aeronaut - (verb) BGM:5.117, in uncollected review of August 1839: aeronauting in a leaden balloon. Not in OED. [P80:83]
amanuense - (verb) BGM:5.115, in uncollected review of August 1839: his system of amanuensing. Not in OED. [P80:83]
ancestrical - (humorous coinage), BJ:2.293, uncollected article introducing newspaper clippings, November 15, 1845: "Biographical Ancestrical and Romantic Items from Late European Journals." Not in OED. [P83:39]
anecdotary - Apparently Poe's coinage in the "Critical Notices and Literary Intelligence" of the SLM 1 (August 1835): 714, 2nd item, referring to an historical novel (by Andrew Picken, a Scot): "The soubriquet of The Black Watch is familiar in the anecdotary annals of our country." Not in the OED. (Courtesy of J. V. Ridgely). [P94.30 item 2]
angularly - (no. 3 in OED, "of personal appearance"). Given by OED in "The Literati" of 1846 for William M. Gillespie, H:15.20: He is . . . angularly proportioned (first instance, with Dickens's 1849 as next). Moreover, Poe's use precedes the 1850 OED application of "angular" by four years. [P94.30 item 3]
annalistic - Review of Dr. Francis L. Hawks, Ecclesiastical History, in the March 1836 SLM: the compilation of an annalistic journal. OED gives only 1850, 1860 instances. [P94.30 item 4]
anonymosity - O:2.382, 1848: I have been compelled to expose a "critic" who, courageously preserving his own anonymosity, takes advantage of my absence . . . to misrepresent, and thus vilify me, by name. Not in OED. [P74:23]
antagonistical - (Revival of sole OED prior instance, 1630 in Jeremy Taylor.) OED cites only "Marie R." of 1842- 43, M:3.740/31: This probability will be in favor of L'Etoile's position until the instances . . . shall be sufficient . . . to establish an antagonistical rule. The OED omits the 1845 "Imp of the Perverse," M:3.1221/17: a strongly antagonistical sentiment. [P94.30 item 5]
anti-romantic - H:10.30, review, 1839: our anti-romantic national character. OED gives only anti-romance of 1842. [P74:23]
applicability - OED gives three instances: 1653, 1818 (Hallam's Middle Ages) and Poe's of 1843 in "Purloined Letter": if words derive any value from applicability (M:3.907/8). Ignored are a second instance (ibid., line 31): the mathematician argues, from his finite truths, . . . [assumed to be of] general applicability; a third in the 1845 "Power of Words" in M:3.1214/14: (concerning algebraic analysis) no bounds [were] conceivable to its advancement and applicability; and a fourth in the 1848 Eureka, H:16.191; also in M:3.1312/30 (in Mabbott's excerpt of "A Remarkable Letter"): (concerning the value of minute facts) without reference to their applicability or in applicability. (The negative form, "inapplicability," is cited for 1673, 1792, 1820, and 1884, but not for Poe). The 1653 and 1818 instances of "applicability" were, probably, unknown to Poe, and hardly likely to have affected common parlance. [P94.30 item 2]
arabesquerie - H:12.15-16, review, 1845: the artistically-conceived arabesquerie of its rhythm. Not in OED. [P74:23]
arrondees - "William Wilson, first in The Gift of 1840 ("Prefatory Advertisement" dated May 1839) with misspelling of "arondé" which is changed to present form in BGM of October 1839 (see M:2.425 and 443. The full capitals for italics in the guide words designate Poe's use). Both given forms of the word are obscure and in a sense incorrect added reason to deem them coinages of Poe, whose seemingly clear explanation in the text has precluded questioning by American scholars. Mabbott merely annotates thus: "His source of information has not been discovered" (1, 450, n. 17). Poe's text concerns the cheating-cards that William Wilson uses at the game of écarté (M:2.443). He has secreted on his person packs "of a species called, technically, arrondées, the honors being slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the sides." Poe then explains that "the dupe, who cuts, as customary, at the length of the pack" cuts honors for his opponent, while the gambler, "cutting at the breadth," turns up low cards for his adversary. Perhaps the "customary" practice resembles the so-called principle of Archimedes concerning "a cylinder swimming in a vortex" in the "Maelström (M:2.593, 597, n. 21), which Poe later admitted to be his own invention, in the "Reviewer Reviewed" (M:3.1383). We definitely disbelieve the origin as given of his "technical" word "arrondées" to describe rounded or nicked playing cards, since a French word hased on a verb "to round" would have to be spelled "arrondies" for the feminine plural, modifying the cards ("cartes") in the game écarté. In reality, "arrondi" is used in English as an adjective for heraldic descriptions and also in the terminology of the ballet for curved or rounded arm postures or leg movements (q.v. in OED, Odham's Dictionary, and the Century Dictionary and Encyclopaedia, which alone gives the spelling used by Poe for heraldry with no dates or instances). Poe's word occurs in none of the other dictionaries seen, either of formal English or of cant, argot, or slang, nor is it in historical and descriptive accounts of playing cards, such as T. Willshire's large catalogue of playing cards in the British Museum or the four-volume Yale University Library Catalogue of the Cary Collection (1981). It must have piqued Poe's sense of humor to invent a technical term of this sort for special cards, but it may not be a coincidence that the standard word for a card shark in French is "biseauteur," derived from the verb which has something in common with Poe's "rounded cards," namely "biseau," a bevelling or rounded edge. Charles Baudelaire, in translating "William Wilson" for its publication in the journal Le Pays (14-15, 18-l) February 1855), first changed Poe's word to "arrondies." But in his later version for the book Nouvelles Histoires Extraordinaires of 1869, he altered the whole phrase "proprement arrondies" to "en argot biseautées" (see J. Crépet, editor of this volume of Baudelaire's Oeuvres complètes of 1933, p. 360, n. to p. 47). And this explains Poe's special term for such "nicked, cut, or marked" cards. According to the dictionaries of Robert, Larousse, and Harrap, the word "biseau" refers to furniture, mirrors, and cards. Perhaps Poe heard such a term used in his gambling episodes at the University of Virginia and in writing "William Wilson" resorted to his own version of the French for "rounded," forgetting that it would have come from "arrondir" and not a putative "arronder." This coinage does small credit to the quality of Poe's French, but much to his ingenuity. [P83:39]
auriculas - H:2.272, "Blackwood Article," 1838: orange-coloured auriculas. Used only by Poe in this sense; probably, ear-shaped sleeves (q.v. in Papers on Poe, 1972, p. 96). [P74:23]
autobiographist - H:2.380, 1838 (wrongly given by H. as 1839) and 1840: "Siope A Fable [In the manner of the Psychological Autobiographists]" (title in the first two printings of "Silence"). Incorrectly ascribed by OED (1972 Supplement) as first in 1840 Fraser's Magazine. See my article in PS, 11 (June 1978), 15-16, for a treatment of the word. [P80:83-84]
autorial - (Poe's alternate to the 1796 adjective "authorial" and anticipating the not yet created "auctorial," q.v. in B. Pollin, PS, June 1977, H:10.15-18), H:10.121, review, 1841: autorial parlance; also H:10.218, review, 1841: autorial comment; also, H:16.50, Marginalia, 1844: autorial power; H:12.224, review, 1845: autorial comment'; also H:16.79, Marginalia, 1845: autorial body; also H:15.1, in subtitle of Literati,1846: Autorial Merits; also, H:13.194, essay, 1850: autorial blemishes . . . Autorial merits; and also H:13.224, essay published by Griswold, 1850: autorial merits. The OED gives only the last with a date of 1847. [P80:84] Also, BJ:2.199, of October 4, 1845 (CW:3.274/1): "the only legitimate stage for the autorial histrio." Also, review, August 1845 (H:13.59): "autorial originality . . . is threefold." [P89:41]
battener - H:16.36, "Marginalia" No. 58, December 1844: "A fetid battener upon the garbage of thought. No man. A beast. A pig." In OED the only instance. The succession of thoughts, phrasing, and rhetoric clearly emanate from Hamlet's scolding of Gertrude: "Could you . . . batten on this moor?" (III, iv, 66-67). [P83:39]
bediamonded - OED gives only Poe's "Ulalume," 1847, M:1.417/37: Astarte's bediamonded crescent. [P94.30 item 8]
bedight - OED gives several instances from 1400 to 1674; hence, Poe's is a revival in "Eldorado" of 1849, M:1.463/1: Gaily bedight / a gallant knight. [P94.30 item 9]
belauded - H:15.199, Autography, 1841: was belauded by his personal friends. First example in OED. [P74:23]
bel-esprit-ism - H:2.277, "Blackwood Article," 1838: little scraps of either learning or bel-esprit-ism. Not in OED. [P74:23]
be-mirrored - H:8.51, review, 1835: the book bepuffed, be-plastered, and be-Mirrored; and H:10.186, review, 1841: wofully over-done be-Mirrorment of that man-of-straw (T. Fay). OED gives only Poe's be-Mirrorment and no example of be-mirrored. [P74:23]
be-peppers - H:16.7, Marginalia, 1844: so be-peppers his books. . . . Not in OED. [P74:23]
bemystified - BGM:5.330, in uncollected review of December 1839: complex and much bemystified science. Not in OED. [P80:84]
bepuffed - H:10.134, review, 1841: Mr. Nobody has bepuffed the author; also, H:11.18, review, 1842: a man . . . be-puffed into Demi-Deism. Not in OED. [P74:23] Also BJ:2.389, of December 27, 1845 (CW:3.354/18): "the persons bepuffed." [P89:41]
bethumb - (to take hold of or mark with the thumbs.) OED gives three instances: of 1557, an 1823 Blackwood's Magazine semimetaphorical use, and Poe's "much-bethumbed books" in the 1839 "William Wilson" (M:1.430/13). [P94.30 item 11]
bewinged - Poems, p. 325, "The Conqueror Worm," 1842: An angel throng, bewinged, bedight. Only instance in OED, with date of 1849. [P74:23]
beseamed - H:3.303, "W. Wilson," 1839: benches and desks . . . beseamed with initial letters. Not in OED. [P74:23]
biblical - Equivalent to "bibliographical," the only nontheological usage for the word; not in the OED. Two Poe instances, H:8.159, 1836 SLM review: in regard to the biblical history of the . . . book considered merely as a book, also, H:8.277, the 1836 review of poems by Drake and Halleck: We forget . . . that the world is the true theatre of the biblical histrio. [P94.30 item 12]
bibliophagi - H:9.68, review, 1836: although the book may have been written by a number of learned bibliophagi. In OED are only bibliophagist of 1881 and bibliophagic of 1884. [P74:24]
bi-part - H:2.38, "Lionizing," 1835: bi-part and pre-existent soul; also, H:4.152, "Murders in R. M.," 1841: the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul. Poe's unique form of the old bi-parted and bi-partite is not in OED. [P74:24]
booked - (OED, no. 2: entered in a book; registered, conveyed by charter.) "Marie R.," M:3.747/16: The court, guiding itself by the general principles of evidence the recognized and booked principles. [P94.31 item 14]
Boweryish - H:15.114, Literati, 1846: a little Boweryish. Only example in OED. [P74:24]
bowstrung - (past participle of verb, bowstring, to strangle with a bowstring as punishment, as in Turkey.) OED gives bowstringed for an 1823 Edinburgh Review instance; then Poe's form, from M:3.1153/21, "Scheherazade" of 1845: It was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung. However, OED also gives Byron's 1820 Don Juan adjectival use in "his lately bowstrung brother," from which Poe may have derived this form. (N.B.: His use of a tag from this work as epigraph for the tale and his nine references to the poem in other works (see Pollin, Dictionary of Names and Titles, p. 122)). [P94.31 item 16]
