phantomnation

Appearance as a phantom.
- Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary Supplement, Spurious Words, 1933

Happy Halloween!!

elbow-shaker

A gamester, one that practises dice-playing.
- Dyche and Pardon's New General English Dictionary, 1740

to steal one's thunder

In the early 1700s, a manager/actor named John Dennis invented a machine that made stage thunder which he used in one of his plays. Apparently, he wasn't a very good playwright and the play wasn't open for very long. It was closed and replaced by a production of Macbeth staged by another company. Dennis went to opening night and was outraged to hear his own thunder machine being used in the play. He jumped up and yelled, "That is my thunder, by God; the villains will not play my play , but they steal my thunder!" His words have also been reported as "That is my thunder, by God; the villains will play my thunder, but not my play!"

Whatever the actual words were, the phrase came in to being, meaning to take away the effect of someone's remarks or actions, or to appropriate someone's idea or claim to fame.

lug-and-a-bite

A boy flings an apple to some distance. All present race for it. The winner bites as fast as he can, his compeers lugging at his ears in the mean time, bears it as long as he can, and then throws the apple, when the sport is resumed.
- James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855

Talk about being starved for entertainment. [insert rimshot here]

tote right

To be fair; to conform to the local ethics. "I aim to tote right with everybody in this county whether they voted for me or not," said a newly elected sheriff. The phrase tote fair carries the same meaning. Ozarks.
- Vance Randolph's Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech, 1953

creaturism

A theory which ascribes qualities of a creature to God.
- Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893

dittology

A two-fold or double reading or interpretation.
- Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897

Ditto.

juglandine

A substance contained in the juice expressed from the green shell of the walnut (Juglans regila). It is used as a remedy in cutaneous and scrofulous diseases; also for dying the hair black.
- Daniel Lyons's Dictionary of the English Language, 1897

In case you were wondering, scrofulous diseases are those related to scrofula, which is the swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck. Nice.

strump

To tread heavily or pace about; whence, probably strumpet, a street walker.
- Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874

zenzizenzizenzic

That's a number raised to the eighth power.

Okay. This is the type of word that makes me wonder who makes this stuff up? I envision a bunch of wordsmithies sitting up late at night drinking and smoking. "Wait, wait! I got a good one!!" The real word was probably zenzenic, but they got a stutterer.

zafty

A person very easily imposed upon.
- Maj. B. Lowsley's A Glossary of Berkshire Words and Phrases, 1888

architector

Architect; from French architecteur, Late Latin architector, Latin architectus. Also, in the fifteenth century, a superintendent.
- C.A.M Fennell's The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1964

dendranthopology

[Oooh, this is good.]

Study based on the theory that man had sprung from trees.
- T. Lewis Davies's Supplemental English Glossary, 1881

And here I thought they had just sprung out of trees.

dog-nawper

A church beadle...with his long wand of office [for] tapping (nawping, we lads called it) the heads of either sleepers or unruly youngsters.
- John Wilkinson's Leeds Dialect Glossary and Lore, 1924

A beadle is a minor parish official who is responsible for ushering and preserving order at church services.

near-scented

Not catching the scent till too near. [The condition of a hunting dog.]
- James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855

Did you know that dogs have about 220 million receptors for smelling as compared to the 5 million in humans? Dogs can even smell things under water! Dogs are awesome.

text-hand

A large hand in writing, so called because it was the practice to write the text of a book [the text-copy] in a large hand, and the notes in a smaller hand.
- Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

My desktop calendar tells me that it is American Dictionary Day, in honor of the birthday of Noah Webster (1758-1843). Fun fact! While a student at Yale University, Noah was known as the "walking question mark."

pachycephalic

It means thick-skulled.

