Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from last week.
Remember that once a month we’re giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players, to be announced the last Monday of the month, and as always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Have you recovered from the election? We have (barely). To help you out, here are some interesting and ridiculous words we’ve learned from TV.
battleground state
Anderson Cooper: “Is it all going to be about voter turnout [in Virginia]?”
Commentator: “Yes, here and other battleground states.”
The Colbert Report, November 5, 2012
A battleground state is also known as a swing state or purple state, as opposed to a blue or red state, which have “a majority of its electorate voting for,” respectively, the Democratic or Republican “candidate in a U.S. presidential election.”
A battleground state “is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state’s electoral college votes.” The term originated around 1832, says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), while swing state is much newer, coming about around 1964.
celtuce
Chef: “This is celtuce. . . .A cross between celery and lettuce. It’s really popular in Asia.”
“Brooklyn,” No Reservations, November 6, 2012
Celtuce is “a type of lettuce. . .valued especially for its edible stems.”
chum
Liz: “What the hell, Jack? I thought you said I was your chum.”
Jack: “You are my chum. The bait I throw in the water to attract the big fish.”
Liz: “Dammit, second meaning!”
“Unwindulax,” 30 Rock, October 24, 2012
Chum originally referred to “one who lodges or resides in the same chamber or rooms with another; a room-mate: especially applied to college students.” The word is an alternative spelling of cham, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which is “short for chamber(mate), typical of the late-17c. fondness for clipped words.” By extension, chum refers to “an intimate companion; a crony.”
The “second” meaning, “bait, consisting usually of pieces of some oily fish,” originated later, around 1857, and comes from the Scottish chum, “food.”
die dreaming
Guide: “We’re drinking orange juice with Carnation milk. We call it die dreaming.”
“Dominican Republic,” No Reservations, October 29, 2012
Die dreaming, which translates from the Spanish morir soñando, is “a popular beverage of the Dominican Republic. . .usually made of orange juice, milk, cane sugar, and chopped ice.”
green on blue
Jon Stewart: “Now [the situation in Afghanistan has] become more dangerous. This whole idea of what they call green on blue violence, which is Afghani troops embedded with American troops, turning on [the American troops].”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 5, 2012
Green on blue, says OxfordWords Blog, “is modeled after an earlier phrase, blue on blue, referring to inadvertent clashes between members of the same side in an armed conflict.” The colors don’t have to do with uniform hue but with standardized military symbols, where “blue is used for friendly forces, red for hostile forces, green for neutral forces, and yellow for unknown forces.”
light-fingered
Constable: “They all believe that Sister Monica Jane is known to them as, and I quote, light-fingered.”
“The Adventures of Noakes and Browne,” Call the Midwife, November 4, 2012
Light-fingered in this context means “dexterous in touching and taking; thievish; addicted to petty thefts: applied particularly to pickpockets.” The phrase originated in the 1540s.
lurker
Scientist: “Take away their arms so they can’t grab you. Take away their jaws so they can’t bite you. Take away their ability to eat, they lose interest in doing so. . . .They become docile, in a sense.”
Governor: “Lurkers.”
Scientist: “Mm, docile. . . .Or lurkers, whatever you like.”
“Walk with Me,” The Walking Dead, October 28, 2012
A lurker is “one who lurks, hides, or keeps out of sight,” as well as “an impostor; a cheap quack.” Lurker comes from lurk, which is probably Scandinavian in origin. In internet slang, a lurker is “a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing, social networking site. . .but rarely or never participates actively.”
prefab
Sister: “Those prefabs are only ever expected to last four or five years.”
“We Are Family,” Call the Midwife, October 28, 2012
Prefab, short for prefabricated, or manufactured in advance, refers to “something prefabricated, especially a building or section of a building.” According to the OED, prefab refers specifically, in British English, to “a light, often single-storey house of the kind built in large numbers as temporary housing during and after the Second World War (1939–45).”
punditocracy
Stephen Colbert [to statistician Nate Silver]: “Those of us in the punditocracy make our bread and butter by telling people what the truth is as we see it from our gut.”
The Colbert Report, November 5, 2012
Punditocracy is “a group of pundits who wield great political influence.” The word is a blend of pundit, “a source of opinion; a critic,” and –cracy, “rule of government by.” While –cracy is Greek in origin, pundit comes from the Sanskrit paṇḍitaḥ, “learned, scholar.”
sea moss
Anthony Bourdain: “Sea moss is a mix of powdered, dried, deep water seaweed, milk, cinnamon, and other spices, legendary for one reason.”
