I have purchased an abridged version of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, and below are some of my favorite entries enjoy. To be clear this is not the first English Dictionary, but it was the first to use quotes and was widely used, and some of it is catty, odd, and hilarious which is why it’s still talked about today.
Bibácious adj. [bibax, Lat.]: The quality of drinking much. Who knew there was a fancy word for drunk?
Bílingsgate n.s [A cant word, borrowed from Bilingsgate in London, a place where there is always a croud of low people, and frequent brawls and foul language.] Ribaldry; foul language. FYI croud is an older spelling of crowd.
Drágon: n.s. [draco, Latin, Dragon, French.] A kind of winged serpent, perhaps imaginary, much celebrated in the romances of the middle age. It’s the perhaps that gets me, he’s not ruling out that dragons might be real!
Goat n.s. [gat, Saxon and Scottish.] A ruminant animal that seems a middle species between deer and sheep. I would have gone with like a sheep but with less fur, not the love child of a deer and a sheep.
Gonorrhoea A morbid running of venereal hurts. Yeah, that covers it!
Jogger n.s. [from jog] One who moves heavily and dully. Samuel Johnson, not a fan of jogging, just like me.
Maize The whole maize plant has the appearance of a reed; the male flowers are produced at remote distances from the fruit on the same plant, growing generally in a spike upton the top of the stalk….(keeps going) Nothing funny about the Maize but this plant has a large paragraph while Japan is listed as “JAPA’N. n.s. [from Japan in Asia, where figured work was originally done.] Work varnished and raised in gold and colours.” Keep in mind this was written in 1775, 200 plus years after the first Europeans visited Japan. China is only in the dictionary was place withe China (type of dish) is made.
Omlet n.s. [omelette, Fr.] A kind of pancake made with eggs. Just eggs, you need to throw some cheese in their mate!
More to follow…