bugaboo - (a fancied object of terror; a bogy; a bugbear, possibly a Celtic compound: bug or ghost + boo.) OED cites instances of 1200 and 1747 (buggybow) with totally different spellings before Poe's "Premature Burial" of 1844, M:3.969/6: No bugaboo tales such as this. Ignored is Poe's creation "of The Bugaboo Indians," companions of the real "Kickapoo Indians," who together "massacred" General John A. B. C. Smith in "The Man That was Used Up" (1839): M:2.278/Title, 380/36, 381/9, 17, 382/15, 387/24, 388/15; also, in Poe's Contributions to Alexander's Weekly Messenger of March 18, 1840, in C. S. Brigham's American Antiquarian Society reprint (1942), 57. There also (entry for January 29, 1840) can be found "this bugaboo tale" using the first sense above (26). OED adds Lowell's 1870 use. It also gives, separately, an apparently different cant word, meaning "sheriff's officer," from Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1823, with Bulwer's 1827 Pelham cited for one instance; Poe might have derived his spelling for the different word thence. [P94.31 item 18]
bullety - H:15.116, Literati, 1846: His forehead is, phrenologically, bad round and what is termed "bullety." Poe's is first instance in OED. [P74:24]
bullyism - (the conduct or practice of a bully.) OED accredits Poe's use in BJ:1.194, March 29, 1845: The Outises who practice this species of bullyism are, as a matter of course, anonymous (see CW:3:58/36); then an instance of 1886. But see Craigie, for E. Belden's Sketches of Yale College Graduates, 1843, using bullyism. [P94.31 item 19]
busybodyism - OED gives only two instances of this variant of "busybodiness," the first being J. Wilson's in an 1828 Blackwood's Magazine text (from which Poe may have taken the word). Poe's is in the 1843 "Marie R.," M:3.748: my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism. The OED leaves out Poe's hyphen and italics, implying his belief in his coining the word, and also gives the wrong page and date (1872) for its Griswold source (p. 226 for 237). [P94.31 item 20]
cadaverousness - OED lists a 1669 instance, then Poe for "Usher" of 1839, M:2.295: a cadaverousness of complexion. [P94.31 item 21]
cantatrice - H:10.91, 92, and 95, review, 1840: than any cantatrice who ever lived; (and) the cantatrice assented; (and) friend of the cantatrice. OED gives 1861 as first citation. [P74:24]
charadists - Brigham, p. 37, 1840: all the Enigmatists and Charadists in the land. Not in OED. [P74:24]
chasmal - H:14.272, "Poetic Principle," 1849: the radical and chasmal differences. OED gives only 1871 and 1882 citations. [P74:24] Also H:11.70, review, 1842: same text as 1849. [P80:89]
checked - (verb intransitive. To draw a check upon a person for an amount. U.S.) OED gives as first instance "Murders R. M." of 1843, M:2.541/15: Made frequent deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third day before her death . . . when she took out . . . 4000 francs. (Craigie defines check as to write or draw checks for an amount on a bank, with an 1809 instance). [P94.31 item 22]
chillily -, H:3.41, Pym, 1838: How chillily and heavily. . . did its vague syllables fall! The first OED instances are 1849 and 1884. [P74:24]
chlorine - (as green: light green) OED gives Poe's as first. Review of 1844 for Amelia Welby, H:11:277: This proposition . . . although denied by the chlorine critics (the grass-green). [P94.31 item 23]
cipherical - H:14.131, "Secret Writing," 1841: the location of each cipherical letter. Not in OED. [P74:24]
circumgyratory - H:2.47, "Pfaall," 1835: during his circumgyratory movements; also, H:2.162, "Loss of Breath," 1845 version: His circumgyratory proceedings (were) a palpable failure. The former is the first of the two instances in OED. [P74:24]
circumscribing - (present participle: limiting, restricting, encompassing, specifically in geometry). OED gives 1571, 1664 instances. Poe's is in "Cask of Amontillado" of 1846, M:3.1261/16: One of their circumscribing walls of solid granite. [P94.32 item 25]
classicalities - H:10.57, review, 1839: schoolboy classicalities. OED gives early classicality, but only 1844 for classicalities or instances of classical learning. [P74:24]
clerky - H:15.197, Autography, 1841: His chirography is now . . . excessively scratchy, clerky, and slovenly; also, H:15.211, Autography, His Ms. . . . is too clerky for our taste; also, H:15.256, Autography, 1842: (a Ms.) . . . too clerky for our taste. Not in OED. [P74:24]
climaces - H:15.177, Autography, 1841: these tautologies and anti-climaces (nonce spelling for the plural). Not in OED. [P74:24]
climacic - H:16.308, Eureka, 1848: a climacic magnificance foreboding the great End. A nonce word, which is not in OED. [P74:24] Also H:13.154, review, 1847: Their conclusions are insufficiently climactic. [P80:89]
climacing - H:14.74, review, 1836: a masterly climacing of points. Repeated in BJ, 1.354, 1845. Incorrectly printed as first by OED with the spelling of climaxing. No instance of this. [P74:25]
cliquerie - in the 1846 manuscript essay, "The Living Writers of America," to be included in CW: "The spirit of cliquerie perhaps the worst feature we have, next to the want of International Law." The word is given in OED with a first instance of 1859. [P83:39]
colloquialism - OED gives Coleridge, 1818, as first and Poe's as second in "Thingum Bob" of 1844, M:3.1140/28: He employed the words . . . to avoid the colloquialism. It omits the "Literati" sketch of M. E. Hewitt, in 1846, repeated in Griswold's 1850 (i.e., Poe's) ea., 3:117: the colloquialism, without vulgarity of its expression. OED also gives an instance with a slight change of sense from Polwhele of 1810. [P94.32 item 26]
compassless - H:4.236, "Eleonora," 1842: they penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless. First instances in OED are 1864 and 1868. [P74:25]
concentralization - H:16.217 and 226-227, Eureka, 1848: Concentralization . . . represented the force of the tendency to the centre. OED gives as unique example one of Poe's several uses. [P74:25]
connivingly - Poems, p. 158, "Introduction," Poems of 1831: And even the greybeard will o'erlook / Connivingly my dreaming-book. Not in OED. [P74:25]
consubstantialism - H:2.38, "Lionizing," 1835: He talked of . . . Puseyism and consubstantialism. OED: Worcester cites Milman (1860). [P74:25]
controvertibility - BJ:2.142, uncollected review, 1845: Bolles' . . . Dictionary (omits) . . . controvertibility. Not in OED. [P74:25]
conversible - H:6.207, "Mellonta Tauta," 1849: the only conversible person on board (nonce spelling). OED gives conversible for convertible save for an 1867 use, but many early uses of conversable. [P74:25]
counselling - (verbal noun: the action of the verb; advising.) OED gives instances of 1330, 1386, 1553, 1607 and then Poe's, in a review (1842) of Barnaby Rudge, H:11:56/6: The counsellings . . . might be those of that gentleman with Rudge. [P94.32 item 28]
counter-vortex - H:16.340, Eureka, "Addenda," 1896 (from a letter to George W. Eveleth written February 29, 1848 and first published in the Methodist Review for January 1896): through a counter vortex generated by its own rotation. Not in OED. [P74:25]
cowskin - (as verb; to flog with a cow-skin.) OED gives it as a verb solely to Poe with the wrong date and only for the first of the two nearby instances. Review of W. E. Channing of 1843, in H:11:188/5, 8 and 26: Napoleon Buonaparte Jones . . . is cowskinned . . . five times a month; also, there is not a bully living who would venture to cowskin Napoleon Buonaparte per se. [P94.32 item 30]
cryptograph: Despite early forms of "cryptography" and "cryptographer" this root word is ascribed solely to Poe's "Gold-Bug" by the OED as first, with the wrong date (1849). It is used by Poe extensively as follows: H:14.119, 120 (twice), 121, 122, 123, 126, 128, 130 (thrice), 131 (thrice), "Secret Writing," Graham's July 1841; H:14.133 (used by correspondent who may have derived it from Poe), 134, 135 (twice), 136 (twice, once in F. W. Thomas's letter), 137 (twice, once in Frailey's letter), "Addendum" to "Secret Writing," August 1841; H:14.139 (in Frailey's letter), 140 (in a letter), "Secret Writing," Oct. 1841; H:14.141, 143 (twice), 144, 145 (all these in W. B. Tyler's letter), 147 (thrice), 149 (twice), Dec. 1841; also, H:5.131, 132, 133, 135, 136, "The Gold-Bug," 1843; also three instances in the sketch of Poe in the Saturday Museum of March 4, 1843, col. 9 (this being another indication of Poe's part-authorship); also, letters, Aug. 28, 1843: the solution of cryptographs . . . most of the criptographs (sic). [P80:84] Also, H:15.81, "Literati" sketch of Margaret Fuller, GLB, August 1846: "The soul is a cipher in the sense of a cryptograph; and the shorter a cryptograph is, the more difficulty . . . in its comprehension." [P89:41]
cryptographist - As with "cryptograph" (above), this word is also ascribed to Poe as first by the OED, also in "The Gold-Bug." It appears in H:14.123 and H:14.148, "Secret Writing," July 1841, and Dec. 1841; H:5.137, "Gold-Bug," 1843; and H:16.196, Eureka, 1848. [P80:85]
crystallic - H:5.157, "The Elk," 1844: fantastic crystallic streams. OED gives only Century Dictionary's citation of Ashburner, of the latter half of the 19th century. [P74:25]
cycloid - H:14.104, "Philosophy of Furniture," 1840: vivid circular or cycloid figures. OED gives earlier cycloidal and cycloid as a noun, but only 1847 for adjectival cycloid. [P74:25]
daddyship - H:6.19, "Thingum Bob," 1844: a message to his Daddyship. Not in OED. [P74:25]
decora (Poe's nonce word for niceties or plural of "decorum"), H:2.116, "Assignation," 1835: the decora of what is technically called keeping; also, H:4.253, "Masque," 1842: He disregarded the decora of mere fashion; also, H:15.87, Literati, 1846: heedless of the ordinary decora of composition; also, H:13.129, review, 1846: the most justifiable decora of composition. The form is not in OED. [P74:25]
decorist - H:2.123, "Assignation," 1835: Once I was myself a decorist; also, H:14.101, "Philosophy of Furniture," 1840: The Scotch are poor decorists; also, H:10.114, review, 1841: a crafty man-of-the-world . . . a scrupulous decorist. OED gives only the first. [P74:25]
de-euphonizing - Doings of Gotham, p. 25, 1844: Why do we persist in de-euphonizing the true names? (ref. to Mannahatta). Not in OED. [P74:25]
demi-deism - H:11.18, review, 1842: a man . . . be-pufled into Demi-Deism Not in OED. [P74:26]
demi-promise - O:1.93, 1836: a kind of demi-promise made some months ago. Not in OED. [P74:26]
deskism - H:4.136, "Man of the Crowd," 1840: a certain dapperness of carriage which may be called deskism for want of a better word. Not in OED. [P74:26]
determinateness - (definiteness, distinctness, preciseness). OED gives a 1692 religious context usage and then Poe's 1846 "Literati" sketch of N. P. Willis, in H:15:13/7: The word fancy is used with very little determinateness of meaning. [P94.32 item 31]
didacticism - H:11.68-69, review of Ballads and Other Poems by Longfellow in GM, April 1842: "the too obtrusive nature of their didacticism" and "But didacticism is the present tone of his song." Also, H:11.247, in review of Poems by Lowell in Graham's of March 1844: "The defeats observable in the 'Legend of Brittany' are, chiefly, consequent upon the error of didacticism.' (This article is sometimes disputed but is clearly in the canon and accepted by Mabbott; this word helps the attribution.) Also, in The Aristidean, March 1845, "Longfellow's Poems," p. 140: " 'Maidenhood' is a graceful little poem, spoilt by its didacticism." The OED gives a Carlyle instance as earliest with the date of 1843, although this was from Carlyle's unpublished journal, from which this and other excerpts were first printed by James A. Froude in his 1884 Thomas Carlyle, I, 222: "Harriet Martineau . . . full of spirits, vivacity, didacticism." It cites Poe's 1842 use with the wrong date of 1864 the date of a Griswold edition used for citations. Poe's two instances are clearly earliest, in conception and publication. [P83:40] Also, BJ:1.82, Review of Bulwer's Poems, of February 1845 [not in H.; see CW:3.30/66]: "a continuous strain of didacticism, always obtrusive." Also, review of E. B. Browning, Broadway Journal of January 4, 1845 (H:12.11; also Collected Writings 3:6/19): "We object to the didacticism of its design." [P89:42]
