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An augur with sacred chicken; he holds a lituus, the curved wand often used as a symbol of augury on Roman coins. Augury was a Greco-Roman religion practice of observing the behavior of birds, to receive omens.
Only some species of birds (aves augurales) could yield valid signs [21] whose meaning would vary according to the species. Among them were ravens , woodpeckers , owls , ossifragae , and eagles .
According to Encarta Dictionary and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, "dodo" comes from Portuguese doudo (currently, more often, doido) meaning "fool" or "crazy". The present Portuguese word dodô ("dodo") is of English origin. The Portuguese word doudo or doido may itself be a loanword from Old English (cp. English "dolt") [34] Embarrass
A historical dictionary or dictionary on historical principles is a dictionary which deals not only with the latterday meanings of words but also the historical development of their forms and meanings. It may also describe the vocabulary of an earlier stage of a language's development without covering present-day usage at all.
"Huzzah" on a sign at a Fourth of July celebration. Huzzah (sometimes written hazzah; originally HUZZAH spelled huzza and pronounced huh-ZAY, now often pronounced as huh-ZAH; [1] [2] in most modern varieties of English hurrah or hooray) is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "apparently a mere exclamation". [3]
In the English language, the term negro (or sometimes negress for a female) is a term historically used to refer to people of Black African heritage. The term negro means the color black in Spanish and Portuguese (from Latin niger), where English took it from. [1]
The earliest known English-language work on magic, or what was then known as legerdemain (sleight of hand), was published anonymously in 1635 under the title Hocus Pocus Junior: The Anatomie of Legerdemain. [1] Further research suggests that "Hocus Pocus" was the stage name of a well known magician of the era.
Many of these so-called inkhorn terms, such as dismiss, celebrate, encyclopedia, commit, capacity and ingenious, stayed in the language. Many other neologisms faded soon after they were first used; for example, expede is now obsolete, although the synonym expedite and the similar word impede survive.