Michael K. Williams: “Very potent. He’s gonna make a baby tonight.”
“Brooklyn,” No Reservations, November 6, 2012
Sea moss is a “seaweed shake that comes from Trinidad and is said to help men retain their virility.”
shants
Claire: “You finally found something less cool than those pants that zip off into shorts.”
Phil: “My shants, which you have been gunning for since day one.”
“Yard Sale,” Modern Family, October 31, 2012
Shants is a blend of shorts and pants. Other sartorial blends include skort, jeggings, and jorts.
unwindulax
Fan: “Jenna is playing a Today Show in a couple of days so we’re just camping out and unwindulaxing.”
“Unwindulax,” 30 Rock, October 24, 2012
Unwindulax is a blend of unwind and relax. The figurative meaning of unwind, “to become free of nervous tension,” originated around 1958, says the OED. Relax meaning “to relieve from attention or effort” is much older, according to the OED, attested to the 17th century.
Unwindulax is a play on chillax, a blend of chill and relax.
Election Day by brooklyntheborough
[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by brooklyntheborough]
Happy Election Day! To celebrate, we voted (of course) and rounded up some of our favorite old-timey words about American politics and campaigning.
Rock the vote (or Chris Rock the vote) and enjoy.
barnstorm
“O’Malley dubbed the upcoming barnstorm ‘Super Saturday’ after casting his own ballot Friday afternoon in North Baltimore, where he remains registered despite living in the governor’s mansion.”
Aaron C. Davis and John Wagner, “Parties Rev Up Political Machinery in Maryland to Boost Early Voting Turnout,” The Washington Post, October 22, 2010
To barnstorm means “to travel around the countryside making political speeches, giving lectures, or presenting theatrical performances.” The theatrical performances sense came about first, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, around 1815, “in reference to a theatrical troupe’s performances in upstate N.Y. barns,” while the electioneering sense originated in 1896.
dark horse
“The Missouri Democrat has long been viewed as a possible dark horse candidate for the nomination in case of a convention deadlock.”
“Symington Regarded Likely Demo Dark Horse Candidate,” Oxnard Press-Courier, March 30 1956
A dark horse is “one who achieves unexpected support and success as a political candidate, typically during a party’s convention.” The phrase comes from horse racing, where a dark horse is a “a little-known, unexpectedly successful entrant, as in a horserace,” and “dark is used in its figurative sense of ‘unknown.’”
gerrymander
“Every 10 years, states redraw their congressional lines, and often what result are some very oddly shaped districts drawn for political reasons. In recent decades, these so-called ‘gerrymandered’ districts have come to be known by any number of derogatory noms de guerre, including the ‘ribbon of shame,’ ‘earmuffs,’ ‘bug splat,’ ‘flat cat roadkill,’ ‘rabbit on a skateboard,’ and even simply ‘Z.’”
Aaron Blake, “Name That District! (Gerrymandering Edition),” The Washington Post, July 27, 2011
A gerrymander is “an arbitrary arrangement of the political divisions of a State, in disregard of the natural or proper boundaries as indicated by geography or position, made so as to give one party an unfair advantage in elections.” Gerrymander is partially named for Elbridge Gerry, “an American statesman and diplomat,” as a blend of Gerry and the –mander of salamander, “from the shape of an election district created while Gerry was governor of Massachusetts.” For more political blends, see Ben Zimmer’s recent post.
lame duck
“The American constitutional system of checks and balances will be strained for 10 months while we have a lame duck President.”
“Lame Duck Presidency Presents Its Hazards,” The Deserest News, April 21, 1952
A lame duck is “an elected officeholder or group continuing in office during the period between failure to win an election and the inauguration of a successor,” or “an officeholder who has chosen not to run for reelection or is ineligible for reelection.” This sense, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, “is recorded by 1878. . .from an anecdote published in that year of President Lincoln, who is alleged to have said, ‘[A] senator or representative out of business is a sort of lame duck. He has to be provided for.’”
For more words and terms coined by U.S. presidents, check out this list.
logrolling
“The truth is, that if ‘lobby members’ endeavor to carry their points by threats or bribery or treating or forming combinations, called logrolling, they are reprehensible.”
