Colonial Sense: Society-Lifestyle: Colonial Dictionary

Word	Definition
I'fegs	In faith. By my faith. See fegs. A favorite oath of 17th and 18th century playwrights. Also (Ben Jonson, 1610) i' fac; (Fletcher, 1625) i' fex; ( William Wycherley, 1673) y' facks; (Steele, 1709) i'fackins. Henry Fielding (1742) and others omit the apostrophe: ifags; ifacks; William Congreve uses it as a statement, in THE OLD BACHELOR (1687) : Nay, dear Cocky, don't cry; I was but in jest, I was not ifeck. Also (Wycherley, 1672) i'fads.
Iatric	Relating to medicine; medical; medicinal. Greek iatros, healer, iasthai, to heal. Also iatrical. (The first i is long). Hence iatrology, the science of medicine. THE ENGLISHMAN'S MAGAZINE of February 1865 mentioned, of Aesculapius, The iatric powers with which he is credited. Burton in THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY (162!) spoke of iatromathematical professors, meaning persons that applied astrology in their medical practice; but in 17th century Italy a school of iatromathematicians arose, whose system of physiology and medicine was based on mechanics and mathematics.
Icarian	(I) Over-ambitious or presumptuous; leaping high to one's own ruin. From Icarus, son of Daedalus (cp. daedal), who in escaping from Crete, despite his father's warning flew so high that the sun melted the wax that held his wings, and he fell into the Aegean (Icarian) Sea. Thus Benjamin Disraeli has, in CONINGSBY (1844): Your Icarian flight melts into a very grovelling existence. (2) Relating to an ideal republic, as described in Voyage en Icarie (1840) by Etienne Cabet, who later founded (and named Icaria) several communistic settlements In the United States. Nordhoff, in his history of COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES IN THE U.S. (1875) used the word of persons: The Icarians reject Christianity (which had its communism before them).
Icasm	A figurative expression. Greek eikasma, simile; eikazein, to make like, to depict; eikon, likeness, whence English iconoclast, image-smasher. Hence icastic, figurative. Henry More in the MYSTERY OF INIQUITY (1664) stated: The difficulty of understanding prophecies is in a manner no greater, when once a man has taken notice of the settled meaning of the peculiar icasms therein.
Ichthyomancy	Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using the next fish caught.
Iconomancy	Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using images.
Icteritious	Jaundiced. Greek ikteros, jaundice; also, a yellowish-green bird the sight of which supposedly cured persons afflicted with the disease. In the 17th century, the word was used figuratively, as when Bishop William Barlow wrote, in his ANSWER TO A NAMELESS CATHOLIC'S CENSURE (1609) : His gall overflowes, and he must void it by his pen in his icteritious pamphlet.
Idiopathy	An individual or personal state of feeling. Greek idios, one's own, personal, private + pathos, feeling. The accent falls on the op. Among the many forms compounded from idios, mention might be made -- will be made of -- idiorepulsive, self-repelling; idiocrasy, a 17th century short form of idiosyncrasy; idioglottic, using words of one's own invention, like James Joyce; idiolatry, self-worship (a nonce-word but a widespread status); idiorrhythmic, living in one's own way (especially, of monasteries that allowed freedom to the individual; opposed to coenobitic) ; idiotion, q.v. a dictionary of words of one dialect or region.
Ignaro	An ignoramus. (Italian ignaro, ignorant.) Used in the 17th century as a common noun, probably from Edmund Spenser's use of it as a name, in THE FAERIE QUEENE (1590) : His name Ignaro did his nature right aread.
Ignavy	Sluggishness, sloth. (Accent on the first syllable.) From Latin ignavus, idle, sluggish; in, not + gnavus, busy, industrious. Thomas Carlyle, in a pamphlet of 1850, exclaimed: Nations, sunk in blind ignavia, demand a universal-suffrage Parliament to heal their wretchedness.
Ignivomous	Vomiting fire. (From Latin ignis, fire + vomere, to vomit.) The accent falls on the ni (short i) . Obviously of volcanoes, but frequent, figuratively, in 17th century sermons and pamphlets, as in Harsnet's A DECLARATION OF EGREGIOUS POPISH IMPOSTURES (1603): What a monstrous coil would six or seven ignivomous priests keep in hell!
