The Death of Fissiparous and Other Words: A Dictionary of Words & Phrases on the Verge of Extinction

quondam

KWAWN-duhm

adjective

having been one time; former; of a former time

1852Elizabeth WetherellQueechyThorn's answer was merely a bow, and Mr. Carleton withdrew, his quondam antagonist lighting him ceremoniously to the door.1877T. S. ArthurGrappling with the MonsterAttacks of sickness.—A quondam inebriate should never employ a physician who drinks, and should always tell his medical attendant that he cannot take any medicine containing alcohol.1914Wu TingfangAmericaI have noticed curiously enough that English Colonials, especially in such particulars as speech and manners, follow their quondam sister colony, rather than the mother country. And this, not only in Canada, where the phenomenon might be explained by climatic, geographic, and historic reasons, but also in such antipodean places as Australia and South Africa, which are so far away as to apparently have very little in common either with America or with each other.

Labels: Elizabeth Wetherell, T. S. Arthur, Wu Tingfang

Permalink: quondam
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:

recreant

RE-kree-uhnt

adjective

a disloyal person; a coward; a traitor to something

1852Elizabeth WetherellQueechy'I will choose neither, Mr. Thorn, till you have heard me. I came here to see you on the part of others—I should be a recreant to my charge if I allowed you or myself to draw me into anything that might prevent my fulfilling it….'1876James Russell LowellAmong My BooksHe sympathized with the hopes of France and of mankind deeply, as was fitting in a young man and a poet; and if his faith in the gregarious advancement of men was afterward shaken, he only held the more firmly by his belief in the individual, and his reverence for the human as something quite apart from the popular and above it. Wordsworth has been unwisely blamed, as if he had been recreant to the liberal instincts of his youth.1921Sir Rabindranath TagoreThe FugitiveThrough the great rent that yawned for my deserted first-born, all my life's pleasures have run to waste. On that accursed day when I belied my motherhood you could not utter a word; to-day your recreant mother implores you for generous words. Let your forgiveness burn her heart like fire and consume its sin.

Labels: Elizabeth Wetherell, James Russell Lowell, Sir Rabindranath Tagore

Permalink: recreant
Entry By: CJ Cooney
Smash illiteracy! Email This Word To A Friend:

ARCHIVES
» 2009.01
» 2009.02
» 2009.03
» 2009.04
» 2009.05
» 2009.06
» 2009.07
» 2009.08
» 2009.09
» 2009.10
» 2009.11
» 2009.12
» 2010.01
» 2010.02
» 2010.03
» 2010.04
» 2010.05
» 2010.06
» 2010.07
» 2010.08