Kemp P. Battle, History of North Carolina
Logrolling is “mutual aid given by persons to one another in carrying out their several schemes or gaining their individual ends: used especially of politicians and legislators.” The term comes from the “early American practice of neighbors gathering to help clear land by rolling off and burning felled timber,” and the phrase, “You roll my log and I’ll roll yours.”
mugwump
“Mark Twain had been a ‘mugwump’ during the Blame-Cleveland campaign in 1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland.”
Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boys’ Life of Mark Twain
A mugwump originally referred to “a person of importance; a man of consequence; a leader,” a sense “long in local use along the coast of Massachusetts and the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound.” The word comes from the “Algonquian (Natick) mugquomp ‘important person,’” which was “derived from mugumquomp ‘war leader.’”
The meaning was extended to “a Republican who bolted the party in 1884, refusing to support presidential candidate James G. Blaine,” and has come to refer to, in general, “a person who acts independently or remains neutral, especially in politics.”
pork barrel
“Denouncing the Congressional ‘pork barrel,’ President Taft to-day urged a change of method in dealing with waterway improvements in the United States.”
“Taft Declares War on ‘Pork Barrel,’” The New York Times, September 22, 1910
Pork barrel is slang for “a government project or appropriation that yields jobs or other benefits to a specific locale and patronage opportunities to its political representative.” The term originated around 1902 and comes from the idea “of food supply kept in a barrel.” Pork meaning “government funds, appointments, or benefits dispensed or legislated by politicians to gain favor with their constituents,” is older, from around 1862.
psephology
“The science of interpreting elections has a dance name: psephology. A shorter, simpler and more accurate title for much election analysis is: fiction.”
David S. Broder, “Deciphering the Meaning of Elections,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 18, 1989
Psephology is “the study of political elections.” The word comes from the Greek psēphos, “pebble, ballot,” from the ancient Greeks’ practice of using pebbles for voting.
roorback
“Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I’m afraid the harm will be done.”
Arthur B. Reeve, The Ear in the Wall
A roorback is “a fictitious story published for political effect; a ‘campaign lie.'” The word is named after “Baron von Roorback, imaginary author of Roorback’s Tour Through the Western and Southern States, from which a passage was purportedly quoted in an attempt to disparage presidential candidate James K. Polk in 1844.”
straw vote
“A straw vote conducted by the Pathfinder, a magazine devoted to politics, gives Hoover the majority. Popular votes totaled 233,315 for Hoover and 197,408 for Smith.”
Leo R. Sack, “Campaigns Are Gaining Speed, With Tours On,” The Pittsburgh Press, September 17, 1928
A straw vote is “an unofficial vote or poll indicating the trend of opinion on a candidate or issue.” The term came about in 1866 and, according to William Safire et al, “may allude to a straw (thin plant stalk) held up to see in what direction the wind blows, in this case, the wind of group opinion.” Newer are straw poll and straw ballot, both of which originated around 1932, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from last week.
Remember that once a month we’re giving away Wordnik T-shirts to two randomly chosen players, to be announced the last Monday of the month, and as always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.
Earlier this week, superstorm Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on Cuba, Haiti, and much of the U.S. northeast. At The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal helped us sort the fake Sandy pictures from the real, while Jen Doll provided a dictionary of storm words.
Photo credit: The Atlantic
We also fell in love with Lydia Callis, Mayor Bloomberg’s American Sign Language interpreter, and learned why sign language interpreters are so expressive.
In politics, Philip Resnick at Language Log discussed the linguistic angle of acts of terror. President Obama coined Romnesia, a blend of Romney and amnesia, and Ben Zimmer explained surrogate, Obama’s “is is,” and some political portmanteaus. Fritinancy talked bayonets while Allan Metcalf told us how to talk presidential. Finally, we learned some Mittisms and the problem with Sarah Palin’s shuck and jive.
In The New York Times, Helen Sword took on verbification and Ben Yagoda considered the versatile em dash. Maddie York at Mind Your Language wondered where all the adverbs had gone, while Johnson stood proud for adjectives.
At Lingua Franca, Ben Yagoda expounded on euphemisms and the word douchebag. Geoff Pullum commented on taboo words, the phrase illegal immigrant, and some Frankenwords. Allan Metcalf explained the origins of trick or treat.
