Pappy
Living the Dream
Definition: "one past fourteene yeeres of age, beginning to bee moved with Venus delight" (Henry Cockeram, An English Dictionary, 1623)
For those of you who are unaccustomed to reading definitions written in the linguistic register of an early-17th century smarty-pants lexicographer, the meaning of the word above is, well, "horny teenager." This gives us a very fine example of how occasionally the words for common things are themselves quite uncommon, as hirquiticke is extremely rare. It is uncertain where Cockeram found the word, as we have no evidence of actual use prior to 1623, although he may have borrowed it from Thomas Eliot's Latin dictionary of 1538, which defined hirquitalus as "a chylde, whiche passeth the age of xiiii yeres, and begynneth to be styrred with lechery."
For those of you who are unaccustomed to reading definitions written in the linguistic register of an early-17th century smarty-pants lexicographer, the meaning of the word above is, well, "horny teenager." This gives us a very fine example of how occasionally the words for common things are themselves quite uncommon, as hirquiticke is extremely rare. It is uncertain where Cockeram found the word, as we have no evidence of actual use prior to 1623, although he may have borrowed it from Thomas Eliot's Latin dictionary of 1538, which defined hirquitalus as "a chylde, whiche passeth the age of xiiii yeres, and begynneth to be styrred with lechery."