Ignoscency	Forgiveness; forgiving spirit Accent on the no. Latin in, not + gnoscere, notum, to take notice of; root gno, to know, as also in ignore, ignorant; recognize. To ignore first meant to be ignorant of; the meaning 'to pay no attention to' was first applied In the 19th century. John Trapp in his COMMENTARY (1647; I CORINTHIANS) speaks of innocency and ignoscency. Note, however, that ignote means a person unknown, or (as an adjective) unknown; ignotion, an ignorant and erroneous notion; ignotism, a mistake due to ignorance.
Illaqueate	To ensnare, entangle, as in a noose; Latin in + laqueare, to snare; laqueus, noose, net; remembered in the goodly Dr. Laqueur. See laqueat. Hence also illaqueate, ensnared; illaqueation; illaqueable, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (in his LITERARY REMAINS, collected 1834), says: Let not . . . his scholastic retiary versatility of logic illaqueate your good sense.
Illect	To entice, allure, charm. It were therefore better, said Elyot in THE GOVERNOUR (1531), that no music be taught to a noble man, than . . . he should . . . by be illected to wantonness. From Latin illicere; in + the root lacere, to entice, related to laqueus, a snare, a noose. See illaqueate; allect The form illect developed more complicated forms: illective, attractive; illectation, enticement; but also illecebration, allurement, and illecebrous (accent on the le, short e), alluring, also used by Elyot: The illecebrous dilectations of Venus. Note that with the prefix de, down, the common words delightful, delicious, delectable, are from the same source.
Impavid	Fearless. From Latin in, not + pavidus, fearful. William Makepeace Thackeray in PENDENNIS (1849) remarked that Calverley and Coldstream would have looked on impavidly. These forms appeared only in the 19th century; in the 17th, irnpavidity was used, in the sense of foolhardiness: impavidity, or lack of just fear.
Imperseverant	A form in William Shakespeare's CYMBELINE (1611) for imperceiverant, not perceiving, imperceptive, undiscerning. The positive form perceciverant was used (once?) in the 16th century. Shakespeare says: The lines of my body are as well drawne as his . . . yet this imperseverant thing loves him in my despight.
Impignorate	To pawn, to pledge. Latin in + pignor-, from pignus, a security, a pledge, a pawn. Cp. hypo- (hypothecate). Used in English from the 16th century; also impignoration, as in CenErr10961's VOYAGES (1598): all arrestments, reprisals, and impignorations of whatsoever goods and marchandises in England and Prussia . . . are from henceforth quiet, free, and released. From the 17th century the simple forms were also used: pignorate, to give or to take as a pledge; pignoration; pignorative, pawning; pignoratitious, relating to pawning or things pawned,
Impigrity	Diligence, quickness, alertness. From Latin in, not + piger, pigris, sluggish, slow. In 17th and 18th century dictionaries. Also impigrous (accent on the imp), diligent, quick, ready.
Impinguate	To fatten. Latin in, in + pinguis, fat. Thus Gideon Harvey, in MORBUS ANGLICUS (1666) states that Rhenish wines do accidentally impinguate.
Implete	Replenished; filled Latin in, in + plere, pletumr to fill; whence also complement, complete; implement; plethora is from the Greek form plethein, to fill. Implete is listed by Puttenham in THE ARTE OF ENGLISH POESIE (1589) as a word "not so well to be allowed by us"; it was used through the 17th century, then dropped, (19th century America used implete as a verb, to fill.) Other words on Puttenham's list audacious, egregious, compatible have, in spite of his disapproval, lingered.
Impone	To place or set upon, to impose; to impose upon; to 'lay' upon, to wager. Latin im, in, on + ponere, positus, to place; whence imposition. William Shakespeare is the only writer that has used the word in the sense of to wager (HAMLET, 1623 edition; the Quartos have impound, impawn'd) : The King sir has wag'd with him six Barbary horses, against the which he impon'd as I take it sixe French rapiers and poniards -- and as the effeminate Osric is speaking, the spelling may be intended to indicate an affected pronunciation of impawn, to pledge; to put in hazard.
Incarnadine	Originally this was an adjective (16th century), meaning flesh-colored. There was a slightly earlier verb, to incarn, to cover with flesh, make flesh grow, embody in flesh -- as in THE MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES (1563) : The duke of Glocestre that incarned devyll. Cp. incarnate. Since William Shakespeare's use in MACBETH (1605), however, incarnadine has meant colored blood-red or, as a verb, to redden. After the murder of the King, Macbeth exclaims: Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous incarnadine, Making the green, one red. Lady Macbeth responds: A little water clears us of this deed, not knowing that she will later lament: What, will these hands ne'er be clean? . . . Here's the smell of the blood stil. All the perfumes of Arabia will notsweeten this little hand.