diddler - (a cheat or swindler). Formed on the base of "diddle" or "to cheat," and derived by Poe from J. Kenney's play of 1803, Raising the Wind, whose main character is Jeremy Diddler. Poe made it into a common noun and used it twenty-seven times in his 1843 "Raising the Wind; or, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences"; he stripped off the first four words of the title in the 1845 reprint. The first instance in Poe is M:3.870/3: Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a small scale. OED cites only M:3.870/13: Your diddler is guided by self-interest. For Poe's knowledge of the play see B. Pollin, "Poe's 'Diddling': Source of Tale and Title," Southern Literary Review 2 (Fall 1969): 106-111. (See the next item). [P94.32 item 32]
diddling - (swindling or cheating; substantive from "diddle"; see item above.) OED gives Poe's as the first, for the secondary title of his tale (afterwards the primary title), and cites Diddling . . . is a compound, of which the in gredients are . . . " ( M:3.869). Poe's title and usage are based on De Quincey's "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (1827, 1839). [P94.32 item 33]
dilemma'd - (in a dilemma). OED gives three instances: 1656, 1698; then Poe's in "Marginalia" Introduction of 1844, CW:2:109 and 115, n. p: Like a novel-hero dilemma'd, I made up my mind "to be guided by circumstances." [P94.32 item 34]
dilettantesque - H:15.19, Literati, 1846: Gillespie's style is . . . occasionally flippant and dilettantesque; also, H:16.98, Marginalia, 1846: The style is . . . occasionally flippant and dilettantesque. Not in OED. [P74:26]
disconcert - (as a substantive obsolete and rare, meaning disunion, disagreement in action). OED gives 1668 and 1673 instances; then Poe's 1842"Masque of the Red Death," M:2.672/31: There was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; also, 2:673/9: the same disconcert . . . as before. [P94.32 item 35]
disenchain - H:4.8, "Eiros," 1839: disenchained frenzy of mankind. The first of two citations in OED. [P74:26]
dogmatician - (student or professor of dogmatics (a system of dogma, specifically dogmatic theology).) OED cites Poe's 1849 "Mellonta," M:3.1297/29: It would have puzzled these ancient dogmaticians (how) the most important . . . of all their truths was . . . attained. It omits the 1848 Eureka, H:16:196/27: puzzled these dogmaticians of a thousand years ago, to determine, even, by which of their two boasted roads . . . the cryptographist attains the so lution of the more complicated cyphers. The OED also cites Worcester's 1846 dictionary for a Quarterly Review instance (without text). [P94.32-33 item 36]
donkey-dom - O:2.313, 1846: (Benjamin Blake Minor is) the King of Donkey-Dom. OED gives only 1889 and 1890 instances. [P74:26]
dramaticism - O:2.311, 1846: its remarkable vigor and dramaticism. OED gives only 1878 and 1890 examples. [P74:26] Also in Poe's article on Robert T. Conrad in GM for June 1844, and reprinted only by J. E. Spannuth and T. O. Mabbott in Doings of Gotham (1929), p. 97: The proof of the dramatism is the capacity for representation (versus closet-drama). (Poe's italics indicate a self-imputed coinage.) OED gives only one instance, from the 1834 Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister, plus two (of 1880 and 1901) in its supplement. [P94.33 item 37]
dunderheadism - H:15.121, Literati, 1846: inconceivable dunderheadism; also, 2.xxxvi, "Introduction to Folio Club Tales," in Ms. until 1902: The Folio Club is . . . a mere Junto of Dunderheadism. Not in OED. [P74:26]
elocutionary - OED gives as first Poe's instance in the 1846 "Literati" sketch of Anna Mowatt in H:15:27: the elocutionary . . . value of her programmes (in recitations). It ignores the 1845 Broadway Journal review of H. B. Hirst, H:13:210: (Hirst's) poems . . . are . . . elocutionary rather than poetic. The next instances are for 1882,1884. [P94.33 item 38]
elocutionize - H:13.204, review, 1850: The author proceeds . . . to elocutionize. Given by OED as the earlier of its two examples. [P74:26]
enjewel - (verb; to adorn with jewels). OED cites only a 1648 Herrick "injewel'd" and then Poe's 1829 "Al Aaraaf," pt. II, ll. 134-35: the many star-isles / That enjewel its breast (of a lake), M:1.110. [P94.33 item 37]
enwrapped - OED gives three instances from 1545 to 1640, then Poe's for a review of E. B. Barrett, Broadway Journal of January 2, 1845; see CW:3:3/29-30: (Eve) is . . . enwrapped in a fog of rhapsody about Transfiguration. Not cited are these: M:2.610/15: He enwrapped in generalities (in "Colloquy of Monos and Una" of 1841); 2:682/1: the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls ("The Pit and the Pendulum" of 1842); 3:865/31: the half-slumberous fancies that enwrapped me ("Morning on the Wissahiccon" of 1843); and (as "enwrapt" ) 3:1279/29: enwraps in an exquisite sense of the strange ("The Domain of Arnheim" of 1847). also, with the added meaning for "enwrap from" of "conceal" given by OED (only of 1989) as first in Poe, "A Valentine" of 1846, M:1.389/2: her own sweet name . . . enwrapped from every reader. OED follows only with an 1883 instance of T. Hardy. [P94.40 item 37]
enwritten - Poems, p. 390, "A Valentine," 1846: Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering / Eyes scintillating soul . . .; also, Poems, p. 446, "To Helen," 1848: What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten / Upon those crystalline celestial spheres! OED gives an 1858 example as first. [P74:26]
epicists - Review in GLB, December 1845 (H:13.86): "Milton and the rest of the epicists." OED gives 1853 as the first instance. [P89:40]
epigrammatism - 1) GM, April 1842, review of Hawthorne's Tales (H:11.10): "Extreme brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism." 2) "Marginalia" No. 47, Democratic Review, December 1844 (CW 2:158): "its epigrammatism." 3) Poe's article on Robert T. Conrad, in the June 1844 GM, uncollected by Harrison, but given in Doings of Gotham (1929), page 96: "a certain precise epigrammatism." 4) "Literati" sketch of F. S. Osgood, in GLB of 1846: "the display of an epigrammatism." Only an 1813 instance, in a letter by Jane Austen, given a publication date of 1870 by OED, precedes Poe's instances. His italics are a customary sign of his self-assumed creation of the word. [P89:40]
epilepsis - H:2.164, "Loss of Breath," 1845 version: attacked, consequently, with epilepsis . . . they took me up for dead. Not in OED for this meaning (of catalepsy) or in this form (epilepsy comes from Greek epilepsia). [P74:26]
epilepsy (Poe's use for catalepsy), H:2.25, "Berenice," 1835: She had been seized with epilepsy. OED lists a 1794 "reverie is a disease of the Epileptic or Cataleptic kind," which may explain Poe's confusion. [P74:26]
especiality - Eureka, (paragraph 65), 1848 (H:16.217): "Gravity . . . beguiles mankind into the fancy of concentralization or especiality"; also, "the principle's essential . . . characteristics . . . not of . . . especiality but . . . " (the same locus). Poe is recreating a word with only one 1460 instance in the OED. But "speciality" was being used earlier in the nineteenth century.
extravaganzists - H:16.39, Marginalia, 1844: that school of extravaganzists who sprang from the ruins of Lamb. Not in OED. [P74:26]
extremeness - (the quality of being extreme.) OED cites 1530, 1609, 1727, then Poe's 1839 "Usher," M:2.413/16: even in the extremeness of the folly. OED omits M:2.1280/20: a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested dreams of a new race of fairies ("The Domain of Arnheim" of 1847). [P94.41 item 37]
fairier - Poems, p. 114, Al Aaraaf, 1829: But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd / Never his fairy wing o'er fairier world! Not in OED. [P74:26]
farcicalness - H:12.118, review of the play Fashion, 1845: "without any compensating incongru ousness that is to say, farcicalness, or humor." First date in OED is 1864. [P83:40]
fatigability - H:15.197, Autography, 1841: this trait denotes fatigability, also, H:15.237, Autography, 1841: fatigability of temper. OED supplement gives it for 1913 and 1919 only. [P74:27]
faucial - (of or pertaining to the fauces or throat, of a flower or a person.) OED gives 1807 first, for the Annual Register; then Poe's in the 1840 "William Wilson," M:2.433/29: My rival had a weakness in the faucial or guttural organs. Next is an 1845 instance. Later a variant, "faucal," was used in 1864, 1876, 1883, 1884. [P94.42 item 37]
festival-ing (as a verbal noun), Doings of Gotham, p. 42, 1844: in their fete-ing and festival-ing of Dickens. Not in OED. [P74:27]
fillogram (nonce spelling of filigrane), Doings of Gotham, p. 48, 1844: fillogram articles in great variety. Not in OED. [P74:27]
finicky - (trifling, scrupulously particular, fastidious, over-nice). OED gives this as dialectal, as in the 1825 Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, or U.S., for the latter (in its supplement only) giving Poe's as first, i.e., 1839 "The Devil in the Belfry," M:2.370/32: the most finnicky little personage . . . ever . . . seen in "Vonder votteimittiss." N.B.: The OED does not give the alternate spelling, allowed for other cognate terms, such as "finnical," and used by Poe in six printings of his tale. Nor does it cite the instance in the 1836 "Autography" (with standard spelling), M:2.268/18: The MS. is of a petite and finicky appearance. [P94.33 item 43]
fizzitistical (coined root word), H:4.310, "Never Bet," 1841: Mr. Emerson would have called (his manner of enunciation) hyper-fizzitistical. Not in OED. [P74:27]
fluidiform - H:2.40, "Lionizing," 1835: He informed us all about . . . fluidiforms. OED gives only an adjective form of 1887. [P74:27]
flumflummery - H:9.17, review, 1836: Mrs. Trollope's book of flumflummery about . . . the Union. Not in OED. Apparently a portmanteau pun on flimflam (to trick) and flummery (nonsense). [P80:85]
frontispiecial - BJ:1.282, uncollected article ascribed to Poe in O:1.294: frontispiecial exemplar. Not in OED. [P80:85]
gemmary (or gemmery) - (no. 1: a jewel-house, obs.; no. 2: gems as object of connoisseurship, rare.) OED gives only Poe's, M:3:1257/10: In painting and gemmary Fortunato . . . was a quack ("Cask of Amontillado" of 1846). [P94.33-34 item 40]
ghastily - H:4.318, "Oval Portrait," 1842 printing: light which fell so ghastily (changed to "ghastlily" in 1845). This may be an uncorrected printer's error. OED offers one citation from Mrs. Browning, 1844. [P80:85]
gobletful (and goblet-ful in 1840), H:2.263, "Ligeia," 1838: poured out a gobletful. OED gives an 1883 example as earliest. [P74:27]
goosetherumfoodle - H:15.71, Literati, 1846: Only in the final couplet of goosetherumfoodle (he) makes use of the obsolete terminations of verbs. . . . Cf. Poe's use as magazine title in "Thingum Bob," 1844. Not in OED. [P74:27]
graphicality - H:15.75, review, 1846: Many of the descriptions in this volume are unrivalled for graphicality, (why is there not such a word?). Not in OED. [P74:27]
grotesquerie (Poe's usage of old word meaning only grotesque objects collectively), H:4.102, "Mystification," 1840: grotesquerie (of Tieck); also H:4.180, "Murders R. M.," 1841: a grotesquerie in horror; also, H:5.79, "Pit," 1843: the grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths; also H:12.216, review, 1845: the richest grotesquerie; and also brilliant grotesquerie; also H:12.234, review, 1845: grotesquerie . . . referred to the vivid Fancy (of Hood); also H:16.178, Marginalia, 1849 (rep. of H:12.216 above). OED gives five later instances with Poe's meaning. [P74:27]
hackneyism - H:12.117, review, 1845: Their (playwrights') hackneyism is no longer to be endured. Not in OED. [P74:27]
heiress-ship (by analogy with heir-ship), H:9.186, review, 1836: without consulting her Heiress-ship about the matter. OED gives, as nonce words, only examples of 1862 and 1889. [P74:27] Used also by Bulwer-Lytton in Paul Clifford (1830), ch. 17: freshness of heiress-ship.
