Comments by minerva

  • Dr. Johnson's dictionary: from back and friend. A friend back-wards; that is, an enemy in secret. Dr. Johnson's dictionary blog

    From OED: A pretended or false friend; an enemy who pretends friendship; a secret or unavowed enemy.

    January 17, 2009

  • See also race film, which was a genre from the silent era to the 1940s. I remember seeing a documentary about these movies on AMC or Turner Classic Movies.

    February 16, 2008

  • As someone who has a tendency to get lost, I'm glad I can now blame this failing on trap streets.

    February 12, 2008

  • From Wikipedia: "a fictitious street included on a map, often outside the area the map covers, for the purpose of "trapping" potential copyright violators of the map, who will be unable to justify the inclusion of the "trap street" on their map."

    See mountweazel.

    February 12, 2008

  • Sung by Michael Jackson. Does it count if Ben was actually a rat?

    February 10, 2008

  • "Me and Bobby McGee," sung by both Roger Miller and Janis Joplin.

    February 10, 2008

  • Immortalized by The Monkees.

    February 9, 2008

  • Rick Springfield's hit "Jessie's Girl." Spelling notwithstanding, the Jessie in the song is a guy.

    February 9, 2008

  • Song by The Who.

    February 9, 2008

  • Song by Suzanne Vega.

    February 9, 2008

  • Song by Swedish band Europe.

    February 9, 2008

  • Also a song by The Smithereens.

    February 9, 2008

  • Song performed by the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra.

    February 9, 2008

  • Mrs. Potter's Lullaby, by the Counting Crows

    February 9, 2008

  • See also romping bout. (Does not apply to river otters.)

    February 5, 2008

  • Squillo is the Italian word for "ring" (as in "telephone ring"). It is also used to indicate a resonant, trumpet-like ringing sound in the voice of opera singers. In current Italian, it is also used a slang term for prostitute. (Wikipedia)

    February 2, 2008

  • Sionnach, where did you find this?

    January 30, 2008

  • LMAO! Thanks for that!

    January 30, 2008

  • Zounds! Shazam!

    January 30, 2008

  • Rout: 6. a large, formal evening party or social gathering. (dictionary.com) 5. A fashionable gathering. (thefreedictionary.com)

    January 25, 2008

  • Haha!

    January 24, 2008

  • Has no one been to a rout?

    January 24, 2008

  • How about a rout?

    January 23, 2008

  • Yarb, is it a red stapler? Because that would be cool.

    January 23, 2008

  • I just read about these brothers yesterday. If only you could list newspapers more than once.

    January 21, 2008

  • They shall be made, spite of antipathy, to fadge together. --Milton.

    January 14, 2008

  • Also to fit, suit, agree.

    January 14, 2008

  • What he vouchsafed to read of other of your letters has given my lord such a curiosity as makes him desire you to continue your accounts. Pray do: but not in your hellish Arabick...

    Mowbray to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • See arabic. Can also mean a written code.

    January 9, 2008

  • Lords-zounter, if I have patience with him!

    Mowbray to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • See also zounds.

    January 9, 2008

  • Now (rot the puppy!) to see him sit silent in a corner, when he has tired himself with his mock-majesty and with his argumentation (who so fond of argufying as he?)...

    Mowbray to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • I send you enclosed a letter from Mr Lovelace; which, though written in the cursed algebra, I know to be such a one as will show what a queer way he is in; for he read it to us with the air of a tragedian.

    Mowbray to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • Can also mean a code.

    January 9, 2008

  • ...I found there was no prevailing on her to quit it for the people's bedroom, which was neat and lightsome.

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • Unbarred windows, and a lightsomer apartment, she said, had too cheerful an appearance for her mind.

    Clarissa Harlowe as quoted by Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • Something rose in my throat, I know not what, which made me for a moment guggle, as it were, for speech...

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • They sent for the apothecary Rowland had had to her, and gave him, and Rowland, and his wife, and the maid, paradeful injunctions for the utmost care to be taken care of her: no doubt with an Old Bailey forecast.

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • Methinks, miss, said Sally, you are a little soily, to what we have seen you. Pity such a nice young lady should not have changes of apparel.

