Lexicon of Antiquated and Obscure Terms

 

• Ague
  • A fever (as malaria) marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals.
• Bayberry
  • The species vary from 1 m shrubs up to 20 m trees; some are deciduous, but the majority of species are evergreen. The roots have nitrogen-fixing bacteria which enable the plants to grow on soils that are very poor in nitrogen content.
• Belyea’s Remittent Fever
  • A fever pattern in which temperature varies during each 24 hour period, but never reaches normal.  Most fevers are remittent and the pattern is not characteristic of any disease, although in the 19th century it was considered a diagnostic term.
• Bushel
  • A bushel is an imperial and U.S. customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 4 pecks or 8 gallons. It is used for volumes of dry commodities (not liquids), most often in agriculture. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu.
• Chinge Bugs (Cinch Bugs)
  • Chinch bugs are a complex of three different species within the Lygaeidae family. They have piercing-sucking mouthparts and they feed on the sap of grass plants. They reside in the thatch area of the turfgrass stand and prefer to feed on the lower leaf sheath and crown area of the plant. The chinch bug can be a major insect pest on home lawns throughout the country.
• Confirmed
  • Confirmation is a rite of initiation in Christian churches
• Consumption
  • Antiquated name for Pulmonary Tuberculosis
• Cotswold (Sheep)
  • A breed of domestic sheep originating in the Cotswold hills of the southern midlands of England. It is a dual-use breed providing both meat and wool.[1] As of 2009, this long-wooled breed is relatively rare, and is categorized as "minority" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the U.K.
• Decoration Day
  • The former name of Memorial Day in the United States.
• Dewberry
  • A group of species in the genus Rubus, section Rubus, closely related to the blackberries. They are small trailing (rather than upright or high-arching) brambles with berries reminiscent of the raspberry, but are usually purple to black instead of red.
• Electioneering
  • To take an active part in an election; specifically : to work for the election of a candidate or party.
• Ford (1916)
  • There was little apparent change in the Model T for 1916, aside from the diminished use of brass trim. Prices continued to fall and Ford continued to improve output and the mass assembly techniques. Fiscal year production was over 500,000 cars for the first time, and Ford claimed calendar year production to be over 734,000 vehicles. The Touring car body style was the most popular, accounting for 363,024 sales.
• Gooseberry
  • The genus Ribes contains over 150 species, and includes red and white currants, black currants, and gooseberries. Plants in this genus are native to northern hemispheres of Europe, Asia, and North America.
• Harrow
  • An implement for breaking up and smoothing out the surface of the soil. In this way it is distinct in its effect from the plough, which is used for deeper tillage.
• Jitney
• A small motor vehicle, such as a bus or van, that transports passengers on a route for a small fare.
• Kewpie
  • Kewpie dolls and figurines are based on comic strip-like illustrations by Rose O'Neill that appeared in Ladies' Home Journal in 1909. The small dolls were extremely popular in the early twentieth century. They were first produced in Ohrdruf, a small town in Germany, then famous for its toy manufacturers. They were made out of bisque and then celluloid.
• La Grippe (The Grip)
  • Antiquated name for Influenza
• Measles
  • An  infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus.  Measles is spread through respiration (contact with fluids from an infected person's nose and mouth, either directly or through aerosol transmission), and is highly contagious—90% of people without immunity sharing living space with an infected person will catch it.
• Mountain Tea
  • Creeping shrub of eastern North America having white bell-shaped flowers followed by spicy red berrylike fruit and shiny aromatic leaves that yield wintergreen oil
• Normal (School)
  • Normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name.
• Overland (Car)
  • The Overland Company was formed in 1902 by Charles Minshall and Claude E. Cox. Cox had just completed his degree at the Ross Polytechnic Institute while Minshall was the president of the Standard Wheel Company. Neither of these individuals had much experience in engineering or in the automotive industry. For his senior thesis, Cox had rebuilt his motorized, three-wheeled vehicle into a four-wheel design. This experience gained him a solid reputation with Minshall who established Cox as the head of the newly formed Overland Automobile Company.
