Words of the Past

1. Adamite -- a man who dresses as Adam did before the Fall.
2. Adam's ale -- water.
3. Adam's disease -- Puritan preacher's term for "curiosity."
4. adulterine -- a child born of an adultress.
5. agonyclite -- a 7th century heretic who refused to kneel but prayed standing; one that refuses to bow to authority.
6. anachorism -- something out of place in reference to a land.
7. andromanic -- lusting after men.
8. Aphrodite's milk -- term given to wine by Aristophanes because it increased lasciviousness.
9. apricate -- to bask in the sun; to sunbathe.
10. artigamous -- newly wed.
11. athanic -- not subject to death.
12. bathykolpian -- having deep cleavage between the breasts; big-breasted.
13. bathykolpic -- deep-bosomed.
14. beasts of venery -- the hart, the hind, the hare, the bear and the wolf.
15. bucranic -- bullheaded.
16. callipygian -- having an attractive backside.
18. carry-castle -- name used by Elizabethan writers for an elephant.
19. cat-Latin -- incoherent or idle talk; bad writing.
20. celibataire -- bachelor.
21. climacterian -- one who is fond of a climax.
22. comediographer -- a writer of comedies.
23. cow-handed -- awkward.
24. cupidity -- inordinate desire; covetousness; sensuality; lust; unlawful or unreasonable longing.
25. curtain-lecture -- reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed.
26. Eve's scork -- the larynx.
27. eviration -- obsolete term for "castration"; loss or deprivation of masculine traits combined with the assumption of feminine traits; a delusion in a male that he has changed into a woman.
28. Evite -- a woman who dresses like Eve did before the Fall; a woman wearing little clothing.
29. five wits -- common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation and memory.
30. fleshquake -- tremor of the body; a word formed by Ben Jonson in imitation of "earthquake".
31. nelipot -- one that goes barefoot.
32. parthenon -- a maiden's room.
33. pauliped -- small-footed; one that has little feet.
34. peridine -- a rover; a pirate.
35. peripole -- a streetwalker.
36. plebicole -- one that seeks the favor of the common man.
37. pronoia -- foresight; foreseeing.
38. ptochocracy -- government by the poor.
39. Sotadic Zone -- Richard Burton's term for an area of the world where male homosexuality was actively practiced.
40. thelymachy -- a war of women.
41. thelyphantic -- manifestly effeminate.
42. thrion -- fig leaf.
43. tyrophagous -- cheese-eating.
44. Utopian bride -- a woman which presents herself naked to her future spouse in a manner similar to a ceremony described in Thomas More's Utopia.