    Sally Martin to Clarissa Harlowe, as quoted by Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • A person who mars or defeats a plot, design, or project by meddling.

    January 9, 2008

  • After Marplot, a character in The Busybody (1709), a play by Susanna Centlivre.

    January 9, 2008

  • They were all ready to exclaim again: but I went on, proleptically, as a rhetorician would say, before their voices could break out into words.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 9, 2008

  • See also lieve.

    January 4, 2008

  • Also brothels.

    January 4, 2008

  • I had now as lieve die here in this place, as anywhere.

    Clarissa Harlowe as quoted by Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • See also lief.

    January 4, 2008

  • Help me again to my angel, to my CLARISSA; and thou shalt have a letter from me, or writing at least, part of a letter, every hour.

    ... Oh return, return, my soul's fondledom, return to thy adoring Lovelace!

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • That, after he found me out there (I know not how), he could procure two women dressed out richly, to personate your ladyship and Miss Montague...

    Clarissa Harlowe to Lady Betty Lawrance, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • To this purpose, the custom in the Isle of Man is a very good one –

    ‘If a single woman there prosecutes a single man for a rape, the ecclesiastical judges impanel a jury; and, if this jury finds him guilty, he is returned guilty to the temporal courts: where, if he be convicted, the deemster, or judge, delivers to the woman a rope, a sword, and a ring; and she has it in her choice to have him hanged, beheaded, or to marry him.’

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • ...when your unexampled vigilance and exalted virtue made potions, and rapes, and the utmost violences, necessary to the attainment of his detestable end, we see that he never boggled at them.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • ...Miss Howe has reason to apprehend vengeance from me, I ween.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • Fiddle-faddle, foolish man!-- what a pother is here!-- I guess how it is: you are ashamed to let us see what sort of people you carried your lady among!

    The false Lady Betty Lawrance, as quoted by Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • But, alas! my dear, we see that the wisest people are not to be depended upon when love, like an ignis fatuus, holds up its misleading lights before their eyes.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • Reconciliation with my friends I do not expect; nor pardon from them; at least, till in extremity, and as a viaticum.

    Clarissa Harlowe to Mrs. Norton, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • I send this by a special messenger who has business only so far as Barnet, because you shall have no need to write again; knowing how you love writing: and knowing likewise, that misfortune makes people plaintive.

    Mrs. Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • This comfort, surely, is owing to me; for if life is no worse than chequer-work, I must now have a little white to come, having seen nothing but all black, all unchequered dismal black, for a great, great while!

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • Why, the old peer, pox of his tough constitution! (for that would have helped him on,) has made shift by fire and brimstone, and the devil knows what, to force the gout to quit the counterscarp of his stomach, just as it had collected all its strength in order to storm the citadel of his heart.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • One pretty little fellow called Wyerley, perhaps; another jiggeting rascal called Biron, a third simpering varlet of the name of Symmes, and a more hideous villain than any of the rest,... : pursue her from raree-show to raree-show, shouldering upon one another at every turn, stopping when she stops, and set a spinning again when she moves.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • One pretty little fellow called Wyerley, perhaps;

    another jiggeting rascal called Biron, a third simpering varlet of the name of Symmes, and a more hideous villain than any of the rest, with a long bag under his arm, and parchment settlements tagged to his heels, ycleped Solmes...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • See yclept.

    January 4, 2008

  • Now behold this pretty little miss skimming from booth to booth, in a very pretty manner. One pretty little fellow called Wyerley, perhaps; another jiggeting rascal called Biron...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • But here in the present case, to carry on the volant metaphor (for I must either be merry, or mad), is a pretty little miss just come out of her hanging-sleeve-coat, brought to buy a pretty little fairing; for the world, Jack, is but a great fair, thou knowest; and, to give thee serious reflection for serious, all its joys but tinselled hobby-horses, gilt gingerbread, squeaking trumpets, painted drums, and so forth.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • For though your honour is kind to me in worldly pelf, yet what shall a man get to lose his soul, as holy scripture says, and please your honour?