helter-skelter-iness - H:16.3, Marginalia, 1844: their helter-skelter-iness of commentary amused me. Only instance in OED. [P74:27]
hemi-syncope - H:5.265, "Premature Burial," 1844: hemi-syncope or half-swoon. Not in OED. [P74:27]
homelinesses (in the plural only), H:8.135, review, 1836: in the homelinesses (if we may be permitted the word,) and in the most familiar realities of existence. OED gives no example of the plural. [P74:28]
homo-cameleopard - H:2.203, "Four Beasts," 1845 version of subtitle. Not in OED. [P74:28]
homoomeria (and homoömeria), H:2.38 and 326, "Lionizing," 1835 and 1840: He spoke of . . . primitive intelligence and homoömeria. Not in OED. [P74:28]
horrorless - H:5.174, "Ragged Mountains," 1844: an uneasy, and not altogether horrorless curiosity respecting yourself. Not in OED. [P74:28]
humblily - Poems, p. 393, 1848, "Model Verses": Virginal Lilian, rigidly, humblily, dutiful. Not in OED. [P74:28]
hyper-classical - H:8.105, review, 1835: hyper-classical an 1844 first instance. [P80:86]
hyper-democratic - GM 18:296, uncollected review, June 1841: hyper-democratic allusions to the "moral dignity" of low life. Not in OED. [P80:86]
hyperexcursive - H:16.39, Marginalia, 1844: The harum-scarum, hyperexcursive mannerism is carried to an excess. . . . Only instance in OED. [P74:28]
hyper-exquisite - H:6.232, "X-ing a Paragrab," 1849: the hyper-exquisite delicacy of him. Not in OED. [P74:28]
hyper-fanciful - H:15.186, Autography, 1841: poet's flighty, hyper-fanciful character. Not in OED. [P74:28]
hyper-fizzistical - H:4.310, "Never Bet," (first version of tale) 1841: A manner of enunciation . . . which Mr. Emerson (would have called) hyper-fizzistical. (Replaced in revision of 1845 by hyperquizzistical, q.v.). Not in OED. [P74:28]
hyperobtrusive - H:6.49, "Purloined Letter," 1845: hyperobtrusive situation of this document. Listed by OED with no date or citation. [P74:28]
hyper-patriotic - H:15.50, Literati, 1846: hyper-patriotic triumph. Not in OED. [P74:28] Also H:11.15, review, 1842: hyper-patriotic triumph. [P80:90]
hyper-patriots - H:9.17, review, 1836: that atra-bilious set of hyper-patriots. Not in OED. [P80:86]
hyperquizzitistical - H:4.218, "Never Bet," (BJ revision of tale) 1845: A manner of enunciation . . . which Mr. Emerson (would have called) hyperquizzitistical. (Replaced hyper-fizzistical in first version of tale, q.v.). Not in OED. [P74:28]
hyper-rhetorical - BGM:5.114, uncollected review, August 1839: turgid style, Not in OED. [P80:86]
hyper-ridiculous - H:11.115, review, 1842: Carlyle's hyper-ridiculous elisions in prose. Listed as a form in OED with no citation. [P74:28]
hyperism - H:16.8, Marginalia, 1844: Nothing . . . is so offensive as mere hyperism; also, H:12.167 and 179, review, 1845: the pedantry of hyperism; (and) the alliteration is . . . an instance of the hyperism; also repeated in H:13.209, a Griswold substitute text of 1850 for H:12.167: hyperism, or exaggeration; also H:13.186, review, 1849: Nothing. . . more vexes the true taste . . . than hyperism (repeated, H:15.283). Not in OED. [P74:28]
hysteria - (no. 2 under entry of "hysteria," the first being limited to "hysterics" in popular parlance, this being Morbidly excited condition; unhealthy emotion or excitement. Transferred and figurative meaning from medical or pathological usage.") OED gives Poe's as first, M:2.412/10: a species of mad hilarity in his eyes an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor ("Fall of the House of Usher" of 1839). [P94.34 item 48]
imitativeness - OED wrongly gives Harriet Martineau, cited in Worcester's 1846 dictionary, as first and Poe's "l849" (sic) "Literati" sketch of Hirst as second (3:209). In reality, Poe published "non-imitativeness" in the August 1845 "Marginalia" entry (no. 131, q.v. in CW:2:232). The OED is citing a sketch published by Griswold in his 1850 edition of Poe's works (with the assigned date of 1849), but the text was left edited, by Poe for posthumous publication, and was based on Poe's review of Hirst's collection of poems in the Broadway Journal of 12 July 1845, CW:3:162/31. His review has this context: His other defects . . . (include) a far more than occasional imitativeness (H:12:167/10). Revised, in Griswold's edition, this became: His chief sin is imitativeness. [P94.34 item 49]
immassive - H:11.107, review, 1842: Immassive bodies . . . lack momentum. Not in OED. [P74:28]
imparticularity - H:16.255, Eureka, 1848: the tendency of the atoms to return into imparticularity. Not in OED. [P74:29] Also, H:16:207, Eureka, 1848: "Here, the Reason flies . . . to Imparticularity to a particle . . . without form and void." [P89:40-41]
inacumen - H:16.266, Eureka, 1848: ancient imagination intertangled with modern inacumen. Not in OED. [P74:29]
inadaptation - H:11.257, review, 1844: always shallow and unsatisfactory (as from the mere inadaptation of the vehicle it must be). OED gives only an 1855 example. [P74:29]
inadapted - H:10.121, review, 1841: Narratives are inadapted to that . . . adjustment of incident. Not in OED. [P74:29]
inartistical - review, 1841, not in Harrison but in 1856 Redfield Works, 2.226: The rhythm lapses, in the most inartistical manner; also, H:13.65, review, 1845: How wofully inartistical is this. First example in OED. [P74:29] Also, Review, Broadway Journal of January 4, 1845 (H:12.119; also CW 3:68/24): "these monstrous inartisticalities" of dramatic narrative. [P89:42]
inartisticality - H:13.53, review, 1845: inartisticality (of dramatic asides). Only example in OED. [P74:29]
inception - (no. 3 in OED. the action of taking in, as an organism). The only instance of this meaning in the OED is from Poe's "Marie R.," M:3.741/30: The result is the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water into the lungs. [P94.34 item 50]
incidentful - The word is not in OED. In Poe's "The American Drama" in the August 1845 Whig Review, H:13:60/2: This . . . eventful or incidentful love is the true thesis of the drama of Cervantes (La Gitanilla). [P94.34 item 51]
inconsequence - (no. 2a. Want of sequence or natural connexion of ideas, actions or events; irrelevance). Poe's is the first instance with this meaning (followed by 1846 and 1865 instances). OED gives the 1842 Mystery of Marie Roget," M:3.743/10: This paragraph must now appear a tissue of inconsequence and incoherence. OED omits an earlier instance, in the uncollected review of Marryat's The Phantom Ship in BGM:4.359, June 1839: evidence . . . of an inconsequence of narration. [P94.34 item 52]
incorporate - (without body or substance; incorporeal). OED gives instances of 1540, 1598, 1618, 1661; then Poe's in the 1840 "Sonnet Silence" (M:1.322/1): There are some qualities some incorporate things, / That have a double life. [P94.34 item 53]
indecora - O:2.379, 1848: the minor indecora of reviewing a book without reading it. Not in OED. [P74:29]
indefinitiveness (chiefly of music), H:10.41-43, review, 1839: a certain wild license and indefinitiveness; the ratio of its definitiveness; the indefinitiveness which is . . . one of the essentials of true music: also, H:10.92, review, 1840: an indefinitiveness about these causes; also, H:10.144, review, 1841: indefinitiveness of purpose; also, H:16.28, Marginalia, 1844: a suggestive indefinitiveness of meaning; also, H:13.10, essay, 1845: apology for the "indefinitiveness"; also, H:13.78, review, 1845: gross indefinitiveness . . . of execution; also, H:16.136-138, Marginalia, 1849; the three items of 1839 are repeated. OED gives the 1844 entry as its sole citation. [P74:29] Also H:16.29, Marginalia, 1844: indefinitiveness . . . of the true music. [P80:90]
indicial - H:10.68, review, 1840: (Moore's) renown . . . is strongly indicial of his deficiency; also, H:16.27, Marginalia, 1844: 1840 text repeated. OED gives 1858 and 1895 instances only. [P74:29] Also BGM:5.330, uncollected review, December 1839: its indicial . . . character. [P80:90]
indistinctive - (without distinctive character or features; not markedly different from others). OED gives, as first citation (followed by 1861, 1864) Poe's "William Kirkland" in the 1846 "Literati," H:15:24/32: features indistinctive. [P94.34 item 54]
indrawing (as gerund), H:16.307, Eureka, 1848: vorticial indrawing of the orbs. OED gives only a Middle English example of Trevisa, although it is common as a present participle. [P74:29]
inequability - Eureka (paragraph 175), 1848 (H:16.269): "Thus the increase of inequability" indicates "the tendency to One." Poe's "revival" of a rare, obsolete word of 1582 (the only OED instance), but note the allied form,"inequableness," in the 1727 Bailey's dictionary. [P89:41]
inequidistance - H:16.227, Eureka, 1848: inequidistance . . . among the originally diffused atoms. OED gives only inequidistant of 1677. [P74:29] Also, Eureka, 1848. 1) Paragraph 50 (H:16.208-210; several instances): Absolute inequidistance, each from each"; also, "on account of particular inequidistance . . . to be comprehended as particular inequidistances between centres of quantity"; also, "particular inequidistance"; also, "absolute particular inequidistance of each from each." 2) Paragraph 131) (H:16.244): The subsequent particular in equidistance" of all the atoms. 3) Paragraph 173 (H:16.268): "particular inequidistance." Note that Poe uses the OED 1677 form "inequidistant" in paragraph 50 (H:16.208). [P89:42]
inessentiality - H:11.74, review, 1842: the inessentiality of rhythm; also, H:16.204, Eureka, 1848: the inessentiality, of its solution. OED gives only an 1890 instance. [P74:29]
inorganization - H:3.286, "Usher," 1839: the kingdom of inorganization. Given as first in OED. [P74:29]
involute - OED gives instances of 1669, 1690, 1837 (Carlyle, Miscellaneous Essays), then Poe's April 1841 "Murders R. M.," M:2.528/29: The possible moves (in chess) being not only manifold, but involute, the ch ances of such oversight are multiplied. [P94.34 item 55]
irrecognisable - (incapable of being recognized; unrecognizable). OED gives two instances: 1837, Carlyle, French Revolution; Poe, 1845, "American Drama," H:13:66/1: That a lover may so disguise his voice from his mistress as even to render his person in full view irrecognisable. [P94.34 item 56]
irredeemable - (for this usage only, that admits of no release or change of state; absolute, fixed, hopeless). OED gives as first Poe's 1839 "Usher," M:2.401/18: an air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all. OED omits "Ligeia" of 1838, 2:328/26: (her) relapse was only into a sterner and . . . more irredeemable death; also, Maelström" of 1841, 2:579/33: character of irredeemable gloom. [P94.34 item 57]
irreducible - (that cannot be reduced to a simpler or more intelligible form, . . . of being resolved into elements, or of being brought under any recognized law or principle). OED makes Poe's the first for "Hans Pfaall" of 1835, CW:1:393/36: a constituent of azote, so long considered irreducible. See also "Imp of the Perverse" of 1845, M:3.1219/4: a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment. OED also gives non-Poe instances of 1841, 1868, 1871. [P94.35 item 58]
irrelation - H:16.227, Eureka, 1848: the evident design of infinite complexity of relation out of irrelation. OED gives an 1848 "first" instance from De Quincey. [P74:30] Also, Eureka (paragraph 126), 1848 (H:16.241): "My particle proper is but absolute Irrelation." [P89:42]
kaleidoscopal, H:9.83, review, 1836: A kaleidoscopal freshness. Not in OED. Poe's unique variant for 1840 kaleidoscopic and 1858 kaleidoscopical. [P74:30]
lachrymatory - H:2.152, "Loss of Breath," 1835; also in "A Decided Loss" of 1832 (Tales, p. 54): lachrymatory fancies. First instance in OED, but with date of 1849. [P80:86]
Lakist - (a member or adherent of the "Lake School" of poetry; a Lake poet), OED cites for 1822 New Monthly Magazine, 5:546; then Poe's 1842 review of Stanley Thorn by H. Cockton, H:11:12: The cant of the Lakists would . . . make the end of all pleasure instruction. [P94.35 item 60]
legended - "Ulalume" (line 79), 1847: "On the door of the legended tomb" (with the meaning of "bearing a legend or inscription"). In this usage, OED gives it to Poe as first instance. [P89:41]
literature-ism - H:10.46, review, 1839: His eye will be arrested by a certain air of literature-ism (we must be permitted to coin an odd word for an odd occasion). Not in OED. [P74:30]
litten - (pseudo-archaic past participle of light, initiated by Poe), Poems, p. 109, Al Aaraaf, 1829: To duty beseeming / These star-litten hours; also, H:2.380, "Silence" (first called "Siope"), 1838; and was litten by the light of the moon; also, Poems, p. 316-318, "Haunted Palace," 1839: And travellers. . . / Through the red-litten windows see; also, H:14.105 (and Poems, p. 318, note to H:1.42 of "Haunted Palace"), "Philosophy of Furniture," 1840: glass chandeliers. . . gas-litten, and without shade. OED gives only "Usher" instance plus four more: 1861 of Lytton and Fane, 1870 of Morris, 1896 of Crockett, and 1899 of Blackwood's. [P74:30] Also H:4.288, "Man of the Crowd," 1840 version: a square brilliantly litten. [P80:90]
