Forgotten Words That We Should Revive Quiz

Answer: cicisbeo

Dictionary.com's definition is a bit more genteel: "the recognized gallant of a married woman". 'Cicisbeo' is straight from 18th-cent Italian (plural 'cicisbei'), though it could be borrowed from French 'chiche beau' "cute chickpea" Now obsolete in Italian, it might be used facetiously to refer to a 'cascamorto', a male flirt or a ladies' man.

In English one might also have used "cavalier servente" (a sort of facetious borrowing from 'chevalier servant' in French, made to sound more Italian).

Answer: doxie

We had a male lover, and so why not a female one? 'Doxie' (also spelled 'doxy') first appeared in the 1520s and especially refers to the girlfriend of a rogue or a beggar, and it can also mean a prostitute or promiscuous woman. Possibly it came from from Low German 'dokke' or Middle Flemish 'docke', meaning "doll", and over time, the meaning deteriorated from sweetheart to streetwalker.

Answer: kakistocracy

A kakistocracy is government by the least-qualifed or most-unprincipled (or both). It comes right from the Greek 'kakistos' ("worst"), the superlative of 'kakos ("bad"),

It's not an old but a youngish word coined by Thomas Love Peacock in 1829, by way of its opposite, 'aristocracy', which literally means "rule by the best or noblest". Because it is so modern, the letters K are retained, even though in others with the same root, like cacophony (dissonance) or cacology (faulty speech), they have been replaced with C's, which is the tendency for Greek words that have come to English, especially via Latin.

Answer: grubble

'Grubble' appears to be a frequentative[*] form of 'grub' (to dig in the ground) or 'grab' which comes from the Dutch 'grebelen', which means to grope. It is sometimes also written as 'grabble', and the alternate spelling can also mean to lie prostrate on the belly or to sprawl on the ground, essentially to grovel. 'Grubble' can be found in the OED, but in American dictionaries, the best source is 1913 Webster's or possibly a more modern unabridged dictionary.

[*]A frequentative is a form of a word that indicates repetitive or habitual action. Modern English doesn't really have these anymore, but we do occasionally run into these leftover forms from Old English. 'Wrestle' is another example of a frequentative; the suffix '-el' was added to the word 'wrest' sometime before the Norman conquest (though it was probably spelled 'wraestlian').

Answer: kine

Kine is the archaic plural of cow. It is a double plural, like children: "childer" and "childen" weren't enough; they had to be combined into "children". "Kye" in MIddle English already was the plural of cows, but somewhere along the way that seemed like not enough, so "kine" became the plural. It comes from the Old English cy, which was the plural of cu "cow".

The women in question are the pampered ones of Samaria referred to in the phrase "kine of Bashran" (Amos 4:1-3) in the King James Bible (or Authorized Version). Bashan was a region to the east of the Sea of Galilee, renown for rich pastures and fattened herds. (Some scholars think actually they weren't women but rather effeminate men.) Among more modern translations, the NIV uses "women" while the ESV and NABRE use "cows". The GNT has its cake (beef?) and eats it too: "Listen to this, you women of Samaria, who grow fat like the well-fed cows of Bashan...".

Answer: fudgel

Fudgel entered the lexicon in the eighteenth century, and although there does not seem be a clearcut etymology, it appears to be related to "fudge" in the sense of fakery or falsification (as in "fudging the figures"). That sense itself is a mutation of the English word 'fadge' (also an obsolete word!), an alteration made stronger by the existence of one late-17th-century Captain Fudge, also known as "Lying Fudge", who had a reputation for bringing home more lies than cargo.

It seems that with the rise of the World Wide Web, and perhaps even more so with the emergence of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media ("Quick! The boss is coming!"), this is one word that deserves a comeback.

Answer: humdudgeon

The "hum" part comes from the chiefly British spelling of "hmm" or "hem" to indicate a vocal pause. The source would be Middle English 'hummen" akin to Middle High German 'hummen' ("to hum") or Middle Dutch 'hommel' meaning "bumblebee". The etymologists may be missing something; "humbug", which means some kind of trickery or jest, also starts with "hum".

The "dudgeon" part refers to some kind of fit or state of indignation -- origin unknown! It appeared in 1573, and etymologists agree it is not connected to the Welsh word, and not connected to 'dudgeon' meaning a dagger (or the wood of which a dagger's handle is made).

An alternate form of the word is "humdurgeon".

Answer: mugwump

This word is used now almost exclusively specifically to refer to those U.S. Republicans who bolted the party rather than support James G. Blaine in the 1884 U.S. presidential election. (He lost.) Earlier, it entered the language in the 1830s, as part of a trend of artificially reviving Native American words. In this case, it's the Algonquian 'mugquomp,' a shortened form of 'muggumquomp' ("war leader"). It was used more generally to refer to a self-important person before it took on the more specific meaning in the 1880s.

Answer: glabriety

This word, along with "glabrous" appeared in the mid-17th century from Latin glaber, meaning 'hairless'. While 'glabrous' is still a bit in use, particularly in biology to refer to a stem or leaf without hair or similar growth, alas 'glabriety' has become quite archaic, except perhaps in the most facetiously pedantic contexts.

Instead, 'glabrousness' might be used (though how that is any better, only the biologists know).

Answer: cockalorum

'Cockalorum' can refer to a little man with a high opinion of himself, or it can refer the conceited or boastful talk that such a man might make. (It does not appear to be applied to women, likely because of its root.) It is derived as you might expect, from a modern synonym for rooster which comes from Middle English 'cok', from Anglo-Saxon 'cocc', probably from Late Latin 'coccus', from 'coco', which refers to (and indeed imitiates) the cackling of a rooster.

The rest is sort of fanciful, with the Latin ending '-orum' (used for certain genitive plural nouns) with a random '-al-' in the middle to make it roll more nicely off the tongue.