Meta Description: Join Gurgle Ep. 10 as Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle examine Doug’s etymonline article on Henry Cockeram’s 1623 dictionary, exploring forgotten Latinate words, early lexicography, and Tudor English!
Welcome back to Gurgle, the bite-sized podcast from the creators of Ad Navseam! Designed to whet your appetite for classical antiquity, Gurgle tickles your taste buds and leaves you wanting more from the vomitorium.
In this installment, hosts Dr. David C. Noe and Dr. Jeffrey T. Winkle dive right into “Gurgle Number 10.” As the hosts explain, these fun-sized, “huggable” episodes offer a manageable portion of classical learning for listeners who may not have a full hour to invest. Today, the hosts skip the usual prolonged inanities to go straight for “the jugular of learning,” exploring a fascinating 2024 article by an author known simply as “Doug” on etymonline.com, titled “Strangely Familiar: When is a Word? Who is a Dictionary?”
The First English “Dictionary”: Henry Cockeram’s 1623 Success
Doug’s article explores an English document published in 1623 by a gentleman named Henry Cockeram. While almost nothing is known about Cockeram’s personal life or dates, his book holds a major distinction: it appears to be the very first work in the English language to explicitly call itself a “dictionary.”
Cockeram’s volume was not the first word-book ever produced, but it became an absolute bestseller for a generation, running through eleven editions up until the 1650s.
As Jeff observes, modern readers tend to assume that languages develop organically over centuries as anonymous speakers slowly filter words in and out of usage. For instance, anachronisms in historical films—like Young Washington telling a fallen soldier in 1700s Virginia, “You’re going to be okay” long before the term “O.K.” entered the lexicon via Martin Van Buren and Old Kinderhook—can drive classicists crazy!
However, during the Renaissance and post-Renaissance eras in England, language expansion was often a deliberate, artificial project. Scholars and stylists consciously mined lingua Latina (Latin language) to artificially enrich, freshen, and expand English vocabulary. Cockeram’s dictionary represents a high point of this conscious “Latinate” movement.
Strange Alliterations and Latinate Oddities
Looking closely at Cockeram’s text reveals a book very different from modern dictionaries:
- The Letter ‘X’: In a modern 200-page reprint, Cockeram includes roughly 160 words starting with ‘ex’ spanning five full pages! These include excalciate (to take off one’s shoes), excerebrate (to beat someone’s brains out), and exuscitate (to awaken someone from sleep). Yet, it completely lacks common ‘X’ words already in usage at the time, such as examine, example, excellence, exceed, or excuse.
- The Letter ‘K’: The dictionary contains a mere 11 words under ‘K’. As classicists know, this stems directly from its heavy reliance on Latin, which features only three primary ‘K’ words: Kalendae, Karthago (often spelled with a ‘C’), and the rare surname Kaeso.
- The Letter ‘W’: Cockeram includes only 19 ‘W’ words, omitting native Anglo-Saxon staples like king, kind, wonder, or woman.
Cockeram explicitly outlined his target audience in his introduction. His work was designed to enable “as well ladies and gentlewomen, young scholars, clerks, merchants, as also strangers of any nation to the understanding of the more difficult authors already printed in our language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of the English tongue, both in reading, speaking, and writing.”
It was essentially a 17th-century self-help guide—a tool to help ambitious readers beef up their rhetoric, impress their peers in conversation, and navigate the flowering literature of post-Elizabethan England.
Neologisms, Tudor English, and “Embiggening” Vocabulary
Dave shares a couple of his own personal Latinate neologisms that he has tried to introduce to his students over the years:
- Persebonate: Derived from Latin per se bonum (good in and of itself). Something that requires no external justification, such as zero-sugar Dr. Pepper or true friendship.
- Transliminate: To step across a threshold, adding specific spatial drama to entering a room.
Cockeram’s work emerged just a few years after the death of William Shakespeare (d. 1616), an era when Tudor and Elizabethan English were “famished for words.” As Doug writes, early modern writers “heaped their plate” with Latin borrowings: “Their English was a luxuriant language, a hothouse rosebush. Even the flowers grew flowers.”
This infatuation with Latin tended to “embiggen” the language (to borrow a famous phrase from The Simpsons!). Cockeram created or cataloged long, multi-syllabic variants for common terms:
- Instead of exercise, he offered exercitation.
- Instead of intercede, he offered intercessionate.
- Instead of spongy, he offered spongous.
- Adolescenturate: To play the boy or fool.
- Meridiation: A sleeping at noontide (a mid-day nap!).
- Obstetricate: To act as a midwife (such as assisting a student in delivering an idea!).
- Propinquate: To approach.
- Stratuminate: To pave a road.
- Viridate: To wax or make green.
Lost Siblings and Prefix Variations
Because Latin verbs can be systematically combined with various prefixes, Cockeram attempted to fill in every blank in the English vocabulary matrix. Where English retained belligerent, Cockeram provided belligerate (to make war). Where we kept perennial, he provided perennity (everlastingness).
He offered complete sets of prefixed verbs for daily life:
- Ab-equitate: To ride away on horseback.
- Ad-equitate: To ride by.
- Co-equitate: To ride together (an early Latinate carpool!).
- Ob-equitate: To ride about.
Some of Cockeram’s verbs and nouns remain delightfully expressive:
- Bubulsitate: To cry like a cowboy.
- Advespirate: To wax toward night.
- Dapenate: To provide dainty meats.
- Luricate: To eat ravenously.
- Latibulate: To hide oneself privately in a corner.
- Circulate: To weed a garden.
- Celeripedian: A swift footman.
- Obambulation: A walking abroad.
- Thrill: Defined by Cockeram as “one that hath no nose” (noseless)!
While many of these terms failed to take root—perhaps because short Anglo-Saxon words were simply easier to catch on to—Cockeram’s dictionary remains a glorious testament to an era when English writers enthusiastically raided Latin to expand the boundaries of human expression.
Sponsors and Support
Before wrapping up this bite-sized gurgle, the hosts extend a warm thank you to the sponsors who make the show possible:
- Hackett Publishing: Build your classical library at hackettpublishing.com. Use code AN2026 for 20% off your entire order, free shipping, and the joy of supporting the podcast!
- Ratio Coffee: Upgrade your countertop aesthetics and morning brew routine with the Ratio 4, 6, or 8 machine. Head to ratiocoffee.com and use code ANRATIO2026 for $20 off your entire order.
If you are eager to master the lingua Latina or Greek, visit latinperdiem.com to explore Dr. Noe’s online courses!
Credits & Parting Notes
A special thanks goes out to audio engineer Mishka for her expert production, and to guitarist Jeff Scheetz for providing the intro and outro tracks.
Thank you for tuning into Gurgle! Be sure to subscribe, share with fellow classical gourmands, and keep taking in the classics—and keeping them down!