    Joseph Leman to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 4, 2008

  • I don't find that he has once talked of settlements; much less of the licence. It is hard! But as your evil destiny has thrown you out of all other protection and mediation, you must be father, mother, uncle to yourself; and enter upon the requisite points for yourself.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 3, 2008

  • She then set forth to me, my friends' expectations from me; Mr. Solmes's riches (three times as rich he came out to be as anybody had thought him); the settlements proposed; Mr. Lovelace's bad character; their aversion to him...

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 3, 2008

  • There's also jointure, dowry, and settlements. Oh, and there's prenup, too.

    January 3, 2008

  • I proposed a physician indeed; but he would not hear of one. I have great honour for the faculty; and the greater, as I have always observed that those who treat the professors of the art of healing contemptuously, too generally treat higher institutions in the same manner.

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 2, 2008

  • Also: doctors, physicians.

    January 2, 2008

  • See also blowzed.

    January 2, 2008

  • Contraction of the other.

    January 1, 2008

  • Contraction of for it.

    January 1, 2008

  • Contraction for on it.

    January 1, 2008

  • But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but I am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 1, 2008

  • Also fortune, chance.

    January 1, 2008

  • Poor Belton!... Who'd ha' thought all should end in such dejected whimpering and terror?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 1, 2008

  • Contraction for to it.

    January 1, 2008

  • He bears a very profligate character as to women (for I inquired particularly about that), and is Mr. Lovelace's more especial privado, with whom he holds a regular correspondence...

    Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 1, 2008

  • But then there is a gentleman of no good character (an intimado of Mr Lovelace's), who is a constant visitor of her, and of the people of the house, whom he regales and treats and has (of consequence) their high good words.

    Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 1, 2008

  • OBSTROPULOUS, adj. (vulgar).—A corruption of obstreperous.

    January 1, 2008

  • Behold her then, spreading the whole troubled bed with her huge quaggy carcase...

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 1, 2008

  • But one word to business, Jack. Whom dealtest thou with for thy blacks?-- Wert thou well used?-- I shall want a plaguy parcel of them. For I intend to make every soul of the family mourn-- Outside, if not in.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    January 1, 2008

  • Also: clothing for mourning.

    January 1, 2008

  • Close at hand; not far off.

    December 21, 2007

  • As to clothes for Thursday, Monmouth Street will afford a ready supply. Clothes quite new would make your condition suspected.

    Lovelace to M'Donald (aka Tomlinson), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 21, 2007

  • In London, west of Covent Garden, near Seven Dials, where new and secondhand clothes shops were located in the 18th century. (And where they may be found today as well!)

    December 21, 2007

  • The devil's in't, if such a girl as this shall awe a man of your years and experience.

    Lovelace to M'Donald (aka Tomlinson), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 21, 2007

  • Contraction for in it.

    December 21, 2007

  • You may think it impossible for me to reach London by the canonical hour. If it should, the ceremony may be performed in your own apartment at any time in the day, or at night...

    Lovelace to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 21, 2007

  • Certain stated times of the day, fixed by ecclesiastical laws, and appropriated to the offices of prayer and devotion; also, certain portions of the Breviary, to be used at stated hours of the day. In England, this name is also given to the hours from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (formerly 8 a. m. to 12 m.) before and after which marriage can not be legally performed in any parish church. via

    December 21, 2007

  • Only that thou hast such jesuitical qualifyings, or I should think thee at last touched with remorse...

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 21, 2007

  • Excuse me, my dear. I am nettled. They have fearfully rumpled my gorget.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 21, 2007

  • He is at the Lower Flask-- almost in the condition of David's sow, and please your honour...

    Will to Lovelace (as quoted by the latter), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 21, 2007

  • "As drunk as David's sow," proverbial since 1652 (according to the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs).

    December 21, 2007

  • Poste restante?

    December 21, 2007

  • Post chaise?

    December 21, 2007

  • Post-haste?

    December 21, 2007

  • Cursed, cursed toad, devil, jade, passed from each mouth...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 20, 2007

  • Also a loose woman.