logicalize - H:16.37, Marginalia, 1844: Your true logician gets, in time, to be logicalized, and then. . . the universe is one word; also H:16.88, Marginalia, 1846: The thought is logicalized by the effort at (written) expression. OED gives Poe's second use as its only citation. [P74:30]
logicalization - H:16.87, Marginalia, 1846: logicalization of thought. The only instance of the word in OED. [P74:30]
lorgnon (first use as English term of this French word), H:9.20, review, 1836: eyeing him nonchalantly through a lorgnon (perhaps Poe's confusion with lorgnette). OED omits Poe's, giving 1846, 1848, and 1896, all meaning opera glasses. [P74:30]
lustra and lustrum - (period of five years). OED gives instances of 1590, 1601, 1666, 1680, 1742 (Young); then, Poe,"Morella," 1835 and 1845, M:2.235: Thus passed away two lustra of her life (lustrums in 1835 version). OED omits for Poe: "Metzengerstein" of 1832, 2:20/fn. (var. form): lustrum; "A Decided Loss" of 1832, 2:59/11: 2nd lustrum; "Loss of Breath" (the new version of 1835), 2:61/6: second lustrum; "William Wilson" of 1839, 2:430/21: third lustrum; "Eleonora" of 1841, 2:640/18: third lustrum; "Monos and Una" of 1841, 2:616/33: many lustra; "Three Sundays" of 1841, 2:653/fn. (var. form): lustrum (replaced by "fifth olympiad" in 1845); "Literary Life" of 1844, 3:1135/8: first lustrum. [P94.35 item 62]
macaroni - (penguin). (so called because its crest was thought to resemble the coiffure of the "macaronies," whose head-dress is shown in a print of 1777, mentioned in the OED article). This term, like "break-bones" (q.v.) and "peterel" (q.v.) is borrowed by Poe from B. Morrell's Narrative of Four Voyages (1832) for use in Pym (1838), with no "credit" given by the OED editorial readers to Morrell; CW:1:151/23 and 294, note to paragraph 14.10B: The other kinds (of penguins) are the macaroni, the jackass, and the rookery penguin. (N.B. OED uses the spelling of "macaroni" found in Griswold's text of 1856). [P94.35 item 63]
Maelström - OED gives various forms in its citations, all save Poe's without an umlaut: 1682, 1701, 1755, and later. Poe only uses this spelling in "Descent into the Maelström" of 1841, M:2.577 and 594, but in his manuscript "Reviewer Reviewed" he refers to this whirlpool off the coast of Norway as "Maelstroom" (M:3.1380/7 and 1381/29). This, perhaps, reflects his knowing its Dutch origin (as a name) on Mercator's 1595 Atlas. I suggest that his first printing of this tale in the May 1841 GM may have determined his umlaut usage, since the journal lacked type font for the Scandinavian "slashed o" or "o-bar" used in his sources, such as Pontoppidan's Natural History of Norway, basis for the Encyclopaedia Britannica article (1:576), his main source. The same holds true for Poe's "Moskoe-ström," used ten times in the tale"s derived from a "midway-isl and" and"s a synonym for the whirlpool. This derives from Pontoppidan's account, q.v. in the OED citation, under 1755. [P94.35 item 64]
magazine-ward - H:16.117, Marginalia, 1846: The whole tendency of the age is Magazine-ward. Not in OED. [P74:30]
magnetoesthetics - H:5.177, "Spectacles," 1844. See J. Moldenhauer, Studies in the American Renaissance: 1977, p. 221, for the spelling. Context: "Modern discoveries . . . in . . . ethical magnetism of magnetoesthetics [reveal] . . . the human affections. . . arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy." Not in OED. [P80:86]
mal-arranged - H:16.49, Marginalia, 1844: ills of mal-arranged marriage. Not in OED, but cf. 1853 and 1865 malarrangement. See also Poe's "ill-arranged." [P74:30]
mal-instruction - H:11.78, mal-instruction, review, 1842: The mind does not lament its mal-instruction. Not in OED. [P74:30]
maliceful - H:3.293, "Usher," 1839: an obstinate and maliceful turn. First of two examples in OED. [P74:31]
manuscript - (a person's "hand" or handwriting, rather than the document), OED gives only two examples, Poe's first (before an 1853 instance): "Purloined Letter" of 1844, M:3.993/24: He is well acquainted with my MS. OED omits Poe's "Blackwood Article" of 1845, 2:339: When manuscript can be read it is never worth reading (the editor's sarcasm). (N.B.: The 1838 version reads, When a manuscript . . . ). [P94.35 item 65]
marginalic - H:16.2, Marginalia, 1844: a model of manners, with a richly marginalic air. Given by OED as a nonce word. [P74:31]
markedness - H:15.115, Literati, 1846: the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing. Given by OED as earlier of two instances. [P74:31]
maziness - Poems, p. 134, "To the River," 1829: The playful maziness of art. OED gives 1847 and 1857 as earliest. [P74:31]
melodramaticism - H:11.102, review, 1842: cut-and-thrust blue-blazing melodramaticisms; also, H:15.188, Literati, 1846: blue-fire, melodramaticism. OED gives only an 1878 instance. [P74:31]
metaphysicianism - H:2.358, "Loss of Breath," 1835: absurd metaphysicianism of . . . Schelling; also, H:12.33, review, 1845: metaphysicianism of Coleridge; also, H:6.145, "Imp," 1845: Phrenology, and . . . metaphysicianism have been concocted à priori; also, H:16.150, Marginalia, 1849: anomalous metaphysicianism of Coleridge. Not in OED. [P74:31]
misadmeasurement - H:6.242, "Sphinx," 1845: through mere misadmeasurement of its propinquity. Only instance in OED. [P74:31]
mispunctuate - (in Poe, spelled mis-punctuate). OED cites Poe's as first, for "Marginalia" no. 197 of 1848, CW:2:325: the writer who . . . mis-punctuates, is liable to be misunderstood. But see also the OED citation of mispunctuation of 1807 (Southey) with the next instance being 1897 (also see Poe's "mispunctuations abound" in a footnote to his January 4, 1845 Broadway Journal review of E. B. Barrett, CW:3:2). [P94.35-36 item 67]
monody - (OED no. 4: monotonous sound, monotonousness of sound, quoting the Century Dictionary), Given as first is "Their monody compels, from "The Bells" of 1849, M:1.437/72. Not cited is Poe's earlier instance in form B of "The Bells" (1. 11) and form C (1. 12) both of 1848: How horrible a monody there floats / From their throats. OED cites 1885 next. [P94.36 item 68]
mosaically - (in a mosaic manner). OED gives first a 1614 instance and then Poe's, from the Broadway Journal 1 (29 March 1845): 196, q.v. in CW:3:61/83: (The poem) is made up mosaically, from the death scene . . . in "Lear." OED cites next an 1856 instance. [P94.36 item 69]
motivirt and motivert - (Poe's mistaken German for "motiviert" (motivated). His error occurs with the affix "ill" and once with "well," q.v. under "List II: Compound Words") Newly added instances: 1) "Imp of the Perverse," July 1845 (M3.1220): "a motive not motivirt"; 2) article on Robert Conrad, "Our Contributors No. XII," GM, June 1844 (collected only in T. O. Mabbott and Jacob E. Spannuth, eds., Doings of Gotham (Pottsville, Pa., 1929), p. 98): "The whole is exceedingly well 'motivert' " (we note Poe's italics as for a self-credited coinage). [P89:42]
multicolor - H:4.265, "Landscape Garden," 1842: multicolor of the flower; H:6.182, "Arnheim," 1847: multicolor of the flower. Only instance in OED. [P74:31]
multiform (as a substantive), H:4.265, "Landscape Garden," 1842: the multiform of the tree; H:6.182, "Arnheim," 1847: the multiform of the tree. First instance in OED. [P74:31]
mystific - H:4.105, "Mystification," 1837: The habitual mystific escape(s) the natural consequence . . . (also in 1837 title "Von Jung the Mystific"). Only instance in OED. [P74:31]
mystifique - H:4.104, "Mystification," 1837 (H. gives 1840 as first): his art mystifique, lay in that . . . ability (H. incorrectly prints "mystique"). This "French" word, not known in that tongue, is coined by Poe. Not in OED. [P80:86]
nare - a nonce-word, perhaps based on the archaic nare or nostril, H:2.180 (and see 370), "King Pest," Griswold's 1850 variation of the word nature in earlier texts: the incomprehensible qualities and nare; H:5.211, "Diddling," 1843: what constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling; H:14.151, "Byron and Miss Chaworth," 1844: whatever of the truer nare and essentiality of romance; H:16.137, Marginalia, 1849: its more delicate nare. OED omits the meaning and examples. [P74:31] Also in H:10.42, review, 1839: its most delicate nare; and Griswold's ed. of Marginalia, 1850, no. CCXIV: delicate nare. Poe derived it from "näre" in the "Palace of Wines" chapter in Vivian Grey by Disraeli. [P80:90]
naturalism (old word with new meaning), H:12.188, review, 1845: Indeed the great charm of the whole acting of Mrs. Mowatt is its naturalism. OED gives 1850 for first example of this meaning in the arts and in criticism. [P74:31]
nebulist (first use with scientific sense), H:16.262, Eureka, 1848: the strongholds of the nebulists. OED gives an 1836 instance for a vague-minded person, but only 1890 for application to science. [P74:32]
negrophilic - The Aristidean, p. 131, uncollected Article XI, "Longfellow's Poems," March 1845: "The first volume is entitled 'Poems on Slavery,' and is . . . for . . . those negrophilic old ladies of the north, who form so large a part of Mr. Longfellow's friends." Not in OED, but see "negrophil" or "negrophile: a friend of the negroes" of 1803 (Edinburgh Review). Longfellow himself is credited with "negrophilist" of 1842 (see OED) and there is a "negrophobia" of 1819. [P83:40]
niggerless - H:2.295, "A Predicament," 1838: niggerless, dogless, headless. Not in OED. [P74:32]
no-color - "Fifty Suggestions" No. 1, GM, July 1849 (H:16.170; also, CW 2:475): The item's first sentence is about white as emblem of the Pure, but "the no-color, black" is not held "typical of Impurity." OED gives only "the no colour plaster" for Ezra Pound, in 1930; cf. however "no-colored" for 1895 and 1916 in OED. [P89:41]
non-admeasurement - H:6.41, "Purloined Letter," 1844: through non-admeasurement, of the intellect. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-committalism - Morgan Library manuscript, "The Living Writers of America" of 1846-1847 (?), from footnote on the third leaf (unpublished; my facsimile and annotated transcription forthcoming in Studies in the American Renaissance): touch upon the criticism in vogue, which . . . deals in vague generalities . . . Non-Committalism." OED gives it as coming from the U. S. with a political ambiance, and with instances of use on the dates of 1855, 1859, and 1891. [P89:41]
nonconvulsive - H:16.40, Marginalia, 1844: Incongruity is the principle of all nonconvulsive laughter. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-enjoyment - H:16.28, Marginalia, 1844: by the enjoyment or non-enjoyment of the "Morte D'Arthur." Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-epistolary - H:15.143, Autography, 1836: in a style epistolary and non-epistolary. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-execrable - H:16.44, Marginalia, 1844: non-execrable barbaric attempts at imitation. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-identity - H:16.12, Marginalia, 1844: a non-identity between herself and her book. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-imitativeness - H:16.72, Marginalia, 1845: direct ratio of its non-imitativeness. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-increasing - H:16.247, Eureka, 1848: non-increasing centripetal (force). OED gives only a 1677 substantive non-increase. [P74:32]
non-luminosity - H:16.295, Eureka, 1848: non-luminosity of . . . orb; also H:6.210 in "Mellonta Tauta," 1849: the suggestion of non-luminosity. Not in OED, which gives an 1831 non-luminous and 1834 luminosity. [P80:86]
non-peculiarity - H:12.80, "Longfellow War," 1845: The mind reverts . . . to their peculiarity or non-peculiarity. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-perspective - H:16.299, Eureka, 1848: non-perspective motions of the stars. Not in OED. [P80:86]
non-prevalence - H:10.12, review, 1837: non-prevalence of his belief. Not in OED. [P74:32]
non-reasoning - H:14.200, essay, 1846: a non-reasoning creature. Not in OED. [P74:32]
nonsensicalities (first use in plural), H:15.70, Literati, 1846: flat, irremediable, self-contented nonsensicalities. OED gives an 1850 Hawthorne use as first for the plural and 1702 Cotton Mather use for the singular. [P74:32]
normality - (the character or state of being normal.) OED gives as first Poe's use (followed by 1866, 1896 instances) in Eureka, 1848, H:16:233: in a position of positive normality or rightfulness. See also in the same paragraph: any deviation from normality involves a tendency to return to it. See also in paragraph 111 (p. 235): The atoms desire "that condition which is their normality" (Poe italicizes the whole for emphasis). [P94.36 item 72]
notabilities (first for persons), O:2.310, 1846: Other notabilities will be present. OED gives an 1851 first use, and 1470 for "notable facts." [P74:32]