Incarnate	This not wholly unremembered word was used by William Shakespeare HENRY V, 1599; TITUS ANDRONICUS) only in reference to the devil in human shape. He also used, in the same sense, the forms incardinate, incarnal, incarnation.
Inclip	To enclose; embrace. Used first by William Shakespeare, in ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA (1608) : What ere the ocean pales, or skie inclippes, Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.
Incony	Delicate, pretty, choice. The word was popular, especially among playwrights (Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson) around 1600. William Shakespeare used it twice in LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST (1588) : My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my inconie Jew . . . most sweet jests, most inconie vulgar wit. There are several guesses as to its origin; it may be a corruption of French inconnu, unknown, hence rare, hence choice.
Incrassate	To thicken, to condense; to dull, stupefy. Latin crassus, thick, crass. Also as an adjective, as in a sermon of Henry Hammond's (1659) : Their understandings were so gross within them, being fatned and incrassate with magical phantasms. Also incrassant, thickening; incrassative, able to thicken; incrassation, incrassion. Used from the 17th century; current as scientific terms.
Increpate	To scold, rebuke. Latin in, against + crepare, to make a noise, creak. Hence increpative, increpatory, chiding, rebuking; increpation, reproof, rebuke. Used in the I6th and 17th centuries, especially in sermons.
Incroyable	A dandy, a fop; first used in 1795 of the French. Via French, literally, unbelievable -- as one was, to behold -- from Latin in, not + credere, to believe. Supposed to have been borrowed from or influenced by a favorite phrase of the time: C'est vraiment incroyable, It's really incredible! Thomas Carlyle in SARTOR RESARTUS (1831) asks mockingly: Wert thou not, at one period of life, a buck, or blood, or macaroni, or incroyable, or dandy, or by whatever name ... such phenomenon is distinguished?
Indagate	To search into, investigate. From Latin indagare, to investigate, hunt for, explore. Hence indagator, indagation; indagacious, inclined or eager to investigate; indagative, characterized by seeking; indagatory, relating to or of the nature of investigation. The word was occasionally (in the 17th century) spelled as though confused with indicate; thus in 1653 we find mention of the soul, the indigatrix of all things.
Indian Summer	The first known use of Indian summer appeared in 1778, when a French-American farmer used the phrase to describe a period of "smoke and mildness" that preceded the frost. Elsewhere, this extended season is known as St. Martin's summer, as occurring around Martinmas (November 11).
Indigenate	Of native origin; an early form of indigenous; also, indigenary, indigcnal, indigenital. An indigene, indigena, a native. Latin indu, an early form of in + gen-, gignere, gentium (whence genital) , to bear, to be born. Indigenity, the state of being native. Note that indigent, lacking, deficient; poor -- indigency, indigence -- are from Latin indu + egere, to want. And that indigerablc, that cannot be digested, is from dis, apart + gerere, gestus; digerere, to set in order, to digest. Indigest, undigested, crude, shapeless, confused, was in use from the Hth century; William Shakespeare used it as a noun, a shapeless mass, in KING JOHN (1595) : You are born To set a forme upon that indigst, Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.
Indigete	A hero regarded as the patron deity of his city or country. A common practice among the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; of their rulers, it became routine. The COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLANDE (1549) mentioned Amasis the sycond, quhilk was the last kyng and indegete of the Egiptiens, explaining: Indigetes war goddisof Egipt quhilkis hed beene verteouse princes quhen thai lyvit.