• Parasol
  • An umbrella or parasol (also called a brolly, parapluie, rainshade, sunshade, gamp, bumbershoot, or umbrolly) is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The word parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun; umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain. Often the difference is the material; some parasols are not waterproof. Parasols are often meant to be fixed to one point and often used with patio tables or other outdoor furniture. Umbrellas are almost exclusively hand-held portable devices; however, parasols can also be hand-held.
• Passe Partout
  • French for “passkey” or “all-purpose”
• Peck
  • An imperial and United States customary unit of dry volume, equivalent to 2 gallons or 8 dry quarts or 16 dry pints. Two pecks make a kenning (obsolete), and four pecks make a bushel.
• Pleurisy
  • (also known as pleuritis) is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the pleural cavity surrounding the lungs. Among other things, infections are the most common cause of pleurisy.  The inflamed pleural layers rub against each other every time the lungs expand to breathe in air. This can cause severe sharp pain with inhalation.
• PM
  • Postmaster.  The head of an individual post office.
• Raffia
  • The Raffia palms (Raphia) are a genus of twenty species of palms native to tropical regions of Africa, especially Madagascar, with one species (R. taedigera) also occurring in Central and South America. They grow up to 16 m tall and are remarkable for their compound pinnate leaves.  The membrane on the underside of each individual frond leaf is taken off to create a long thin fiber which can be dyed and woven as a textile into products ranging from hats to shoes to decorative mats. Plain raffia fibers are exported and used as garden ties or as a "natural" string in many countries. Especially when one wishes to graft trees, raffia is used to hold plant parts together as this natural rope has many benefits for this purpose.
• Red Cap
  • Railroad station porter
• Rheumatism
  • A non-specific term for medical problems affecting the joints and connective tissue.
• RR
  • Rural Route:  Rural delivery service refers to the delivery of mail in what are traditionally considered rural areas. In the United States, rural letter carriers began service with the experiments with Rural Free Delivery in 1891. RFD was adopted generally in the United States in 1902, resulting in progressive closure of post offices from their peak of 76,945 in 1901 to the present number of about 36,000.
• Salmonberry
  • A species of Rubus native to the west coast of North America from west central Alaska to California.  Books often call the fruit "insipid" but depending on ripeness and site, they are good eaten raw and when processed into jam, candy, jelly and wine. They were an important food for indigenous peoples. Traditionally, the berries were eaten with salmon or mixed with oolichan grease or salmon roe. They were not dried because of their high moisture content.
• Scarlet Fever
  • An infectious disease which most commonly affects 4-8 year old children. Symptoms include sore throat, fever and a characteristic red rash. It is usually spread by inhalation.   Before the availability of antibiotics, scarlet fever was a major cause of death. It could also cause late complications such as glomerulonephritis and endocarditis leading to heart valve disease, all of which were protracted and often fatal afflictions at the time.
• Seine
  • A large net with sinkers on one edge and floats on the other that hangs vertically in the water and is used to enclose and catch fish when its ends are pulled together or are drawn ashore.
• Shingle Bolts
  • The traditional method for making wooden shingles in the 17th and 18th centuries was to handsplit them from log sections known as bolts. These bolts were quartered or split into wedges. A mallet and froe (or ax) were used to split or rive out thin planks of wood along the grain. If a tapered shingle was desired, the bolt was flipped after each successive strike with the froe and mallet.
• Sowed
  • Planted
• Thrash
  • To separate the seeds of from the husks and straw by beating.  (also, Thresh)
• Tracing Cloth
  • A fine transparent linen or cotton cloth sized on one side and used (as by architects or designers) for making tracings esp. in ink
• Typhoid Fever
  • A common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella typhi, serotype Typhi.
• Whooping Cough
  • Pertussis is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing. The coughing can make it hard to breathe.  A deep "whooping" sound is often heard when the patient tries to take a breath.