obtusity - (the quality of being obtuse; obtuseness; dullness, insensibility, stupidity). OED gives, as first, Scott's Familiar Letters (for 1823; published 1894); then Poe's review of Dickens's Barnaby Rudge of 1842, H:11.62: His combined conceit and obtusity are . . . droll. [P94.36 item 73]
octameter - (adjective: consisting of eight measures or feet; as substantive, a verse of eight measures or feet). In OED Poe is cited first for "The Philosophy of Composition," of April 1846, H:14:203: "The metre of the 'Raven' . . . is octameter acatalectic, alternating with heptameter catalectic." (Probably eighteenth century texts on prosody would yield an earlier example). [P94.36 item 74]
odorless - OED gives Poe"s first in "Hans Pfaall" of 1835, CW:1:394/2: It is tasteless, but not odorless. OED gives as next 1859, 1879. [P94.36 item 75]
o-ing - (to use the letter o), H:6.231, "X-ing a Paragrab," 1849: Wonder if this o-ing is a habit of his? OED gives a 1627 use, as a verb, to spangle. [P74:32]
omni-color - "Fifty Suggestions," GM, May 1849 (H:16.170; also CW2:475): The omni-color, white." Not in OED. [P89:41]
omniprevalent and omni-prevalent - Evening Mirror, review of "Longfellow's Waif," January 13, 1845: "The single feather is imperfectly illustrative of the omniprevalent darkness"; reprinted in GLB, August 1845, as No. 134 of "Marginalia" (H:16.73) with "here" inserted after "feather" and the hyphen in "omniprevalent." Credited to Poe as first by OED, when it means "universally prevalent," although Fuller in 1661 used it for "having all power or influence." [P83:40] Also, Eureka, 1848: 1) Paragraph 71 (H:16.219): "a sympathy so omniprevalent." 2) Paragraph 135 (H:16.253): "the omniprevalent law of gravity." 3) Paragraph 255 (H:16.311): "that omniprevalent law of laws." [P89:42]
opal'd - Poems, p. 101, Al Aaraaf, 1829: And all the opal'd air in color bound. OED gives this as sole example. [P74:32]
oracularities (first use in the plural), H:13.195, essay, 1850: curt oracularitics of the Emersons. OED gives early singular form, but Poe's as first in the plural, with corresponding difference in meaning. [P74:33]
ormolu'd - H:14.106, essay, 1840: or-molu'd cabinets. OED does not give it as a verb or participle. [P74:33]
ornateness - (the quality of being ornate). OED first gives a 1668 instance and then Poe's, 1842, in a review of Rufus Dawes, H:11:142: a well disciplined ornateness of language. [P94.36 item 76]
orphicism - H:11.7, "Exordium," 1842: Has it (criticism) any objection to Orphicism, or Dialism, or Emersonism. . . ? also, H:11.189, essay, 1843: more profound than the Orphicism of Alcott. OED gives the second as the only example of this spelling and equates it with orphism, with dates of 1880 and 1884. [P74:33]
orphicist - H:11.252-253, review, 1844: the Orphicist thus replies; and we never yet met the Orphicist. . . . OED gives only an Orphic, of 1897 and 1899. [P74:33]
ostracology (for conchology), H:14.95, The Conchologist's First Book, Preface, 1839: Ostracology would have been more definite (than conchology). OED lists it, as in Mayne's Expository Lexicon, of 1860, which has no date or citation. The word does not appear in earlier dictionaries of scientific terms, consulted. [P74:33]
outbringing - H:11.108 and H:13.152, reviews, 1842 and 1847: the outbringing of this effect. In OED are no instances of a verbal noun and only three of the verb, dated from 1200 to 1623. [P80:86]
oven-full - H:2.131, "Bon-Bon," 1835: Here lay an oven-full of the latest ethics. Not in OED. [P74:33]
overscore - (to score over, cover with scores, cuts, or deleting lines; to obliterate by scoring across.) OED gives Poe's as first for "The Assignation" of 1832, M:2.163/23: originally written London, and afterwards carefully overscored . . . to conceal the word. OED omits two more Poe instances: "Autography," 1836,2:264/37: The dates were overscored; and "Oblong Box," 1844, 3:923/13: the words . . . had been first written and then overscored. OED lists next 1855, 1875. [P94.36 item 77]
oversprinkle - (to sprinkle over, besprinkle.) OED first gives two sixteenth-century instances and then Poe's with the wrong date of 1849. See "The Bells" of 1848, M:1.435/6: While the stars that oversprinkle / All the Heavens. [P94.36 item 78]
o-wy - H:6.232, "X-ing a Paragrab," 1849: He would be as O-wy as O-wy could be (full of o's). Not in OED. [P74:33]
pants - This shortened form of "pantaloons" was given in the 1971 edition of the OED as "a vulgar abbreviation . . . (chiefly U.S.)" with a first instance of 1846 in an O. W. Holmes work. However, Mabbott correctly notes, in American Notes & Queries 5 (March 1967): 107, that Poe's use, in the Feb. 1840 "Peter Pendulum, the Business Man," antedates citations known to lexicographers," and repeats the point in M:2.492, n. 9. Poe first wrote "new- touch strapped pants" in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. Subsequently, the 1987 supplement to the OED removed all stigma from the word: "no longer 'chiefly U.S.' now used for trousers worn by either men or women, and no longer considered vulgar." Poe's is the first recorded instance, a half year ahead of a news item instance, taken from the August 12, 1840 New Orleans Daily Picayune by Craigie's Dictionary of American English. Poe appears also to have coined (or first used in print) the compound word "new-touch," which is given by no lexicon of British or American speech, including those recording dialectal or slang forms. He clarifies his meaning in the tale's Broadway Journal printing of August, 2 1845, altering this word to "new-style," which is likewise an apparent Poe coinage, appearing in no lexicon of any type. There are therefore three Poe "coinages" in this item. [P94.36-37 item 78a]
paragraphism - H:15.60, Literati, 1846: a brevity that degenerated into mere paragraphism. First of two examples in OED. [P74:33]
parallelipedal - H:4.91, "Rodman," 1840: stones . . . usually square . . . always parallelipedal. Not in OED; perhaps an error for parallelipipedal. [P74:33]
paraphrasical - H:8.109, review, 1835: species of invention, the paraphrasical. Not in OED, which gives a rare or obs. paraphrastical. [P80:86]
parfumerie - (a factory which produces, or a (department of a) shop which sells perfume; in French). The OED (1987 supplement) seems to credit Poe with attempting to English this French word in "Marie R.," for which it used, most unusually, not Griswold's Works of Poe, but the first printing in the Dec. 1842 relevant text in Snowden's Ladies' Companion. Strangely, it dipped into one of the alleged newspaper accounts, which has not yet been verified in an actual source text: Marie's "disappearance . . . from the parfumerie" ( M:3.753/6). Since normally Poe italicized words either if they were of foreign origin or if he thought their substance, form or use were his innovation, we cannot be sure of his agreement with the editorial choice of the OED for this insertion, now followed by citations for 1855, 1951 (both without italics) and 1970, 1977 (both with italics). Poe himself changed two instances of "parfumerie" to "perfumery" in the tale for his revision in the 1845 Tales, to wit: 3:725/fn. (var. form) and 726/fn. (var. form), but preserved his original "parfumerie" in a later instance for one of the "French newspaper" ("Le Mercurie" ) accounts: "during the week of her absence from Le Blanc's parfumerie" (3:753/16). [P94.37 item 79]
parti-striped - H:6.168, "Cask of Amontillado," 1846: parti-striped dress. Not in OED. [P74:33]
pechingzies - H:16.20, Marginalia, 1844: Mere buzzards; or . . . mere pechingzies, the species of creatures that they tell of in the Persian Compendiums of Natural History animals very soft and very sly, with ears of such length that, while one answers for a bed, the other is all that is necessary for a counterpane. Not in OED, but La Grande Encyclopedia refers to Pe-chi-ly, Chinese for "cats with long fur and hanging ears." [P74:33]
peopleless - Revival of old word (1621 and 1643), then of 1855 only in OED. In Poe's "Shadow" of 1835, M:2.189: the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets. [P94.37 item 80]
peterel - (a small sea bird with black and white plumage and long legs.) The second instance given by the OED (Carteret's of 1767 being first) as a variant of petrel, in Pym of 1838, CW:1:151/30-32: The great peterel . . . is as large as the common albatross. See other Poe instances in Pym CW:1.151/27, 159/18, 164/3. For Poe's source in Morrell's Narrative, see also "break-bones." [P94.37 item 81]
phaseless - H:5.164, "Ragged Mountains," 1844: phaseless and unceasing gloom. Only example in OED. [P74:33]
physico-mental - H:11.11, review, 1842: a tingling physico-mental exhilaration. Only instance in OED. [P74:33]
physico-metaphysical - Eureka (paragraph 77), 1848 (H:16.223): [His] "mental temperament" mixed The mathematical with the physico-metaphysical." Not in OED. [P89:41]
plastically - H:8.64, review, 1835: pictorially, or graphically, as the Germans would say plastically. OED gives 1840 as first plus 1856, and 1876, and 1886, but all in the sense of "moulding or modelling," none as pictorially. [P74:34]
policial - H:6.43 and 46, "Purloined Letter," 1844: in the policial eyes; the ordinary policial modes of action; and principle of policial action. OED gives only the first and third as sole instances of the word, called rare. [P74:34]
popgunnery - H:16.118, Marginalia, 1846 (but originally in BJ:1.139, 1845): The lightness of the artillery must not degenerate into popgunnery (printed without hyphen by Harrison). Only instance in OED. [P74:34]
poppyish - BJ:1.156, 1845: poppyish ones that would be likely to cause too deep a slumber. Not in OED. [P74:34]
porphyrogene - Poems, p. 316, "The Haunted Palace," 1838: Porphyrogene . . . the ruler of the realm was seen. OED gives only Poe's use of this form of an old word. See also his source word porphyrogenitus, in H:16.61, 1846, and also Doings of Gotham, p. 23, 1844. [P74:34]
post-prandian (Poe's form of post-prandial), H:16.61, Marginalia, 1844: Post-Prandian Sub-Sermons; but see H:6.109, "Angel of the Odd," 1844: post prandial siestas (spelled thus). Not in OED. [P74:34]
praeter-nature - H:5.64, "Marie R.," 1842: no faith in praeter-nature. Poe's nonce word in the OED. [P74:34]
pre-coax - H:10.124, review, 1841: pre-coax us into admiration. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pre-comprehension - H:11.50, review, 1842: with a pre-comprehension of the mystery. Given as first in OED. [P74:34]
pre-prefaced - O:2.314, 1846: The volume is to be prepared by . . . and pre-prefaced by the Memoir. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pre-reason - H:10.124, review, 1841: pre-reason and pre-coax us into admiration. Not in OED. [P74:34]
presumably - (no. 2 qualifying a statement: as one may presume or reasonably suppose; probably.) OED cites 1846 "Literati" sketch of William Kirkland, H:15:24: a journal . . . presumably imbued with something of a cosmopolitan spirit. Then it cites 1869, 1880, 1885 instances. [P94.37 item 82]
promiscuity - (the condition of being promiscuous; indiscriminate mixture, confusion, promiscuousness.) OED cites as first a Dec. 1844 "Marginalia" item (CW:2:165): in as sad a state of perplexity and promiscuity as were (the Greek deities). [P94.37 item 83]
protraction - (no. 4 the lengthening of a vowel, syllable, or word). OED cites first Poe's review of Moore's Alciphron: a Poem, 1840, H:10:69: He . . . draws out the word Heaven into two syllables a protraction (insupportable). [P94.37 item 84]
pseudo-autobiography - H:15.255, Autography, 1842: a pseudo-autobiography called "Colonel Crocket's Tour." Not in OED. [P80:87]
pseudo-genius - H:14.177, "Fifty Suggestions," 1845. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pseudo-horror - H:1.151, "Preface to Tales," 1839: that species of pseudo-horror. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pseudo-ideal - H:10.62, review, 1840: that class of the pseudo-ideal. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pseudo-public - H:10.186, review, 1841: pseudo-public opinion by wholesale. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pseudo-public-opinion - Penn Magazine "Prospectus," published in the Saturday Courier, X, No. 481, page 2, of 13 June 1840, and reprinted by A. H. Quinn (Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography (New York: Appleton-Century, 1941), p. 307): "in a pseudo-public-opinion by wholesale." Not in OED. [P89:41]
pseudo-transcendentalists - BJ:2.387, review, 1845: the pseudo-transcendentalists of Frogpondium. Not in OED. [P74:34]
pseudo-verses - "Notes upon English Verse," in the Pioneer, March 1843, paragraph 36: "These pseudo-verses, and those which are met in mock Pindaric Odes" (reprinted by J. A. Greenwood, Edgar Allan Poe: The Rationale of Verse, p. 67, lines 1-2; see "Marginalia" above). Not in OED. [P83:40]