At Macmillan Dictionary Blog, Orin Hargraves delved into miscreant word behavior. Stan Carey updated us on Google’s Ngram Viewer 2.0, and on his own blog, explored would of, could of, might of, must of and ancient Irish names. Kory Stamper shared her response on logic and etymology. Grammar Girl explained ghost words (not the scary kind), while we offered some ghostly words (the scary kind).
In words of the week, Fritinancy cringed (or maybe we just did) at curlbro, “a pejorative slang term referring to gym-goers [who] focus on training their arms when weight lifting,” and pointed out postapocalit, “novels set in an imaginary North American wilderness after the unthinkable happens.”
Erin McKean spotted banging the beehive, “in which high-speed traders send a flood of orders in an effort to trigger huge price swings just before the data hit”; Bibendum, “the stacked-tire figure better known as the Michelin man”; and boro, “a fabric from the bygone Japanese tradition of roughly patching clothing and bedding to extend its use for generations.”
The Dialect Blog discussed N’Awlins and other abbreviations and compared shall and will. Lynneguist explored the American English untranslatable, visit with; BBC America rounded up 10 Americanisms adopted by Brits; and Oz Worders told us the story of the blue-arsed fly. Meanwhile, the Virtual Linguist explained the origins of toast, “a person or thing that is defunct, dead, finished, in serious trouble, etc”; earworm; blood rain; and Vinglish.
This week we learned about tone deafness and emotion; that Chaucer coined the word twitter; and about language lessons told through Twitter. We found out why we say pardon my French, some Chinese fashion buzzwords, and about slang in the dictionary.
The Atlantic gave us some prison lingo while Jonathan “Mr. Slang” Green told us about slang words for the poor throughout history. We wondered if there were Rosetta Stone tapes for the language of Cloud Atlas, this conlang from a woman’s point of view, umlaut happy Volapük, and coffee talk.
That’s it for this week!
Boo! Did we scare you? No? Maybe these 10 ghostly words will give you the screaming abdabs instead.
boo
“Harlin relies on cheap ‘Boo!’ scares more often than any film needs, which was never the point of this franchise, but merely what other filmmakers (or producers) have reduced it to.”
Brian Orndorf, “Review: Exorcist: The Beginning,” Film Fodder, August 21, 2004
In addition to “a loud exclamation intended to scare someone,” boo also means “a sound uttered to show contempt, scorn, or disapproval.” Douglas Harper, the founder of the Online Etymology Dictionary, says:
Common people had few opportunities to gather in a mass and express disapproval through much of Western history, but when they did, loud, insulting barnyard noises tended to be their weapon of choice. . . .These included hissing, like a goose, or booing, like a cow.
Boo is also slang for “a close acquaintance or significant other,” perhaps as an alteration of beau.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, boo as a scary exclamation seems to have originated in the early 18th century as a “word used in the North of Scotland to frighten crying Children.” To say boo to a goose means “to speak up, to stand up for oneself.” For how to say boo in other languages, check out this post from the Virtual Linguist.
dobby
“On the stairs certain bloodstains are pointed out, said to be those of a lady who was killed in the glen below, and who was afterwards known as the ‘Mortham dobby.'”
John Murray, Richard John King, Handbook for Yorkshire
A dobby, in addition to being a well-known house-elf, is “a sprite or apparition.” Also spelled dobbie, the word seems to derive from the common name Robert, and in Sussex is known as Master Dobbs.
fetch
“The ‘fetch‘ is supposed to appear when the person whose ‘counterfeit presentment’ it is happens to be at the point of death.”
“‘Fetch,’ Its Derivation and Use,” The New York Times, December 24, 1899
A fetch is “ a ghost, an apparition; a doppelgänger.” While the origin of fetch is largely unknown, it seems to come from Ireland, according to the OED.
Fetch may be short for the earlier fetch-life, “a messenger sent to ‘fetch’ the soul of a dying person,” where fetch means “to go and bring.” This sense of fetch comes from the Old English feccan, “apparently a variant of fetian, fatian ‘to fetch, bring near, obtain; induce; to marry.’”
larva
“’It is a dead thing!’ said Glaucus.
‘Nay – it stirs – it is a ghost or larva,’ faltered lone, as she clung to the Athenian’s breast.”
Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii
While most of us know larva as “the newly hatched, wingless, often wormlike form of many insects before metamorphosis,” it’s also, in Roman mythology, “a malevolent spirit of the dead.”
The word comes from the Latin lārva, “specter, mask,” with the idea that the wormlike form “acts as a specter of or a mask for the adult form.”
pareidolia
“This psychological phenomenon is called pareidolia. It is when random images or sound are perceived as something non-random. This is always a danger in paranormal research, for instance when people believe they see a face in the static of a video.”
Alejandro Rojas, “Recording Ghost Voices: The Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) ,” The Huffington Post, October 23, 2011
Pareidolia is “a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.” The word comes from the Greek para, “alongside, beyond,” and eidolon, “mental image, apparition, phantom.”
poltergeist
“‘In half an hour we were all sitting about the table in a dim light, while the sweet-voiced mother was talking with ‘Charley,’ her ‘poltergeist‘–’
‘What is that, please?’ asked Mrs. Quigg.
‘The word means a rollicking spirit who throws things about.’”
Hamlin Garland, The Shadow World
A poltergeist is “a ghost or spirit that indicates its presence by the sound of moving objects, knocks, and similar noises.” The word is German in origin, coming from poltern, “to make noises,” plus Geist, “ghost.”
Apport is “the supposed paranormal transference of an object from one place to another, or the appearance of an object from an unknown source, often associated with poltergeist activity and séances.”
revenant
“While looking on this side and that side, striving to pierce their mysteries, taking a step this way and a step that, and trembling all the while lest she should see the revenant, said to haunt the place, a dreadful sound like the huge fluttering of large wings arose above in the arches.”
Mrs. Henry Wood, Charles William Wood, The Argosy
A revenant is “one who returns; especially, one who returns after a long period of absence or after death; a ghost; a specter.” The word comes from the French revenir, “to return.”
spook
‘”It made a lot of people come to see me,’ the youngster told county police yesterday between sobs as she admitted the spook that haunted the Henry Thacker family was her own creation.”
“Girl Admits Spook Hoax,” Reading Eagle, January 4, 1952
Spook may come from the Dutch spooc, “ghost.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “the derogatory racial sense of ‘black person’ is attested from 1940s, perhaps from notion of dark skin being difficult to see at night.” Spook as slang for “secret agent, spy” is from 1942, perhaps from the idea of being hidden. Spooky, frightening, is from 1854, while the “easily frightened” sense is from 1926.
taisch
“As the Taisch murmurs the prophecy of death in the voice of one about to die, so does the Wraith, Swarth, or Death-fetch, appear in the likeness of the person so early doomed to some living friend of the party; or as in some rare instances, even to the individuals themselves.”
Walter Cooper Dendy, On the Phenomena of Dreams, and Other Transient Illusions
A taisch refers to “the voice of one who is about to die heard by a person at a distance,” as well the “second sight.” According to the OED, the word comes from the Middle Irish tadhbais, “phantasm.”
wraith
“Banquo’s wraith, which is invisible to all but Macbeth, is the haunting of an evil conscience.”
Henry A. Beers, Chaucer to Tennyson
A wraith is “an apparition in the exact likeness of a person, supposed to be seen before or soon after the person’s death; in general, a visible spirit; a specter; a ghost.” The word is Scottish in origin, and may come from either the Old Norse vorðr, “guardian,” or the Gaelic arrach, “specter, apparition.”
Want more? Check out our posts on fear words, devil names, devil words and facts, vampire vords and accents, and words and phrases related to zombies and werewolves.
A better guide, by shawnzrossi
[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by shawnzrossi]
Today is Talk Like Jane Austen Day, an annual celebration of the publication of Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility, which while “not the first novel she wrote,” was the first she published.
How does one talk like Jane Austen? Here are 10 Austenite words to get you started.
baseball
“It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books–or at least books of information–for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.”
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, 1817
First up, a debunking. There are claims that Austen wrote about baseball decades before the official invention of the American pastime. However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term baseball may refer to “any of various related games played with a ball and (usually) a bat, in which a player strikes the ball with the bat or the hand and attempts to run to one or more bases to score point,” and not necessarily American baseball. Furthermore, there were several earlier mentions of the word, starting from 1748.
catch (someone’s) eye
“‘What do you mean?’ and turning around he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, ‘She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.'”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
To catch someone’s eye means to “to attract and fix; arrest.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the first recorded usage of this phrase was in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Eye-catcher, “an object or person that seizes the attention,” is attested to 1923, while eye-catching, “visually attractive,” is from 1933.
chaperon
“I am sure I shall be very happy to chaperon you at any time till I am confined, if Mrs Dashwood should not like to go into public.”
