Favorite Renaissance Words!
The renaissance was arguably the most colorful and inventive era for the english language. Here's a brief selection of my favorite words, many of which appear in my novel POISON IN THE BLOOD: THE MEMOIRS OF LUCREZIA BORGIA.
Baconbrains = idiot
Bed-presser = lazy person
Bedswerver = adulterer
Beef-witted = stupid
Bellygod = glutton
Belly-timber = food
Clapperdudgeon = a beggar
Cup-shotten = drunk
Dandiprat = an insignificant person
Fanfaronade = arrogant, boastful talk or behavior
Fanfaron = a braggart
Fizgig = a flighty, fretful, flirtatious, flustered woman
Glop = swallow greedily
Goatish = lustful
Gobbet = mouthful
Gorbelly = fat
Greedigut = glutton
Grief-shot = sorrowful
Gutfoundered = very hungry
Guttle = to swallow
Guttler = greedy eater
Hobbledehoy = a clumsy, awkward lad between boyhood and manhood
Hodgepudding = pudding of many ingredients
Honeyfuggle = to obtain by cheating / deception
Hugger-mugger = something done in secrecy and disorder
Indrenched = drowned / immersed
Jackleg = incompetent person without scruples (a cowboy)
Junket = feast secretly
Laborsome = laborious / elaborate
Leaping House = brothel
Lightskirt = tart / prostitute
Maltworm = drunkard
Minimus = insignificant person
Mizmaze = bewilderment
Moonling = idiot
Mounch = eat lots
Mumblecrust = beggar
Niddle-noddle = to nod rapidly and unsteadily back and forth
Nuppence = no money
Onion-eyed = tearful
Pingle = to eat with little or no appetite
Pismire = a urinating ant / a despicable individual
Popinjay = showoff (particularly someone dressed gaudily)
Quicken = to make alive / lively
Rapscallion = a rascal
Raddled = wearing too much make-up
Roister = to revel wildly
Simpleton = idiot
Skelder = to live by begging / to swindle, defraud, obtain money by cheating
Skimble-skamble = something confused, rambling, incoherent
Smellfeast = freeloader
Tapster = alehouse keeper
Taradiddle = fib, white lie, pretentious nonsense
Tatterdemalion = a ragamuffin child who wears tatters
Yaffling = eat greedily and noisily
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