Indigitation	The act of pointing out; indication; demonstration; a declaration. Also, calculating or conversing by means of the fingers; also, interlocking the fingers of two hands, as children used to sit in school or sweethearts walk. Also to indigit, indigitate, to proclaim, to call by name, to point out, to point to; to interlock fingers. Latin indigitare, indigitatum, associated with digitus, finger (whence also the ten digits) but probably different in origin and originally meaning to invoke a god; hence, to call upon, to proclaim, to declare. Cp. indigitament. The sense, to point out, to point to, is of course sprung from the association with digitus. Sir Thomas Browne in PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA (1646) declared that Juvenall and Perseus were no prophets, although their lines did seeme to indigitate our times.
Indign	Unworthy. Used from the 15th century; Latin in, not + dignus, worthy; whence also dignity. Indignation first meant the act of treating a person as unworthy of attention or regard; earlier, indignancy, indignance; Edmund Spenser in THE FAERIE QUEENE (1590) : With great indignaunce he that sight forsooke. To indign (from the 15th century), to be indignant at, to resent; to treat with indignity. William Shakespeare in OTHELLO (1604) has: All indign and base adversities make head against my estimation.
Indocible	Incapable of being taught. From Latin in, not + docere, doctus, to teach -- whence also doctor, doctrine, and more. Note that docere also gives English both docible, apt to be taught (16th through 18th century), and the still current docile, easily taught; hence, submissive to training. Hence also indocile, untractable; indocility, unruliness. But also (17th into the 19th century) indocibility, incapability of being taught; Jeremy Taylor in 1647 speaks of pevishness and indocibleness of disposition. As early as 1666 we find comment on the English indocible humor.
Inescate	To entice, to allure. From Latin in, in + csca, bait, food. William Prynne, in HISTRIOMASTIX (1633) cries out upon all the inescating lust-inflaming solicitations . . . that either human pravity or Satan's policie can invent Hence also inescation. Inescatory was used, more literally, in the 19th century: inescatory traps, and others with snares. From Latin esca also came inesculent, not edible; Thomas Love Peacock in CROTCHET CASTLE (1831) says: I care not a rush (or any other aquatic and inesculent vegetable) who or what sucks up either the water or the infection. See Escal.
Infaust	Unlucky, ill-omened. See faust. A fairly common word, 17th into 19th (Edward Bulwer-Lytton; James Russell Lowell) century. Peter Anthony Motteux, in his translation (1708) of Francois Rabelais, exclaimed O most infaust who opiates there to live!
Infibulation	Fitting with a buckle or clasp; especially, the fastening of the sexual organs, the application of a chastity lock. From Latin in, in + fibula, a fastening, shortened from figibula from figere, fixus, to fasten, to fix. Infibulation (the word) was English, 17th into the 19th century; the sexual practice was applied to young male singers by the Romans, to girls among many primitive peoples, to women by the medieval Crusaders. The verb is listed in 17th and 18th century dictionaries, but DeQuincey in his essay on Sir W. Hamilton (1847) says 'Infibulate' cannot be a plagiarism, because I never saw the word before; and, in fact, I have this moment invented it. John Bulwer, in ANTHROPOMETAMORPHOSIS (1650) , describes masculine infibulation as "buttoning up the prepuce with a brass or silver button."
Inficete	Not witty. Facete is an older form of facetious. Thomas Love Peacock in CROTCHET CASTLE (1831) uses three forms: Mr. E: Sir, you are very facetious at my expense. Dr. F: Sir, you have been very unfacetiouSj. very inficete, at mine. The forms are from Latin facetus, polite, urbane; hence, merry, witty, jocose.
Infund	To pour in; to infuse, steep. Latin in + fundere, fudi, fusum. A primer of 1559 said: By infunding thy precious oil of comfort into my wounds. Also infude, infound, the latter usually in figurative use, as when Thomas More in RICHARD III (1513) wrote of the great grace that God giveth and secretly infowndeth in right generacion after the lawes of matrimony. To some extent these forms have been supplanted by the current infuse. Hence, an infundible, a funnel; infundibular, funnel- shaped.
Infuneral	To bury, entomb. Giles Fletcher the Younger wrote in CHRISTS VICTORIE (1610) : Disconsolat (as though her flesh did but infunerall Her buried ghost) she in an arbour sat . . . weeping her cursed state.
