Some New Free Rice Verbs--More of Them

I was unexpectedly stumped by catholicon. Taking heed to the "universal" features of it, I had no idea it had something to do with medicine. Yet, a catholicon is a "universal remedy" a "panacea," an electuary of wide utility. But the word, which was first used in the early 17th century, took on a figurative meaning pretty quickly. From 1642: "Death is the cure of all diseases. There is no Catholicon or universal remedy I know but this." But then we have this line from the same period, which reflects a sentiment that many men have felt since time immemorial: "A good wife is a Catholicon, or universal remedy for all the evils that happen in life." Thus, we now have a new word for a panacea or universal remedy. And, if you go around saying that your wife is a catholicon, people will wonder what she (or you) have been drinking lately! Yet the word is useful as a sort of word of longing--for something that takes the pain out of life, that provides a sort of universal antidote to the painful realities that often overwhelm.

Congee derives ultimately from the Latin commeatus, which means "leave to depart or to go," and therefore is the "Authoritative or formal leave or licence to depart, granted by one in authority; passport." A congee is simply this: a passport, though I don't suppose the word is much used this way anymore. Well, I will have a little more to say about its development here.

Moving to Some Verbs

I spent some time on the following verbs: gloze, gawp, hoise, didder, keek, gazump, raddle, foozle and abjudge. Let's begin with gloze. Again, I got this word wrong the first time I met it because it was defined as "flatter," and I just couldn't get there from the word "gloze." But here is the story. Standing behind the word ultimately is the Latin "glossa," which has to do with a "gloss" or "interpretation." Thus, the first definition, going back even before Wyclif is "to make glozes or glosses upon; to discourse upon, expound, interpret." From Wyclif, "Clerkis..willen glose here and say.." Or, from Chaucer, "For in pleyn text it nedyth nat to glose."

But what happens when people not only begin to interpret but keep explaining or interpreting? A lot of folks are going to say that the interpreters are explaining things away rather than explaining them. Thus, by the next few centuries it had taken on the meaning of "explain away" or "palliate" or "veil with specious comments." From William Tyndale (1536): "They that..seek liberties..to sinne unpunished, and glose out the lawe of God.." We can extend the meaning of the previous a bit further by saying that those who try to explain a text, command, difficulty away speak smoothly, speciously and, at times, flatteringly. Maybe their patrons want things explained in a certain way, and so they "gloze" it. From 1848: "We would not that thou shouldst learn too early how men's tongues can gloze and flatter."

This is a long story to get us from the basic root meaning, which is to "interpret" or to "gloss," to that of flattery. I don't know if that is what the Free Rice person expected us to do, but that would be the way to "follow" the word. Let's move on.

A Harvest of Verbs

Gawp seems to be a portmanteau word, consisting of equal measures of gape and gawk. It means to "yawn or gape; to gaze in astonishment," and it appeared for the first time in the late 17th century. D.H. Lawrence used the word: "There he sat stubbornly in his corner at the Red Lion, smoking and musing and occasionally lifting his beer-pot, and saying nothing, for all the world like a gorping farm-labourer."*

[*Note: The only attestation of "gorp" that the OED has is the modern meaning of the term, first used in 1972, to describe a mixture of dried fruit and nuts, often with seeds and other high-calorie foods, eaten as a snack originally by hikers and campers. Gorp is good old raisins and peanuts.]

We understand the verb raddle once the noun raddle comes into view. It goes back to the 16th century and refers to a slender rod, wattle or lath fastened to or twisted between upright stakes or posts to form a fence, partition or wall. Thus, a raddle is the twisted or interwoven horizontal material that makes a wall or partition. The verb follows directly from this: "to weave or twist together (like raddles); to intertwine or interlace." So, one might be able to raddle cloth or even shoelaces, but I think it might have a life if we talk about raddling stories or different acounts of events.

The verb abjudge means "to take away from any one by judicial decision." Adjudge, in contrast, means to adjudicate or to decide judicially. From 1855: "Even if one of the three pastoral Epistles were abjudged it would still keep its place in argument as a good imitation of the apostolic manner."

To hoise means pretty much the same thing as to "hoist" or "raise" or "lift." I didn't know that the phrase "hoist with his own petard" originated with Shakespeare. It means, as we know, to be "blown into the air by his own bomb" or injured by his own device. From Hamlet III.iv.207, "Tis the sport to have the enginer/ Hoist with his owne petar." Didder was another verb with which I wasn't familiar, but now I know it means "to tremble, quake, shake, shiver." The only problem is that it is only used in dialects, according to the OED. "I quite diddered with fear."

Conclusion

Keek simply means "to peep" or "look pryingly." It, too, is a provincial English and Scottish word, leading me to wonder why the Free Rice people are this desperate. "Then up she rose, put on her clothes,/ And keekit through at the lock-hole." Then we have gazump, which is a term only invented in the 20th century and means "to swindle" especially in relation to improper action in the sale of houses. "I gazoomphed a friend of mine last night with complete success." Here is a sentence that goes to its origin. From Allingham in 1934: "Grafters speak a language comprised of every possible type of slang..Quite a number of words are Yiddish. These include 'gezumph,' which means to cheat or to overcharge." The earliest reference, in 1928, to "gazoomphing the sarker,' [a way of parting a rich man from his money] may betray a sort of underworld origin for the term and not necessarily a Yiddish one...

Finally, the verb foozle meant, at first, to waste one's time or to fool, but then it took on, at the end of the 19th century the meaning of "to do clumsily" or "to bungle." It is said to have had a particular significance in golf. From 1892: "You 'will' your opponent to foozle his tee shot." Thus, to foozle something is to bungle it.

I hope this took you out of your comfort zone on some English words. But now you know more and, I hope, can occasionally use them.

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