"They [the monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of [the town of] Ely."Fuccantis pseudo-Latin, and in the original it is written in cipher. Other very early examples of the word are from Scottish, which might suggest a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to...
"clasp, button, etc. used to secure the cock of a hat," hence "any knot or badge worn on a hat," especially as a sign of political adherence, 1709, earliercockard(1650s), from Frenchcocarde(16c.), fem. ofcocard(Old Frenchcocart) "foolishly proud, cocky," as a noun, "idiot,...
This evolution has occurred in developmental disability, where none of the current levels has image intensity comparable to older terms such as idiot, imbecile, moron, and feeble-minded. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)...
of words — basically, without speech there is no conscious thought and without the word (ονομα, onoma) there is no law (νομος, nomos)— and words are social things that formed like mist in the cooling night, spontaneously in the vast realm of increasingly calm and ...
In Job 11:12, friend Zophar notes: "An idiot (איש נבוב 'ish nabob) will become intelligent (לבב, labab) when the foal (עיר, 'ayir) of a wild donkey (פרא, pere') is born (ילד, yalad) a man (אדם, 'adam)," which ...
(but little used before 16c.), from Old Frenchintellect"intellectual capacity" (13c.), and directly from Latinintellectus"discernment, a perception, understanding," noun use of past participle ofintelligere"to understand, discern" (seeintelligence). The Latin word was used to translate Greeknous...
One makes the "idiot" sense original, the other the "jester" sense. The word has in mod.Eng. a much stronger sense than it had at an earlier period; it has now an implication of insulting contempt which does not in the same degree belong to any of its synonyms, or to the ...
In plural, the Greek word could mean "one's own countrymen." In old English law, one who has been without reasoning or understanding from birth, as distinguished from alunatic, who became that way.Idiot box"television set" is from 1959;idiot light"dashboard warning signal" is attested from...
(mermaids, werewolves, lamia, satyrs, the beast of the Apocalypse), "a brutish or stupid man," from Old French beste "animal, wild beast," figuratively "fool, idiot" (11c., Modern French bête), from Vulgar Latin *besta, from Latin bestia "beast, wild animal," which is of unknown ...
(16c.) and directly from Late Latinidioma"a peculiarity in language," from Greekidioma"peculiarity, peculiar phraseology" (Fowler writes that "A manifestation of the peculiar" is "the closest possible translation of the Greek word"), fromidioumai"to appropriate to oneself," fromidios"personal,...