Novate

To replace by something new; specifically in law, to replace by a new obligation, debt, etc.

Hence …

Novation

1. The introduction of something new; a change, an innovation. (Scots, obsolete)
  
2. The substitution of a new debtor, creditor, contract, etc. in place of an old one.

I’ve most commonly encountered novation in the second sense and in the situation of company acquisitions etc. X has a contract to provide a service to Y; when X is bought by Z the contract with Y is novated from X to Z, but only by mutual agreement of the parties through a legal process. It applies equally to company contracts and to moving your bank account during a take-over/acquisition.

The earliest use recorded by the OED is from Speed’s History of Great Britain of 1611.

Crenellate

To furnish with battlements, embrasures or loopholes.

Hence crenellated, embattled.

May be spelled with either one or two ‘l’s.

From the French créneler.

Baksheesh

An Oriental (mostly Arabic?) term for a gratuity, present of money, tip or bribe. Or as a verb, to give the same.

According to the OED, first recorded in English as far back as 1625 although not commonly until mid-19th century.

It appears to derive from the Persian bakhshīsh, a gift; which is from bakhshīdan, to give.

Fud.

For a small, emphatic word it is surprising that this is one which appears to have little if any use. That’s possibly because it is largely Scots and northern dialect. So what does it mean?

1. The backside or buttocks.
2. The tail or scut of a hare, rabbit, etc.
3. Woollen waste for mixing with mungo and shoddy. [Although the OED isn’t certain about this]
4. The pubic hair (especially of a woman) and hence the female genitals. [Now scatological]

The last of these meanings is the earliest quoted by the OED in the 1771 poem The Hen-peckt Carter by James Wilson Claudero

Each hair of her fud is the length of a span,
What fud can compare with the fud of Joan?

Yes it is surprisingly little used given its scatological possibilities.

[Found in Mark Forsyth, The Horologicon]

Time for another nice word. Today I have chosen …

Macaronic (noun and adjective)

A burlesque verse form in which vernacular words are used in a Latin context, with Latin constructions etc. It can also be used where the verse is based on Greek instead of Latin; and thus loosely to any form of verse in which two or more languages are mingled together.

Hence it has also come to be descriptive of a jumble or medley.

According to the OED the word seems to have been invented by Teofilo Folengo (‘Merlinus Cocaius’) whose ‘macaronic’ poem (Liber Macaronices) was published in 1517. In the second edition of 1521 he explains that the ‘macaronic art’ is so called from macaroni, which is quoddam pulmentum farina, caseo, botiro compaginatum, grossum, rude, et rusticanum (literally a crude, rustic mixture of flour, butter and cheese) — so probably quite tasty.

OK, so let’s have another word. I’ve just finished reading Filthy English: The How, Why, When and What of Everyday Swearing by Peter Silverton. Yes, it’s interesting but not deep and quite light-hearted — as one might expect. One thing he said which I didn’t know (or had long forgotten) is the origins of the word goolies. So today we bring you…

Goolies, or as the OED would have it gooly (in the singular).

Yes, in standard English it normally appears in the plural and means the testicles.

According to the OED, which hedges its bets slightly, it is “apparently of Indian origin”, like from the Hindustani golí, a bullet, ball, pill. Curiously the first referenced citation is only in 1937 — I would have expected it to be around 100 years earlier. It was certainly a word I learnt quite early in my school days, so it must have been in regular North London usage by the end of the 1950s.

Usefully(?) gooly also means a stone or pebble in Australian slang. (Well again, so the OED says.)

What is also interesting is that the OED doesn’t know the origin of the cricketing term googly (a ball which spins from leg to off when bowled by a right-arm bowler to a right-handed batsman) and which one might expect to be related to gooly. So who knows?

Anyway there’s another Indian word you know, to go along with pyjamas and bungalow.

Mehari

An Arabian, single-humped camel, used for riding and racing. A racing dromedary.

Also a French risk analysis methodology. See Wikipedia

Yaffle

1. (n) The green woodpecker or it’s call. (Onomatopoeic from its call.)

hence …

2. (n & v) The call of the green woodpecker

and also ..

3. (n & v) A bark, a yelp.
4. (n) (Newfoundland dialect) A handful; an armful, esp. of dried fish or kindling.

hence …

5. (v) To gather up (a load of fish, etc.) in one’s arms.
6. (v) To eat or drink, esp. noisily or greedily.

Who remembers Bagpuss and Prof. Yaffle?

Dzo (or dso, dzho, zho, zo)

A Tibetan hybrid of yak (Bos grunniens) and domestic cattle (a domesticated form of aurochs, Bos primigenius). The word dzo technically refers to a male hybrid, while a female is known as a dzomo or zhom.

See also Wikipedia.