Inhearse	Used by William Shakespeare (SONNET 86; 1598) to mean entomb: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Inkle	(1) A kind of linen tape; a piece of this. Unwrought inkle, the yarn from which this tape is made. Autolycus, we are told in William Shakespeare's THE WINTER'S TALE (1611), hath ribbons of all the colours i' the rainbow, points . . , inkles, caddysses [see caddis], cambrickes, lawnes. In combinations: inkle-beggar, one that pretends to sell tape, as today pencils; inkle-eloquence, cheap, tawdry flow of words -- THE WESTMINSTER MAGAZINE of 1774 remarked: I have seen a powdered coxcomb of this gawzy make . . . flatter himself with the power of his inkle-eloquence. Thick (great) as inkle-weavers, intimate -- "the inkle-looms being so narrow and close together." Cp. nonesopretty. (2) As a verb, inkle, to hint, to let something be known. Hence, to guess at, surmise, get an inkling of; Blackmore has, in LORNA DOONE (1869) : She inkled what it was. In the 16th century, inklcth meant a hint or surmise; this has survived in the form inkling. Inkless, of course, means without ink; inknot, to tie in, to ensnare (the k is silent, as in knot) -- Long's translation (1879) of the AENEID speaks of a smitten snake: The rest, Retarded by the wound, delays it there Inknotting knots and twisting round itself.
Inquinate	To pollute; to corrupt. Also inquination. Used from the 15th century, popular in the 17th. Sir Thomas Browne used the word more than once; in 1646: An old opinion it was of that nation, that the ibis feeding upon serpents, that venomous food so inquinated their . . . eggs within their bodies, that they sometime came forth in serpentine shapes and in 1682: The soul may be foully inquinated at a very low rate, and a man may be cheaply vitiom, to the perdition of himself.
Insculpt	To carve, engrave, sculpture on something. Used in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Also to inscuip; to insculpture (18th century) Insculpture, a figure, design, or inscription carved upon something, was used in the 17th century, first by William Shakespeare in TIMON OF ATHENS (1607): On his gravestone this insculpture which With wax I brought away.
Inspissate	Thickened. Also a verb, to thicken; Latin in + spissare, spissatum, to thicken; spissus, thick. Cp. crassitude. Hence inspissant, something that thickens; inspissation, the action (or an act) of thickening; BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE of 1839 said: He could imbibe sixteen tumblers of whisky punch, without any other external indication than a slight inspissation of speech. Noted is Johnson's remark, quoted by Boswell, 16 October, 1769: In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness -- inspissated gloom.
Intenerate	To make tender, soften, mollify. Samuel Johnson prayed, according to James Boswell (23 April, 1753): I hope they intenerate my heart. ( Samuel Daniel used the same expression in a Sonnet of 1595, as the well-read Johnson probably knew.) D. Gray in his WORKS (1861) wrote: The teeming South Breathes life and warm intenerating balm. The verb intenebrate, of course, means to darken, to obscure. Latin tener, tender; tenebrae, the shades, darkness. Hence, inteneration, softening; intenebration, darkening, obscuring.
Irremeable	Without possibility of return. Latin ir, in, not + re, back + meare, to go, pass. This word, used from the 16th century, was sometimes taken as meaning irremediable, without possibility of cure, John Dryden's AENEID (1697) said: The chief without delay Pass'd on, and took th' irremeable way. Alexander Pope in the ILIAD (1720) said: My three brave brothers, in one mournful day, All trod the dark irremeable way. Johnson (widely read but here with different application) wrote in a letter to Mrs. Thrale (3 October, 1767) : I perhaps shall not be easily persuaded . . . to venture myself on the irremeable road Today we think less undeviatingly of matrimony.
Irrorate	To bedew, to sprinkle. From Latin in + rorare, to bedew; ros, rorem, dew. A recipe of Lovell (1661) pleasantly suggests: They are to be fried and irrorated with the juice of oranges. Rawley in his edition (1638) of Francis Bacon's HISTORY NATURAL AND EXPERIMENTAL OF LIFE AND DEATH says that to the inoration of the body, much use of sweet things is profitable.

Colonial Dictionary

Colonial Dictionary

I'fegs

Iatric

Icarian

Icasm

Ichthyomancy

Iconomancy

Icteritious

Idiopathy

Ignaro

Ignavy

Ignivomous

Ignoscency

Illaqueate

Illect

Impavid

Imperseverant

Impignorate

Impigrity

Impinguate

Implete

Impone

Incarnadine

Incarnate

Inclip

Incony

Incrassate

Increpate

Incroyable

Indagate

Indian Summer

Indigenate

Indigete

Indigitation

Indign

Indocible

Inescate

Infaust

Infibulation

Inficete

Infund

Infuneral

Inhearse

Inkle

Inquinate

Insculpt

Inspissate

Intenerate

Irremeable

Irrorate