pseudo wife - H:5.289, "Oblong Box," 1844: the pseudo wife. Not in OED. [P74:35]
pseudo wit - H:12.215, review, 1845: the species of pseudo wit. Not in OED. [P80:87]
psychal - first used by Poe, apparently, from 1844 through 1849 as follows: H:5.174, "Ragged Mountains," 1844: psychal discoveries; H:5.177, "Spectacles," 1844: psychal fetters; H:5.242, "Mesmeric Revelation," 1844: certain psychal impressions; H:5.269, "Premature Burial," 1844: dawn of the psychal day; H:14.190, "Fifty Suggestions," 1844: a psychal want; H:16.88-90, Marginalia, 1846: fancies . . . rather psychal than intellectual; and also psychal impressions (twice); H:16.160, Marginalia, 1849: the psychal impossibility of refraining from admiration. OED gives two of these as the first uses of the word, with later instances. [P74:35] Also H:14.196, "Philosophy of Composition," 1846: psychal necessity; and H:13.156, review, 1847: the same. [P80:91]
puffable - H:8.51, review, 1835: for the sake of everything puff, puffing, and puffable. Not in OED. [P74:35]
punnage - H:12.213, review, 1845: such chapters of punnage as Hood was in daily practice of committing to paper; repeated, H:16.177, Marginalia, 1849. Only instance in OED. [P74:35]
pupildom - (the condition of a pupil). OED cites only Poe's instance, from his 1845 review of E. B. Barrett, H:12:35: (Tennyson's) pupildom in that school which arose out of Shelley. [P94.37 item 85]
pupil-less - H:2.23, "Berenice," 1835: The eyes were lifeless . . . and seemingly pupil-less. First example in the OED. [P74:35] Incorrectly given a hyphen by Harrison (Tales, p. 215). [P80:91]
quacky - H:8.278 and 279, review, 1836: decidedly quacky (and) a right to think us quacky; also, H:15.4, Literati, 1846: although a little quacky per se. Only instance in OED. [P74:35]
quadrate - (no. 5 placed in quadrate aspect). OED cites "Al Aaraaf" of 1829, M:1.105/Part II, 6: What time the moon is quadrate in the heavens (1:120/n.: "The moon is quadrate when 90 degrees from the sun.") [P94.37 item 86]
querily - H:16.10, Marginalia, 1844: so monstrous a proposition (querily put). Not in OED. [P74:35]
quotability - H:16.154, Marginalia, 1849: their especial quotability. Only OED example. [P74:35]
raylessness - H:5.270, "Premature Burial," 1844: raylessness of the night that endureth evermore. Only example in OED. [P74:35]
re-adjudication - H:15.247, "Appendix of Autographs," 1842: turned over for re-adjudication to a press. OED gives only an 1856 readjudicate. [P74:35]
re-advert - H:5.34, "Marie R.," 1842: without re-adverting to the fact. Not in OED, but cf. obs. readvertency. [P74:35]
re-constitution - H:16.313, Eureka, 1848: The regathering of . . . Matter and Spirit will be but the re-constitution of . . . God. OED gives only reconstitution of 1853 and re-constitution of 1884. [P74:35]
rectangular - (stiff in manner; OED no. lc gives only Poe for this meaning). M:3.747/12. "Marie R." of 1842: Lawyers . . . echoing the rect angular precepts of the courts. [P94.37 item 87]
re-enclose (send back), O:2.416, 1849: Please re-enclose me the printed papers. Not in OED. [P74:35]
re-scription - (OED gives three instances of this seventeenth-century sense of "rewriting or writing over again" and two of the eighteenth-century for a government pledge to repay a note, etc., but nothing later). Poe has, in "Mummy" of 1845, M:3.1189/25: This process of re-scription and personal verification. [P94.37-38 item 88]
re-solution - In "Murders R. M." in the 1845 version (word added only then): The faculty of re-solution (that is, " analysis" ), in M:2.528/12. Poe's insertion of the hyphen shows his pronunciation"s distinctly different from that for Resolution." Yet, the OED gives only the chemical meaning for an 1802 Philosophical Transactions passage plus an 1850 "resettlement" and another 1874 chemical meaning. Poe's text: The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study . . . and has been called . . . analysis. [P94.38 item 89]
re-squeaked - OED gives Poe as sole instance, in the 1839 "Man That was Used Up," M:2.387/15: re-squeaked the nondescript. [P94.38 item 90]
rhetoricianism - H:16.176, Marginalia, 1849: the sin of excessive rhetoricianism. Only instance in OED. [P74:35] Also,Review of Bulwer's Poems, Broadway Journal of February 8, 1845 (Collected Writings 3:20/63): "a general interjectional rhetoricianism." [P89:42]
rigmarolic - H:16.111, Marginalia, 1846: Leigh Hunt's rigmarolic attempt. Not in OED. [P80:87]
robbership - Poe's humorous coinage, in 1836 review of Paul Ulric, H:8:194: Instead . . . of putting an end to his robbership, (the hero) merely stands over him. Not in OED. Probably cognate in invention by Poe with "heroship" in the next paragraph (A servant . . . calls upon his heroship), which may come from Cowper's The Task of 1784: His three years of heroship expired (q.v. in OED). [P94.38 item 91]
romantico-histories - H:16.66, Marginalia, 1845: His (W. H. Herbert's) romantico-histories have all the effervescence of his verse. OED cites this under 1849. [P74:36]
saintlily - Poems, p. 393, "Model Verses," 1848: Virginal Lilian . . . / Saintlily, holily / beautiful. Not in OED. [P74:36]
sangsue - H:5.176, "Ragged Mountains," 1844: the poisonous sangsue of Charlottesville. This is Poe's loan-word from the French, used as a nonce English hoax-word for leech (see Pollin, Discoveries in Poe, pp. 27-28). [P74:36]
scansible - Evening Mirror, uncollected review of "Waif", January 13, 1845: these lines are scansible. Same text with substitute for this word in Marginalia No. 140 (16.80). Not in OED. [P80:87]
scansional - H:14.258, "Rationale of Verse," 1843: I have (not) succeeded . . . in making the scansional agree with the reading flow. Not in OED. [P74:36]
scoriac - Poems, p. 416, "Ulalume," 1847: As the scoriac rivers that roll. OED gives Poe's as first; cf. 1776 and 1821 scoriaceous. [P74:36]
semi-Druidical - H:2.259, "Ligeia," 1838: the ceiling . . . fretted with . . . specimens of a semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. Listed in OED without date or citation. [P74:36]
semi-Gothic - H:2.259, "Ligeia," 1838: the ceiling . . . fretted with . . . specimens of a semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device; also, H:6.196, "Arnheim," 1847: a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture. Not in OED. [P74:36]
semi-Saracenic - H:6.196, "Arnheim," 1847: a mass of . . . semi-Saracenic architecture. Not in OED. [P74:36]
semi-serious - H:15.177, Autography, 1841: The design was never more than semi-serious. Not in OED. [P74:36]
sentience - H:3.286, "Usher," 1839: the sentience of all vegetable things; also, the conditions of the sentience; and the evidence of the sentience; also, H:13.137, review, 1846: to endow inanimate nature with sentience. OED gives only an 1850 sentiency. [P74:36] Also H:4.210, "Monos and Una," 1841: not all sentience departed. [P80:91]
sermonic - (like a sermon. Somewhat depreciatory). OED gives first a 1761 instance (in published letters); then Poe's 1838 "Predicament," M:2.354/16: The grateful sermonic harangues of Dr. Ollapod. It omits Poe's 1837 "Mystification," M:2.297/22: the fervid, chanting, monotonous . . . sermonic manner of Coleridge. See also the three Poe instances of the depreciatory "sermonoid" below. [P94.38 item 94]
sermonoid - H:16.61, Marginalia, 1844: "Three-Bottle Sermonoids"; also BJ:2.152, uncollected review, 1845: We may as well denominate (them) sub-sermons or sermonoids; also H:16.130, Marginalia, 1848: A sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid. OED gives only the third. [P74:36]
shoutingly - OED gives it as first instance (with 1866, 1894 following). Tamerlane, 1827, M:1.33/220: gush'd shoutingly a thousand rills. [P94.38 item 96]
sibyllic - Poems, p. 417, "Ulalume," 1847: Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming. OED gives Poe's as first example. [P74:36]
silk-buckingham (for buckram, from M. Silk Buckingham), H:6.199, "Mellonta Tauta," 1849: This silk . . . was designated as silk-buckingham. Not in OED. [P74:36]
slacklime - H:5.230, "Balloon-Hoax," 1844: warming coffee by means of slacklime. See Tales, p. 1085, n. 10, citing T. M. Mason's aeronautical pamphlet mentioning "slacked lime," source of Poe's technical detail. Poe's is sole instance in the OED, incorrectly given with a hyphen. [P80:87]
slipshodiness - H:12.237, review, 1845: too much of slipshodiness; also, H:16.80, Marginalia, 1845: The slipshodiness is . . . in unison with the nonchalant air of the thoughts. OED gives 1887 as first. [P74:37]
solidiform - H:2.40, "Hans Pfaall," 1835: He informed us all about his aeriforms, fluidiforms, and solidiforms. Only instance in OED. [P74:37]
solidists - H:9.166, review, 1836: solidists . . .among the medical profession. OED gives 1842 for first use as medical term. [P80:87]
sotticism (derived from French and English sottise), H:12.5, "Longfellow War," 1845: (That) plagiarism exists (not) is a sotticism; also, H:12.133, review, 1845: a medley of . . . sotticisms; also H:16.195, Eureka, 1848: urging this sotticism, and H:16.243, Eureka, 1848: a mere sotticism to say. Not in OED. [P74:37] Also H:12.88, "Reply to Outis," 1845: as great a sotticism; H:13.51, review, 1845: so many sotticisms. [P80:91] Also, essay on the American drama, American Whig Review for August 1845 (H:13.51): Egotist who . . . uttered so many sotticisms." [P89:42]
spasmodist - H:16.171, Marginalia, 1849: De Meyer and the rest of the spasmodists. OED gives only 1854 (with a capital) and 1878. [P74:37]
sphereicity - H:16.220, Eureka, 1848: the sphereicity with which they have been irradiated into space. Not in OED, but probably Poe's error for the old and common sphericity. [P74:37]
spherification - H:16.249, Eureka, 1848: by the . . . spherification of . . . rings. Not in OED. [P74:37]
spherified - H:16.249, Eureka, 1848: Several fragments . . . were . . . spherified into a moon. OED gives only an 1866 example. [P74:37]
spotty - (patchy; lacking in uniformity or harmony.") applied to art . . . b) to literary work). OED gives as first Poe's 1843 article on Thomas Ward, H:11:164/9, but without Poe's import ant italics: In no other supposition c an we reconcile the spotty appearance of the whole with a belief in the sanity of the author. The second and last OED citation is Lowell's of 1870. [P94.38 item 98]
squibbing - (defined by OED only as utterance or writing of squibs, but clearly meaning contention in general in Poe's text). OED gives first a 1607 ( and different) usage; then, Poe's in "Thou Art the Man" of 1844, M:2.1047/25: Hereupon some little squibbing and bickering occurred among various members of the crowd. OED then gives J. W. Croker's of 1856. [P94.38 item 99]
squirmishness - Letter to J. Hunt, Jr., of March 17, 1845 (Ostrom, 1:283): The charge of squirmishness or ill nature." Not in OED. [P89:41]
stamen - (See OED under stamen and stamina for the Latin singular to refer to the warp or thread, especially of the Fates hence the vital capacity at birth, essential element, or originating principle. Poe alone makes it equal to vigor in English, by back formation from "stamina," but his two instances are deliberately italicized, unlike his use for a flower part). Poe varies all his 1841 "Murders R. M." texts starting in 1843: M:2.568/20: In his wisdom is no stamen. also,"Literati" sketch of Willis in 1846, H:15:15: These poems . . . are deficient in vigour, in stamen. Neither is in OED. [P94.38-39 item 100]
stertoriousness and stertorousness - OED gives the adjective stertorous for 1802, 1842, and later and only 1803 stertorious, but limits the noun solely to Poe's sentence. The inserted air for both adjective and noun are added by Poe to the manuscript for the 1850 Griswold Works cited by the OED for its text. See "Valdemar" of 1845 and 1850, M:3.1237/11-15, plus three footnote variants for two adjectives and a noun: The stertorous (or stertorious) breathing ceased.... (Its) sterterousness (or stertoriousness) was no longer apparent. [P94.39 item 101]
strugglingly - OED gives 1574, 1596 instances, and then Poe's Pym of 1838, with 1875 next, CW:1:188/28: a large black bird . . . strugglingly and slowly arose above the shrubs. [P94.39 item 102]
sub-commentary - H:3.248, "Devil in Belfry," 1839: Sub-Commentaries of Gruntundguzzell. Not in OED. [P74:37]
sub-element - H:12.39, review, 1845: there is introduced the sub-element of unexpectedness (directly after a long chemical metaphor). OED gives Poe's as first example. [P74:37]
subentitled - H:13.60, essay, 1845: subentitled "A Dramatic Poem." OED gives only an 1890 instance. [P74:37] Also, H:13.60, review, "American Drama" in American Whig Review, August 1845: "sub entitled 'A Dramatic Poem,' rather than 'A Play.' " Not in OED, but in the Century Dictionary with date of 1890 as first. [P83:40] [This entry was removed in the introductory material of P89:40, without explanation.]
