Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- A word of uncertain meaning (see etymology) used by Shakspere in the following passage, explained as meaning either ‘blown away, exorcised’—that is, ‘renounced, rejected as evil’—or ‘puffed out, exaggerated’:
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective A Shakespearean word only once used. Empty; frivolous.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
empty ,inflated ,frivolous
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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It's not "exsufflicate" (Shakespeare, Othello 3.3.184 ed Sanders TLN 1798), a word which appears only in one spot in Shakespeare (and in the words of people like me who talk about words in Shakespeare), and so has no easily understood agreed upon meaning.
Archive 2007-09-01 Bardiac 2007
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Were I to find a quotation of "exsufflicate" that predates Othello by 13 years, I would be VERY excited.
Archive 2007-09-01 Bardiac 2007
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It's not "exsufflicate" (Shakespeare, Othello 3.3.184 ed Sanders TLN 1798), a word which appears only in one spot in Shakespeare (and in the words of people like me who talk about words in Shakespeare), and so has no easily understood agreed upon meaning.
Arcana Bardiac 2007
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Were I to find a quotation of "exsufflicate" that predates Othello by 13 years, I would be VERY excited.
Arcana Bardiac 2007
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And sometimes, not having the fear of poetical, or rather of unpoetical precisians and martinets before his eyes, he did not even scruple to naturalize words for his own use from foreign springs, such as exsufflicate and deracinate; or to coin a word, whenever the concurring reasons of sense and verse invited it; as in fedary, intrinse, intrinsicate, insisture, and various others.
Shakespeare His Life Art And Characters Hudson, H N 1872
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Curiously, the law is agreeing with him – which goes to show that the law, once freed of its tether to Judeo-Christian morality, has become just as deranged as Mr. Merced and his exsufflicate god.
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Exchange me for a goat When I shall turn the business of my soul To such exsufflicate and blown surmises Matching thy inference.
Shakespeare Bevington, David 2002
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This odd and far-fetched word was made yet more uncouth in all the editions before Hanmer's, by being printed, _exsufflicate_.
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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And the Bard had many more offerings that didn’t take... “exsufflicate” comes to mind.
The Volokh Conspiracy » How Much Did Shakespeare Embiggen the English Vocabulary? 2007
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