    December 20, 2007

  • I can account now, how it comes about that lovers, when their mistresses are cruel, run into solitude, and disburthen their minds to stocks and stones: for am I not forced to make my complaints to thee?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 20, 2007

  • ...I took coach, with one of the windows quite up, the other almost up, playing at bo-peep at every chariot I saw in my way to Lincoln's Inn Fields...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 20, 2007

  • This is the beauty of Wordie, that lexome was born here. Start writing that article, adoarns!

    December 19, 2007

  • See picaroon.

    December 19, 2007

  • There never was a rogue, who had not a salvo to himself for being so.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 19, 2007

  • Archaic: a bad excuse, evasion, quibble.

    December 19, 2007

  • Obsolete: ingenious.

    December 19, 2007

  • Inquisitive (see also nosy).

    December 19, 2007

  • Knife.

    December 19, 2007

  • But for fear these evidences should be suspected, here comes the jet of the business.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 19, 2007

  • Obsolete: jet (of the business): heart or gist of the matter.

    December 19, 2007

  • Obsolete: ingenuousness.

    December 19, 2007

  • Wise woman, fortuneteller, witch.

    December 19, 2007

  • ...I wonder I could not distinguish the behaviour of the unmatron-like jilt whom thou broughtest to betray me, from the worthy lady whom thou hast the honour to call thy aunt...

    Clarissa Harlowe (as quoted by Lovelace), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 19, 2007

  • Formerly: a loose, unchaste woman: harlot.

    December 19, 2007

  • I must be properly enabled from that quarter, to pacify her, or, at least, to rebate her first violence.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 19, 2007

  • Also to lessen, diminish.

    December 19, 2007

  • Woohoo!

    December 18, 2007

  • For abating. See also bating.

    December 18, 2007

  • ...for now she is as much too lively, as before she was too stupid; and, 'bating that she has pretty frequent lucid intervals, would be deemed raving mad, and I should be obliged to confine her.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 18, 2007

  • ...Are all women alike with you?

    Yes; I could have answered; 'bating the difference which pride makes.

    Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lovelace (as related by him to Belford), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 18, 2007

  • Also 'bating.

    December 18, 2007

  • Caesar never knew what it meant to be hypped, I will call it, till he came to be what Pompey was; that is to say, till he arrived at the height of his ambition...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 18, 2007

  • A madman (so called because the inmates of Bedlam slept in straw).

    December 18, 2007

  • I had written a great part of another long letter, to try to soften thy flinty heart in her favour...

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 18, 2007

  • Oops. I meant it would make more sense. Apostrophes have no effect on me whatsoever.

    December 18, 2007

  • I'm unable to view all my words on one page. And when I click on the next page link, nothing happens.

    December 18, 2007

  • I would certainly make more sense with 2 apostrophes. I can't understand why be'n't should have two.

    December 18, 2007

  • Gondang it, reesetee! You took my line!

    December 18, 2007

  • My sister calls this eye boogers.

    December 18, 2007

  • So is this sense of palpitare meaning to fondle relatively new? I recall that in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Donna Elvira sings "...palpitando il cor' mi va."

    December 18, 2007

  • How about Olivier, who was Roland's sidekick?

    December 18, 2007

  • I pray thee.

    December 18, 2007

  • John,

    From my Wordie lists, when I click on the link for my comments or my tags, I get an error screen that insults you as a person and as a webmaster.

    December 17, 2007

  • Contraction for ladyship.

    December 17, 2007

  • I verily think, that I have had three or four precontracts in my time, but the good girls have not claimed upon them of a long time...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • An existing contract that obviates the making of another contract of the same kind: a precontract of marriage. --The Free Dictionary.

    December 17, 2007

  • I've also found this in other works in the phrases "porterly language," and "porterly drunk."

    December 17, 2007

  • But as to her sordid menace... Broken bones, Belford!-- Who can bear this porterly threatening!

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • All I have done to her would have been looked upon as a frolic only, a romping-bout, and laughed off by nine parts in ten of the sex accordingly.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • There never was an instance, on such an occasion, where the stranger paid not his first devoirs to my Clarissa.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • Another one: be'n't.

    December 17, 2007

  • I am sorry, madam, and please you, to find you be'n't well.

