cuisse and culet and jambeau and cucullus and cucullate and cullioin and culverin and cumshaw and cupel and cupule and cupulate

I think we have finally left medieval armor behind us, after talking about cuisses and culets and jambeaus. Let's move on to something that monks and some plants have in common: hoods. Something that is cucullate has the shape of a hood. The earliest English attestation is from 1794 where a botanist could write: "The nectary [plant gland secreting nectar] or horn is cucullate or cowl-shaped." But cowls come from the monastery and not from nature, so we discover there is a cucullus, defined as "cowl or monk's hood." There even was a medieval proverb that I would like to share with you: "Cucullus non facit monachum"--"A cowl does not make a monk." Actually, this is quite a useful apophthegm or aphorism, don't you think? It is useful in all those contexts where we have a tendency to think that external trappings, degrees or apparent realities define a situation. See if you can find a situation in life where you can use this ditty.

Back to the List

So, cullet is "broken or refuse glass usually added to new material to facilitate melting in making glass." A cullion is a "base fellow," and of course Shakespeare uses it, this time in 2 Hen. VI: "Away, base Cullions." Actually, the word has an interesting history. Its first attestation is in Chaucer where the word means "testicles." It is also spelled culyon (hope I don't confuse you) and can be synonymous with "balock stone" or "stone" or "cod." Its development into a term of contempt happened by 1575. Thus, we have the interesting phenomenon of a male's private parts becoming a term of derogation. Feminist scholars point out how this is the case for female body parts--but who knew that the male denigration came first?

Ok, continuing. A culver is a pigeon, derived from the Latin columbine, while a culverin is an early firearm, either a musket or a long cannon of the 16th-17th centuries. I was hoping for a picture of one in the Century, but all it could give me is a quotation from Macaulay: "Hark to the mingled din Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin." I don't think I am harking this morning, however. So, a cumshaw is derived from the Chinese and is defined by the OED as a baksheesh, which is a Persian word. Great. But it means "a present or gratuity." Really, it is a bribe. Let's speak plainly. I recall when Justice William Rehnquist used the word "gratuity" in reviewing the removal of a federal judge from the bench...because he had allegedly accepted a "gratuity." Rehnquist meant a bribe. A bribe is a gift to get you to change your vote, to vote for someone regardless of the merits of their case, or to enable things to happen on one's behalf. Enough.

A cunner is a European wrasse (fish). I KNOW they won't ask about cunnilingus, so I won't define it for you. Actually, I have been doing some research on a 1915 CA statute that made both fellatio and cunnilingus criminal offenses. There is an interesting story there, which I won't tell you now. Moving along, we come to curch, which is a kerchief and curculio (ker KYU lio), which is a weevil. You would think that curculio would have had something to do with medieval Roman Catholic councils, but it doesn't. Speaking of religion, again, I just couldn't pass over curate's egg without mentioning it. It is defined as "something with both good and bad qualities," and, as the OED tells us, goes back to a cartoon in Punch magazine from 1895 where a meek curate, having been given a stale egg by his episcopal host, stated that "parts of it" were "excellent." "The President of the College was chary of accepting donations of curate's eggs." Well, you get the point.

Stopping on Cupel and Cupule

In easiest terms, a cupule is a "cup-shaped" depression in an anatomical structure or in nature (such as in a rock). However, it can really be defined in a complicated way, too, such as "an involucre characteristic of the oak in which the bracts are indurated and coherent." I like the picture in the Century much better. It simply is the cup of the acorn. So, something that is cupulate or cupular is cup-shaped (I hope you notice how I am starting to love the words ending in "ate" that refer to various kinds of shapes in the world).

But we also have a cupel, which is a small shallow porous cup, especially of bone ash, used in assaying to seaparte precious metals from led. Its first attestation is from 1605. The process of refinement is called cupellation and the verb, to cupel, also means to refine. Though the OED doesn't have an attestation of the verb or noun more recently than the late 19th century, I think the word cupellation might still have resonance today to describe all the refining that a careful worker, like a writer, needs to do in order to be satisfied with what s/he produces.

Conclusion

So, let's conclude with curassow, a game bird, and curettage, a surgical scraping or cleaning by means of a curette. Curettage will have, I think, a utility when we want to emphasize the care we take in "cleaning things up." Then a curlew is a migratory bird, a curragh (pronounced KE re) is a large coracle, and a curricle is a wheeled vehicle drawn by horses. Just the mere presence of this last word in the Collegiate shows how language changes. When the automobile came in, I bet there was a large drop off in the use of the word curricle. Yet, we must learn the word, for it is in the Collegiate.

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