sub-sermons - H:16.61, Marginalia, 1844: "Post-Prandian Sub-Sermons"; also, BJ (uncollected review), 2.152, 1845: subsermons or sermonoids. Not in OED. [P74:37]
sub-sub-editor - BJ:2.199, editorial, 1845: any anonymous sub-sub-editor; also, H:13.96, review, 1846: the attention of the sub-sub-editor. Not in OED. [P74:37]
sunship - H:2.206, "Four Beasts," 1836: The Temple . . . his Sunship is not there; at least not the Sunship adored by the Syrians. Not in OED. [P74:37]
superciliary - (Poe's new meaning) Poems, p. 250, Politian, 1835: a superciliary somebody. (Old in sense of over the eyebrow, but new in the sense of supercilious.) [P74:37]
supremeness - H:5.263, "Premature Burial," 1844: supremeness of bodily and mental distress; also H:14.201, "Philosophy of Composition," 1846: never losing sight of the subject supremeness; also H:16.302, Eureka, 1848: the supremeness of its symmetry. OED gives the first above as the first of its two citiations. [P74:38] Also H:3.205, Pym, 1838: supremeness of bodily and mental distress; H:16.90, Marginalia, 1846: supremeness of the novelty. [P80:91]
synoeretical - H:16.187, Eureka, 1848: His (Humboldt's) design is simply synoeretical. Not in OED as adjective for any spelling. Poe meant synaeretical, derived possibly from the old grammatical term synaeresis or, more esoterically, from its meaning of contraction in the exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity (see Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon of 1961; see also, Liddell and Scott's article in their Greek lexicon for classical non-grammatical uses for the word). In the twentieth century all dictionaries have "come around" to Poe's scientific usage as well, but only for chemistry "the separation of liquid from a gel caused by contraction" (Webster's Third New International; Funk and Wagnalls' New Standard Dictionary adds the adjective synaeretical). [P74:38]
sweeps - H:4.163, "Murders R. M.," 1841: By "sweeps" were meant cylindrical sweeping-brushes. OED gives word only for men or boys. [P80:88]
tantalistical - Tales, p. 654, "Three Sundays," 1841 (earliest form not in H.): tantalistical, old uncle. Not in OED. [P80:88]
tintinabulation - Poems, p. 435, "Bells," 1849: To the tintinabulation that so musically wells. First use in OED (for source and spelling, see Poems, p. 439, and Poe Newsletter, July 1970, pp. 8-10). [P74:38]
toddled - (from toddy, trans. verb; intoxicated with toddy (cf. toddyised with an 1836 instance)). OED gives Poe's as sole instance, 1843 review of W. E. Channing, H:11:188/2-3: Better things than getting toddled are to be expected of Socrates. [P94.39 item 106]
tractists - H:16.9, Marginalia, 1844: the Bridgewater tractists; repeated in H:13.46, essay, 1845. Not in OED. [P74:38]
trans-civilization - H:12.202, review, 1845: as for the trans-civilization epoch. Not in OED. [P74:38]
trialed - (past tense of a putative verb, to trial, i.e., to subject to trials and tribulations; not in the OED or any dictionary of the American language). Used in Poe to F. W. Thomas, 19 Nov. 1842, Ostrom, 1:218: (Mr. Smith) has trialed me most shamefully. [P94.39 item 107]
trepidancy - Brigham, p. 105, 1840: a nervous trepidancy would have manifested itself; also, H:3.279, "Usher," 1839: feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy. OED cites only "Usher." [P74:38]
ultra - (specialized substantive meaning) H:2.117, "Assignation," 1835: my . . . apartments . . . mere ultras of fashionable insipidity. OED shows it only for persons. [P74:38]
ultra-accident - H:10.151, review, 1841: air of ultra-accident in the . . . relationship. Not in OED [P74:38]
ultra-civilized - H:11.45, review, 1842: man the ultra-civilized. Not in OED. [P74:38]
ultra-didacticism - H:10.218, review, 1841: his late words in spite of their ultra-didacticism. Not in OED. [P74:38]
ultra German - H:4.105, "Mystification," 1840: the most ultra German opinions. OED gives only 1843 and 1848 instances. [P74:38]
ultra recherché - H:4.109, "Mystification," 1840: his stiff and ultra recherché air (italics added in 1845). Not in OED. [P74:38]
ultra-romantic - H:13.109, review, 1846: ultra-romantic, or improbable. Not in OED. [P74:39] Also H:13.178, review, 1849: improbable or ultra-romantic. [P80:91]
ultra-romanticist - H:15.188, Autography, 1841: the taste of the ultra-romanticists. Not in OED. [P74:39]
ultra-tropical - H:16.258, Eureka, 1848: traces of ultra-tropical vegetation. OED gives only 1851 instance. [P74:39]
unanswerability - H:5.248, "Mesmeric Revelation," 1844: its apparent unanswerability; also, H:16.46, Marginalia, 1844: the precision and unanswerability (of exposés). The second is OED's only example. [P74:39]
unassassinated - H:5.21 (and M:3.737/25), "Marie R.," 1842: We find her . . . unassassinated. Not in OED. [P74:39] [This entry is repeated in P94.39 as item 108]
unastronomical - H:16.199, Eureka, 1848: presenting . . . to the unastronomical a picture. The first instance in the OED. [P74:39]
unchoked - OED gives a 1588 verb "to unchoke" and then Poe's past participle as first, in the 1832 "MS. Found in a Bottle," M:2.138/2: We found the pumps unchoked. OED gives 1860 and 1888 for the verb as next. [P94.39 item 109]
unclassifiable - OED gives Poe's as first (with an 1865 as next), in his review of E. B. Barrett, January 4,. 1845, CW:3:1/7: creatures neither . . . men, women, nor Mary Wollstonecraft's (sic) setting these"side"s unclassifiable. [P94.39 item 110]
unconvulsive - Not in the OED. In the 1844 Premature Burial," M:3.960/21: The patient, with a . . . quite unconvulsive movement,"rose from the table. Cf. Poe's fourteen instances of "convulsive" and nine of "convulsively" in Pollin, Word Index to Poe's Fiction, 74. See also "nonconvulsive" above. [P94.39 item 111]
undeniability - Not in the OED. In "A Remarkable Letter," excerpted from Eureka, 1848, M:3.1315/5: the quintessence of axiomatic undeniability. The OED gives only three instances of undeniableness: 1654, 1677, 1889. [P94.39 item 112]
undetailed - H:16.152, Marginalia, 1849: His art is . . . massive and undetailed. Not in OED. [P74:39]
unempirically - H:16.212 and 242, Eureka, 1848: this result . . . which I have reached unempirically; the original finity of Matter is unempirically confirmed. Not in OED. [P74:39]
unimbued - H:15.111, Literati, 1846: no mind unimbued with the purest spirit of poetry. Not in OED. [P74:39]
unindividualized - H:5.249 (and M:3.1036/32), "Mesmeric Revelation," 1844: Man thus divested would be God would be unindividualized. Not in OED. [P74:39] [This entry is repeated in P94.39 as item 113.]
uninstigated - H:16.109, Marginalia, 1846: the uninstigated deed of the ape; also, H:15.2, Literati, 1846: uninstigated notice of a book. Not in OED. [P74:39]
unistylist - (and uni-stylist) Doings of Gotham, p. 68, 1844: as unistylist as Cardinal Chigi; also, H:16.66 Marginalia, 1844: as thorough an unistylist as Cardinal Chigi. Not in OED. [P74:39]
uni-tendency - H:16.211, Eureka, 1848: under pressure of the Uni-tendency collectively applied. Not in OED. [P74:39]
unmined - OED gives Poe's as first (with the next, of 1895), in his January 4, 1845 review of E. B. Barrett, CW:3:3/64: The reader will suffer the most valuable ore to remain unmined to all eternity. [P94.39 item 114]
unmouldered - OED cites unspecified instance in John Ash, New . . . Dictionary of 1775; Bryant's 1821 "unmouldering pillar," then Poe's 1844 "Premature Burial," M:3.956/29: It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmouldered shroud. [P94.39 item 113]
unoriginality - OED gives Poe's as third instance, after Charles Lamb and Bentham, for his 1845 review of Longfellow's "Spanish Student" in"The American Drama" article, in H:13:69: Of the unorginality of the thesis we have already spoken; and now, to the unoriginality of the events . . . we need do little more than allude. However, Lamb's contextual letter of 1798 first appeared in T. Talfourd's Memorials of 1848, and Bentham's instance in Rationale of Judicial Evidence of 1823 had a restricted readership and could scarcely be known to Poe, who never mentions the work. [P94.39-40 item 116]
unparticled - H:5.249, "Mesmeric Revelation," 1844: . . . the unparticled matter, in motion, is thought? Also, O:1.257 and 260, 1844: three occurrences of unparticled matter. OED gives only Poe's first use, above. [P74:39]
unpicturesqueness - H:6.184, "Arnheim," 1847: our disorder may seem order our unpicturesqueness picturesque. Sole entry in OED. [P74:39]
unpossibility - OED gives first 1621 and 1623 instances; then Poe's 1840 text of "King Pest" (changed from "impossibility" in the 1835 text), M:2.251/11 and 15: It would be a matter of utter unpossibility. Poe may have been seeking a more archaic or nautical tone in his revision. [P94.40 item 117]
unprosaicalness - H:16.153, Marginalia, 1849: our unprosaicalness. Not in OED, but OED gives an 1844 prosaicalness. [P74:39]
unquacking - BGM:5:330, uncollected review, December 1839: unquacking of an unnecessarily . . . bemystified science. Not in OED. [P80:88]
unquestionability - In OED given only for Carlyle's Past and Present (1843), unmentioned and probably unseen by Poe. In Eureka of 1848, H:16:194 (para. 20): We will select . . . no axiom of an unquestionability so questionable as is to be found in Euclid (cf. "undeniability"). [P94.40 item 118]
un-re-written - H:6.131, "Mummy," 1845: facts recorded in the un-re-written histories. Not in OED. [P74:39]
unsearchableness - motto of "Descent into the Maelstrom," May 1841, GM (M:2.577): "the vastness: profundity, and unsearchableness of His works." The third word of the set is added by Poe to the other two in the "Motto," ascribed to one of Joseph Glanvill's Essays (see M:2.594-595, note to the "Motto"). Not in OED. [P83:40]
upstartle - H:12.24, review, 1845 (verse parody of E. Barrett's lines): In multitudinous thunders that upstartle; repeated, H:13.201, essay, 1850. OED gives Poe's as first of two instances with an earlier participial upstartled. [P74:40]
unsundered - Not in OED. See "Rodman" of 1840, CW:1:545/40: (the tree) sustained by the unsundered bark. [P94.40 item 119]
vignetting - H:4.247, "Oval Portrait," 1842: the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of the frame. In OED, for verb first date is 1853, with 1885 and 1889 for vignetting. [P74:40]
vitalic - H:16.259 and 291, Eureka, 1848: geological evolutions which have . . . caused these successive elevations of vitalic character, variations of vitalic development; the vitalic and spiritual development. OED gives the first as its only citation. [P74:40]
vorticial - (for vortical) H:16.302 and 307, Eureka, 1848: gyrating or vorticial movements; and, the vorticial indrawing of the orbs. OED gives Poe's first use and calls it rare. [P74:40] Also H:16.342, "Addenda" to Eureka: vorticial force. [P80:91]
woodlandish - Poems, p. 418, "Ulalume," 1847: Ah, can it / have been that the woodlandish ghouls. Not in OED. [P74:40]
x - (used as a verb) H:6.229-237, "X-ing a Paragrab," 1849: "I shall have to X this ere paragrab . . . so x it he did, . . . and to press it went x-ed. OED gives only this instance for "to supply with x's in place of types that are wanting." [P74:40]
[Within an entry, source references are generally given in the following format: H:4.247, meaning that the word appears in the Harrison edition of Poe's works (1902), volume 2, page 247.]
[Some errors have been silently corrected, and formats of entries standardized
without special notice.]
[S:0]