    Country lad (as quoted by Lovelace), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • Ah, yes. The bird. (Stupid bird.)

    December 17, 2007

  • What business have you here, or with me?-- You have your letters, han't you?

    Clarissa Harlowe to Lovelace (as quoted by him), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • I'm sure it may be so, somewhere. Alas, in Clarissa, it only has the one apostrophe.

    December 17, 2007

  • My little harum-scarum beauty knows not what strange histories every woman living, who has had the least independence of will, could tell her, were such to be as communicative as she is...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • Contraction for have not, haven't.

    December 17, 2007

  • ...One hundred and fifty guineas, or pounds, is no small sum to lose-- and by a young creature, who would have bilked her lodgings!

    You amaze me, Miss Martin!-- What language do you talk in?-- Bilk my lodgings!-- What is that?

    Sally Martin and Clarissa Harlowe (as quoted by Belford), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • The women, so used to cry without grief, as they are to laugh without reason, by mere force of example (confound their promptitudes!) must needs pull out their handkerchiefs.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • How Mr. Lovelace has found me out here, I cannot tell. But such mean devices, such artful, such worse than Waltham disguises put on, to obtrude himself into my company...

    Clarissa Harlowe (as quoted by Lovelace), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • For explanation, see Wikipedia article on the Waltham Black Act.

    December 17, 2007

  • These women think that all the business of the world must stand still for their figaries (a good female word, Jack!)-- the greatest triflers in the creation, to fancy themselves the most important beings in it...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • Note to self: Never eat pancakes with uselessness. Behold the ipecac flower.

    December 17, 2007

  • Loony?

    December 17, 2007

  • I had a good mind to make Miss Rawlins smart for it. Come and see Miss Rawlins, Jack-- If thou likest, I'll get her for thee with a wet finger, as the saying is!

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • With a wet finger means effortlessly, easily.

    December 17, 2007

  • Beware of varlets.

    December 17, 2007

  • You're right; Nimrod is the reverse of the personification. What is that called?

    December 16, 2007

  • Ammonia, boycott, mausoleum?

    December 16, 2007

  • Nimrod, anyone?

    December 16, 2007

  • For a variant, see loth.

    December 16, 2007

  • Haha! I have enough trouble trying to draw an ampersand.

    December 16, 2007

  • Yes (but as St. Petersburg); I stayed in a dorm on Vasilevskii Island-- maybe the very one you mention, because I was within walking distance to the Pribaltiiskaia.

    December 16, 2007

  • Yes, it's diner lingo, said to be originally a military term.

    December 16, 2007

  • Vasilevskii Island?

    December 16, 2007

  • I'm hungry.

    December 16, 2007

  • How about in the weeds?

    December 16, 2007

  • Oh yes, and 'sdeath, meaning God's death.

    December 16, 2007

  • There's also marry, from the Virgin Mary.

    December 16, 2007

  • There's also oons.

    December 16, 2007

  • ...and not being naturally fond of marriage, and having so much reason to hate her relations, endeavours to prevail upon her to live with him what he calls the life of honour.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 16, 2007

  • For Richardson's Lovelace, cohabitation.

    December 16, 2007

  • Furthermore, I was sensible that the people of the house must needs have a terrible notion of me, as a savage, bloody-minded, obdurate fellow; a perfect woman-eater...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 16, 2007

  • Will not these trembling fingers, which twice have refused to direct the pen, and thus curvedly deform the paper, fail me in the arduous moment?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 16, 2007

  • Your mamma will not be permitted to be disturbed by your nothing-meaning vocatives!

    James Harlowe, Jr. to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 16, 2007

  • Upon my soul, madam, the fire was real-- (and so it was, Jack!)-- The house might have been consumed by it, as you will be convinced in the morning by ocular demonstration.

    Lovelace speaking to Clarissa (as described in his letter to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 16, 2007

  • Variant of loath.

    December 15, 2007

  • But I shall be very sick tomorrow. I shall, 'faith.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 15, 2007

  • Contraction for in faith, meaning truly, indeed.