Oh, boy, I can see me using this word alot!

solecist

One who is guilty of impropriety in the language.
- Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

brazen tombs

The allusion is to the ornamenting of tombs of eminent persons with figures and inscriptions on plates of brass. "Live register'd upon our brazen tombs." Love's Labour's Lost.
- Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902

vernility

Servility; fawning behavior, like that of a slave. [Adapted from Latin] verna, a slave.
- Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon, c. 1850

roving forty

A small acreage of land owned by a logger who, however, cut timber all over the country with no regard for ownership. Western Great Lakes.
- L. G. Sorden and Jacque Vallier's Lumberjack Lingo, 1986

Hey! Today is the Feast Day of St. Gomer, a patron of woodsmen.

melsh-dick

A sylvan goblin, the protector of hazel-nuts.
- James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855

Hazel nuts!!??

A wood-demon who is supposed to guard over unripe nuts. "Melsh Dick'll catch thee, lad," was formerly a common threat used to frighten children going nutting.
- Rev. Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883

Today is Hipping Day, which is the official day last day of blackberrying in Sussex. Hipping Day gets its name from a confection made from the red berries of the wild rose. It is said that the devil goes around on this day and spits on the bramble-bushes; therefore, it is dangerous to go nutting because you might run into the Evil One.

Who knew searching for nuts could be so fraught with danger?

dando

A great eater, who cheats at hotels, eating-shops, and oyster-cellars; from a person of that name who lived many years ago, and who was an enormous oyster-eater. According to the stories related of him, Dando would visit an oyster-room, devour an almost fabulous quantity of bivalves, with porter and bread and butter to match, and then calmly state that he had no money.
- John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887

gambrinous

It means "being full of beer".

I want to be gambrinous right now.

plaguenation

A barbarously formed substitute for damnation.
- Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923

Scroggins!

barring-out

The breaking up of a school at the great holidays, when the boys within bar the door against the master. Northern England.
- Samuel Pegge's A Supplement to Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1814

Apparently, there was a custom around the holidays called "orders". The schoolboys would lock out the headmaster and come up with various holidays for the upcoming year that the headmaster would have to promise to observe. If he signed his name to the "orders", he would be allowed back in and celebrations would begin. The headmaster would, of course, try to gain his entrance by force without signing the orders, but was most often unsuccessful. If he did get in on his own, some sort of punishment was issued and school would resume.

Shoulda tried that at my office...

reiliebogie

A confusion; a state of tumult or disorder. It may be conjectured that the term has some affinity to the old tune called Reel o' Bogie, as perhaps referring to some irregular kind of dance. [From] reile, to roll.
- John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808

tib of the buttery

A goose; [from] tib, a young lass; also, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a wanton. St. Tibb's Evening, the evening of the last day, or Day of Judgment. "He will pay you on St. Tibb's Eve."
- Capt. Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796

scrud

A mythical disease alleged to be very serious, painful, and socially objectionable....Double scrud, here the "double" makes the ...disease even worse.
- Harold Wentworth and Stuart Flexner's Dictionary of American Slang, 1960

tea leafer

A curious case of adulteration was revealed in evidence given in court a century ago, which discovered that many persons made a living by picking sloe leaves and whitethorn leaves in the fields near Camberwell and selling them to a local cowkeeper for a penny a pound. One man said he picked from fifty to sixty pounds a day, and always found a market for them. The leaves were subsequently sold to a wholesale merchant who could obtain as much as eight shillings a pound for them under the guise of tea. The merchant was prosecuted and fined, not for adulteration but for defrauding the Revenue [Service]. And "tea-leafer" is still a slang name for the petty thief.
- Frederick Hackwood's Good Cheer: The Romance of Food and Feasting, 1911

"Tea-leaf" is for some inexplicable reason the name used by the police for pickpockets.
- Charles Booth's Life and Labour of People in London, 1903

spill the beans

This phrase meaning to reveal a secret comes from the ancient Greeks. At election time, all the candidates would line up their helmets. The people voted for their candidate by putting a bean into his helmet. At the end of the election, the one with the most beans was the winner. The count was public and when the winner was announced, his helmet was returned to him with the beans in it. To signify his acceptance of the elected position, he would spill the beans out and put the helmet on his head. The helmet contained the election results, so spilling them out was akin to disclosing a secret. Thus the phrase as we know it today.