AVOIRDUPOIS: sold by weight

　　In our weight-conscious country, the United States, avoirdupois is a polite way of speaking of wxcess fat ,but its Old French ancestor aveir de peis meant”goods sold by weight,”such as wool.Lter on ,in English-speaking countries, avoidupois became the standard system of weights for goods other than gems, metals, and drugs.Adiose is another polite and pet word of the overweight, but its derivation is more blunt. The Latin adeps, adipis, is the source, and this just means “grease:or “fat”and nothing nicer.

　　BEVY: merely a drinking copany

　　The Latin word bibere, meant”to drink.” This became beivre in Old French. One of its derivatives came into our language as beverage,”that which is drunk.” By the same path bevee seems to have entered Old English with the meaning”a group of drinkers,”and then changed to signify a small group of birds, animals, or people,the people usually being women . In the late Middle Ages a bevy was a company of “roes, larks, quails,or ladies. The Latin term bibere perhaps also contributed the baby’s bib to our langyage, for ,after all, a bib does have to “imbibe”the moisture that the baby spills.

　　BLUESTOCKING: affectedly literary

　　this is a word that was more familiar to Washington Irving than it is to us ,but there are parts of the countru where an affectedly studious and literary woman is still called a bluestocking. It all began with Elizabeth Montagu, a famous leader of London society in the 1700’s, who introduced”literary evenings” in her home as a substitute for the frivolous card-playing parties of the day . She is said to have adopted blue stockingsdeliberately as a badge of her ideas. The ladies who had a taste for such gatherings were dubbed Bluestockings by a certain Admiral Buscawen and his epithet still lives.

　　BOUDOIR: at one time, a pouting-room

　　With us , of course ,an elegantly furnished room to which a lady can retire to alone or to receive her intimate friends. But in the middle Ages a young lady was sent to her boudoir to get over the sulks. Our word comes from the French verb bouder,”to pout.”So a lady ‘s boudoir is really her pouting-room.

　　BRIDAL: the toast that was drunk

　　At modern wedding receptions of the well-to-do the bride is usually toasted in champagne. This is not at all in tune with the history of word. Tht drink should really be a tankard of that homely brew, ale for the word bridal is formed of two old English words, bruyd, “bride” and ealu,”ale,” and our bridal ceremony takes its name from the traditional “bride’s ale ” that was always drunk at the time. Brydealu changed to bridale, then bridal. The bridegroom, is another story. He should be called a bridegoom,literally a “brideman.”But somebody down the line got confused and substituted groom for goom, so now a bride has married a man who takes care of horses.

　　BUXOM: once meant obedient

　　When we call a girl buxom we mean that she is fat .But when a bitish bride of early times promised to be “buxom and bonnyh”to her husband,she didn’t mean that she was going to put on a few extra pounds.The word buxom, or buhsum, as it was then spelled, seems to have come from bugan meaning “bend,”and therefore pliant, pleasant, and kindlyl.It was customary,in that era,to talk of being buxom,that is,”obedient,”to the judges, or even buxom to the pope.Then, later ,the meaning

　　turned to “blithe and gay”;still later to “full of health and vigor.”But now the original “bend “has gone into the curves of her figure, and a buxom girl is just pleasingly plump.

　　CAPRICE: liKe a goat

　　One hundred years ago the British author, Thomas De Quincey wrote somewhat superciliously:”Eerywhere I observe in the feminine mind something of a beautiful caprice, a floral esuberande of that charming willfulness which characterizes our dear human sisters, Ifear, through all the world.” This lefthanded compliment makes women seem attractively feminine, and yet ,when a girl is capricious, her actions are reminiscent of the lowly billy goat. The word caprice comes through the Itaian capriccio from the Latin caper, “goat.”So when a girl is capricious and cuts up capers,she is imitating the frixsky, playful antics of the male cousin of a sheep.