    December 15, 2007

  • Well but, Lovelace, how the deuce wilt thou, with that full health and vigour of constitution, and with that bloom in thy face, make anybody believe thou art sick?

    How!-- Why take a few grains of ipecacuanha; enough to make me retch like a fury.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 15, 2007

  • Used to make Syrup of Ipecac.

    December 15, 2007

  • To be sure, I shall break a vessel: there's no doubt of that; and a bottle of Eaton's styptic shall be sent for; but no doctor.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 15, 2007

  • Then these little sly rogues, how they lie couchant, ready to spring upon us harmless fellows the moment we are in their reach!

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 15, 2007

  • Men, some to Bus'ness, some to Pleasure take;

    But ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake:

    Men, some to Quiet, some to public Strife;

    But ev'ry Lady would be Queen for life

    From Alexander Pope's Moral Essay II, 215-18

    December 15, 2007

  • Be a Lady Easy to all my pleasures, and valuing those most, who most contributed to them; only sighing in private, that it was not herself at the time...

    Lovelace to Belford (on the traits of his ideal wife), Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 15, 2007

  • The wife of the "chronically unfaithful" Sir Charles Easy, in Colley Cibber's 1704 play The Careless Husband.

    December 15, 2007

  • There are also scores of soubrettes in plays and operas who fill the requirements of sidekick.

    December 15, 2007

  • Well, since there are characters from Mozart's operas listed, what about Pedrillo, sidekick to Belmont in The Abduction from the Seraglio?

    December 15, 2007

  • But I charge thee, write not a word to me in her favour, if thou meanest her well; for if I spare her, it must be all ex mero motu.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Of one's own free will or motion.

    December 14, 2007

  • In secret, held in reserve. (Literally: in the breast)

    December 14, 2007

  • I have still more contrivances in embryo. I could tell thee of an hundred, and still hold another hundred in petto, to pop in as I go along, to excite thy surprise, and to keep up thy attention.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Here follows a copy of her letter: Thou wilt see by it, that every little monkey is to catechize me.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Vapourish people are perpetual subjects for diseases to work upon.... The physical tribe's milch cows.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Doctors, physicians.

    December 14, 2007

  • ...and the joys of expectation, the highest of all our joys, would salubriate and keep all alive.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Does the business he wants to meet me upon require that it should be at a common friend's?-- A challenge implied; i'n't it, Belford?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • See julep.

    December 14, 2007

  • Vapourish people are perpetual subjects for diseases to work upon. Name but the malady, and it is theirs in a moment.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Once or twice... I was prevailed upon to fluster myself, with an intention to make some advances, which, if obliged to recede, I might lay upon raised spirits: but the instant I beheld her, I was soberized into awe and reverence...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • ...and so much VIGILANCE, so much apprehensiveness, that her fears are ever aforehand with her dangers.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 14, 2007

  • Wow. Thanks, mollusque. I was part of a mob that changed something. All hail the mob!

    December 14, 2007

  • I was also disappointed by Spike's absence. And Lucy is missing, too. She was his number one kissing partner!

    December 14, 2007

  • Dear creature!-- Did she never romp? Did she never from girlhood to now, hoyden?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • And yet the moment I beheld her, my heart was dastardized, damped, and reverenced-over.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • She has a high opinion of her sex, to think they can charm so long, with a man so well acquainted with their identicalness.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • The next letter is of such a nature, that I dare say these proud varletesses would not have had it fall into my hands for the world.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • Yet my teasing ways, it seems, are intolerable-- Are women only to tease, I trow?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • I have great temptations, on this occasion, says the prim Gothamite, to express my own resentments upon your present state.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • Can also mean a fool, from the English village of Gotham, proverbially known for its fools.

    Don't write me!

    December 13, 2007

  • A form of gauntlet.

    December 13, 2007

  • What a gantlope would she run, when I had done with her, among a dozen of her own pitiless sex...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 13, 2007

  • Melancholy for what?... I thought thou hadst been more of a man; thou that are not afraid of an acute death, a sword's point, to be so plaguily hypped at the consequences of a chronical one?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • Hypochondria, low spirits, depression, melancholy.

