about words. Given how hard the compilers of the OED worked to bring it to fruition, it seems unfair to object to putting in a little work to read it.
Cachinnator (n.) A person who laughs too loud or too much.
It struck me, as I read the definition of this word, that the
cachinnator is a creature more common in our imagination
than in real life. There really are not a great number of these
vile people among us, and for a very good reason—I believe
they are all killed by their parents at an early age.
also see: agelastic, hypergelast
Cacotechny (n.) “Bad art; a hurtful or mischievous art.” (OED)
Although both the etymology and the citations for this word
would seem to suggest that the art referred to is of the
mechanical rather than the cultural sort, I cannot resist the
temptation to take this word literally, since, as any moviegoer,
theater fan, or gallery trawler will attest, there is such a glorious profusion of bad art of all kinds.
also see: atechny, mataeotechny
Cacozealous (adj.) “Ill-affected, or badly imitating.” (Edward Phillips, The New World of English Words, 1676)
It is somewhat humorous that the definition of “badly imitating” supplied by the OED is taken directly from Edward Phillips’s dictionary of 1676, given that Phillips himself blatantly imitated (some scholars say stole) the work of other lexicographers before him.
Callisthenical (adj.) Addicted to exercise or calisthenics.
The pleasant thing about people who are callisthenical is that they generally wear themselves out and expire at an early age, sparing the rest of us the monotony of watching them, forever cheerful and virtuous, as they go about proudly proclaiming their bodies their temples.
Cellarhood (n.) The state of being a cellar.
Along with tableity (the condition of being a table) and paneity (the state of being bread), cellarhood is a wonderful example of the spectacular ways English has of describing things that no ever thinks it necessary to describe.
Charientism (n.) A rhetorical term to describe saying a disagreeable thing in an agreeable way.
If I knew how to say disagreeable things in an agreeable fashion I most likely would not be spending most of my time sitting alone in a room, reading the dictionary. I would have a
real job that paid real money, perhaps something that involved glad-handing clients or some such nonsense.
also see: garbist
Chrestomathic (adj.) “Devoted to the learning of useful matters.” (OED)
Although at first glance I thought this would be a terribly useful word, I soon discovered I couldn’t find anyone who agreed
on the definition of “useful matters.” To some it’s how to start
a fire in the wilderness and to others it’s how to get a blood-stain out of corduroy.
also see: mataeotechny
Cimicine (adj.) Smelling like bugs.
Growing up in a tenement in New York City, I had repeated exposure only to cockroaches, but since they move quickly I wasn’t able to smell them up close. Also, I rather doubt that they had any more desire to be smelled by me than I had to do the smelling.
Coenaculous (adj.) Supper-eating, or, as the OED phrases it, “Supper-loving.”
Every once in a great while, a definition provided by the OED
is startlingly conversational, as if someone at Oxford had declared they would have “casual-definition Friday,” and the result was that the editors all let their hair down and came up
with definitions like “supper-loving.”
also see: bedinner, residentarian
Colloquialist (n.) An excellent talker; a person who is good at conversing.
Colloquial has long been one of the most misunderstood usage
labels in dictionaries. From the Latin word colloquium (conversation), it has always been employed to refer to words as
they are used in a conversational sense. However, so many people are under the impression that it means “slang” or “substandard” that some dictionaries have opted to stop using it.
also see: deipnosophist, eutrapely
Compotation (n.) An episode of drinking or carousing together.
Compotation is like the less successful younger brother of symposium. Both words originally meant nothing more than “a drinking party.” But where compotation has apparently never sought to better itself, symposium has gone on to get its act together and add all sorts of other meanings to its résumé, such as “a meeting or conference,” or “a book or essays on a subject.”
Conjubilant (adj.) Being jubilant or rejoicing with another person.
This may look like an odd word, and may even seem like an
odd concept, were it not for the fact that were there a word for
“rejoicing all alone, because there is no one who will share in
your happiness,” that would be even odder.
also see: letabund
Conjugalism (n.) The art of making a good marriage.
Judging by the citation provided, from an 1823 article in
New Monthly Magazine on the subject, magazines have
been promising to teach us this particular secret for almost two
hundred years now, and we still have not yet mastered it.
also see: levament
Consenescence (n.) “Growing old together; general decay.” (OED)
Perhaps it was unintentional, but it is nonetheless humorous that the OED’s editors saw fit to include the notions of decaying and growing old together in the same entry.
Conspue (v.) To spit on someone or something with contempt.
I have not yet found any word that defines the action of spitting on someone or something for a reason other than contempt (can you spit on someone out of friendship or
admiration?), and I have a strong suspicion that I will not. One who conspues is referred to as a consputator.
Constult (v.) To act stupidly together.
Taking part in an activity that is inordinately stupid just because one’s friends are doing it is not the exclusive province of
teenagers—it just seems that way.
also see: unasinous
Countercozen (v.) To cheat in return.
In a curious moral twist, many people seem to feel that it is perfectly acceptable to cheat someone if he or she tried to cheat you first. Bearing this in mind, we can then look at countercozening as “justifiable cheating.” At least some of us can. also see: anti-rumour
Credenda (n., pl.) Things to be believed; articles of faith.
Credenda are opposed to agenda, which are things to be done. I wonder if perhaps at some point in the less secular past people carried around twin sets of lists with them, agenda and credenda, so that they’d remember not just what to do for the day, but also what to believe in while they were doing it.
Curtain-lecture (n.) “A reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed.” (Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755)
It seems bizarre that a word with such a timeless quality to it (scolding one’s husband) should be based on a practice (hanging curtains around the bed) that ended so long ago.
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I FULLY REALIZE I HAVE NO ONE but myself to blame for being in this position. No one ever approached me and said, “Mr. Shea, how would you like to spend the year confined to an armchair, reading the OED?” It was entirely my idea, and I do not try to blame anyone else for it. Well, except Madeline.
As far as I am aware, my friend Madeline is the only person in the world who ever made her living solely from buying and selling dictionaries. She is semiretired now, but was a full-time book-seller in this peculiar vein for several decades, and in the process she managed to amass a collection of dictionaries and a body of knowledge that are both fairly staggering. When people come by my house for the first time and express surprise or apprehension at the fact that I have a thousand or so books about words lying about I’ll offer up Madeline as a way of explaining that my collection is actually rather small and manageable. She has at least twenty times as many as I do.