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, 1811
Chaperon means “to act as chaperon to or for,” or to accompany. Austen’s was the first recorded “verbing” of the noun form of this word, “a person, especially an older or married woman, who accompanies a young unmarried woman in public,” or “an older person who attends and supervises a social gathering for young people.”
Chaperon originally referred to “a hood or cap worn by the Knights of the Garter when in full dress,” or “a name given to hoods of various shapes at different times,” and came to mean “one who accompanies” based on the idea that the older woman or person shelters the younger one like a hood, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
coddle
“Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I choose.”
Jane Austen, Emma: A Novel, 1815
An earlier meaning for coddle is “to boil gently; seethe; stew, as fruit,” probably ultimately coming from the Latin calidium, “warm drink, warm wine and water.” The verb sense of “treat[ing] tenderly as an invalid; humor; pamper” was first recorded in Austen’s Emma. Mollycoddle, “to be overprotective and indulgent toward,” is newer, attested to 1870, with molly “used contemptuously since 1754 for ‘a milksop, an effeminate man.’”
Collins
“Coming down, she found a letter from Mr Pinckney. It had been forwarded by her grandmother from Ravenel and was dated at Wheeling. A ‘bread-and-butter’ letter – the English call it a Collins, after the respectable gentleman so named in one of Jane Austen’s novels.”
Frederic Jesup Stimson, In Cure of Her Soul, 1906
A bread-and-butter letter is “a short, hand-written communication to thank someone who has recently provided you with hospitality, usually dinner or an overnight visit,” where bread and butter refers to “hospitality in general.”
According to World Wide Words, the Collins letter is “a literary joke based on William Collins, an elaborately polite character” in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813: “The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelvemonth’s abode in the family might have prompted.”
coze
“Miss Crawford appeared gratified by the application, and after a moment’s thought, urged Fanny’s returning with her in a much more cordial manner than before, and proposed their going up into her room, where they might have a comfortable coze, without disturbing Dr. and Mrs. Grant, who were together in the drawing-room.”
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814
Coze refers to “anything snug, comfortable, or cozy; specifically, a cozy conversation, or tête-à-tête.” The word made its first recorded appearance in Austen’s Mansfield Park, and was formed by associating, according to the OED, cozy, which originated around 1709, and the French causer, to talk.
itty
“I flatter myself that itty Dordy will not forget me at least under a week.”
Jane Austen, The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen, Volume 11, 1798
Itty, baby talk for something small, made its first appearance in a letter from Austen. Related are itty-bitty (1855) and itsy-bitsy (1890).
Janeite
“The term ‘Janeite’ was coined in 1894 in George Saintsbury’s preface to ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ and Rudyard Kipling wrote a story called ‘The Janeites’ in 1924, about World War I soldiers who get through the ugliness of trench warfare through their shared love of Austen’s novels.”
Rebecca Traister, “I Dream of Darcy,” Salon, June 27, 2007
A Janeite is a fan of Jane Austen and her writings. Other fan words include Trekker, Trekkie, shipper, Browncoat, and x phile.
sympathizer
“Mrs Weston, who seemed to have walked there on purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and sympathizer.”
Jane Austen, Emma: A Novel, 1815
A sympathizer is “one who sympathizes with or feels for another; one who feels sympathy,” and is formed from the verb sympathize. Sympathizer’s first recorded usage is in Austen’s Emma, and has come to especially refer to “one disposed to agree with or approve a party, cause, etc.; a backer-up,” according to the OED.
tittuppy
“Did you ever see such a little tittuppy thing in your life? There is not a sound piece of iron about it.”
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, 1817
Tituppy, sometimes tittupy, means “lively; prancing; high-stepping,” or “shaky; unsteady; ticklish.” Its first recorded usage is in Austen’s Northanger Abbey, and comes from tittup, “to move in a lively, capering manner; prance,” or “a lively, capering manner of moving or walking; a prance.” Tittup may be “imitative of the sound of a horse’s hooves.”