    December 11, 2007

  • If I ruin such a virtue, sayest thou?-- Eternal monotonist!

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • ...I am amazed at the repetition of thy wambling nonsense.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • Thou mayest by trick, chicane, and false colours, thou who art worse than a pickeroon in love, overcome a poor lady so entangled as thou hast entangled her...

    Belford to Lovelace, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • His clenched fist offered to his forehead on your leaving him in just displeasure; I wish it had been a poleaxe, and in the hand of his worst enemy.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • Yet I believe you must not expect him to be honest on this side of his grand climacteric.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • I am glad she wept so much, because no heart bursts (be the occasion for the sorrow what it will) which has that kindly relief. Hence I hardly ever am moved at the sight of these pellucid fugitives in a fine woman.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • Confoundedly out of humour with this perverse lady.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • Miss Howe is a charming creature too; but confoundedly smart, and spiritful. I am a good deal afraid of her.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • For, Belford ('tis a folly to deny it), I have been, to use an old word, quite bestraught.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • How came she (thought I at the instant) by all this penetration? My devil surely does not play me booty. If I thought he did, I would marry and live honest, to be even with him.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 11, 2007

  • Also: to play (someone) booty: to act falsely (against someone) for gain.

    December 11, 2007

  • She can keep nothing from her daughter, though they are always jangling.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • Thank you very much! I'm just doing my part to get as many people as possible to read this great book.

    December 10, 2007

  • Your brother having been assured that you are not married, has taken a resolution to find you out, way-lay you and carry you off.

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • A female mediator.

    December 10, 2007

  • And who shall put her to this trial?-- Who but the man who has, as she thinks, already induced her in lesser points to swerve?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • ...how shall I tell him that all his compliments are misbestowed...

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • Also adj.: diverse, various

    December 10, 2007

  • The dog sat uneasy: he shifted his feet: her eye was upon him; he was therefore, after the rebuff he had met with, afraid to look at me for my motions; and now turned his eyes towards me, then from me, as if he would unlook his own looks...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • ...and since he thought it necessary to tell the people below anything about me, I insisted that he should unsay all he had said, and tell them the truth.

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • And will it not moreover give him pretence and excuse oftener than ever to pad-nag it hither to good Mrs Howe's fair daughter?

    Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • See also padnag.

    December 10, 2007

  • Mrs Howe was acted by the springs I set at work: her daughter was moving for me, and yet imagined herself plumb against me...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • Think not of corresponding with a wretch who now seems absolutely devoted! How can it be otherwise, if a parent's curses have the weight I always attributed to them...

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • This correspondence was prohibited before, and that, to the daughter, in the strongest terms: but yet carried on by both: although a brace of impeccables, and please ye.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • A person afflicted with gout in the foot.

    December 10, 2007

  • I was the willinger to suspend my journey thither, till I heard from Harlowe Place.

    Clarissa Harlowe to Anna Howe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 10, 2007

  • Who can have patience with such fellows and fellowesses?

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 9, 2007

  • All I had to apprehend was that a daughter so reluctantly carried off would offer terms to her father, and would be accepted upon a mutual concedence; they to give up Solmes; she to give up me.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 9, 2007

  • Enough.

    December 9, 2007

  • =am not. See also ain't.

    December 9, 2007

  • Whole hecatombs ought to be offered up to the manes of my Clarissa Lovelace.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 8, 2007

  • Tomorrow is the day that will, in all probability, send either one or two ghosts to attend the manes of my Clarissa.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 8, 2007

  • Whole hecatombs ought to be offered up to the manes of my Clarissa Lovelace.

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 8, 2007

  • Why doesn't reesetee appear on one of reesetee's lists?

    December 7, 2007

  • John,

    Could we have a feature that would tell us how often a word or a list has been listed as a favorite by members? I only see favorite lists on the individual profiles. I don't know if it's feasible for favorite words, but I think it could work with lists.

    December 6, 2007

  • Your sightliness of person may perhaps make some think this alliance disparaging. But I hope you won't put such a personal value upon yourself...

    Mrs. Harlowe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 5, 2007

Show 92 more comments...