Vulgar words in English Past and Present (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,173 ~ ~ ~
{Sidenote: _Words in '-ard'_} Neither can I esteem it a mere accident that of a group of depreciatory and contemptuous words ending in 'ard', at least one half should have dropped out of use; I refer to that group of which 'dotard', 'laggard', 'braggard', now spelt 'braggart', 'sluggard', 'buzzard', 'bastard', 'wizard', may be taken as surviving specimens; 'blinkard' (_Homilies_), 'dizzard' (Burton), 'dullard' (Udal), 'musard' (Chaucer), 'trichard' (_Political Songs_), 'shreward' (Robert of Gloucester), 'ballard' (a bald-headed man, Wiclif); 'puggard', 'stinkard' (Ben Jonson), 'haggard', a worthless hawk, as extinct.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,766 ~ ~ ~
It is so even with 'girl', which was once a young person of either sex{212}; while other words in this list, such for instance as 'hoyden'{213} (Milton, prose), 'shrew' (Chaucer), 'coquet' (Phillips, _New World of Words_), 'witch' (Wiclif), 'termagant' (Bale), 'scold', 'jade', 'slut' (Gower), must be regarded in their present exclusive appropriation to the female sex as evidences of men's rudeness, and not of women's deserts.