Sir Thomas Browne
Physician and author, 1605-1682
Cited as Sir T. Browne. — 166 quotations
Abduce
If we abduce the eye unto either corner, the object will not duplicate.
Account
The motion of . . . the sun whereby years are accounted.
Aggregate
The aggregate testimony of many hundreds.
Agree
The more you agree together, the less hurt can your enemies do you.
Amit
A lodestone fired doth presently amit its proper virtue.
Ascension
Vaporous ascensions from the stomach.
Assimilation
Not conversing the body, not repairing it by assimilation, but preserving it by ventilation.
Astronomize
They astronomized in caves.
Attendment
The uncomfortable attendments of hell.
Australize
They [magnets] do septentrionate at one extreme, and australize at another.
Avel
Yet are not these parts avelled.
Bivious
Bivious theorems and Janus-faced doctrines.
Bombilation
To . . . silence the bombilation of guns.
Bought
The boughts of the fore legs.
Cardinal
The cardinal intersections of the zodiac.
Cenatory
The Romans washed, were anointed, and wore a cenatory garment.
Chorography
The chorography of their provinces.
Cilicious
A Cilicious or sackcloth habit.
Coast
Nearchus, . . . not knowing the compass, was fain to coast that shore.
Collide
Scintillations are . . . inflammable effluencies from the bodies collided.
Colliquate
[Ice] will colliquate in water or warm oil.
Commensation
Daniel . . . declined pagan commensation.
Compunction
That acid and piercing spirit which, with such activity and compunction, invadeth the brains and nostrils.
Concomitance
The secondary action subsisteth not alone, but in concomitancy with the other.
Conjugation
The sixth conjugations or pair of nerves.
Contemperate
Moisten and contemperate the air.
Cordiality
That the ancients had any respect of cordiality or reference unto the heart, will much be doubted.
Coronary
The catalogue of coronary plants is not large in Theophrastus.
Cottonary
Cottonary and woolly pillows.
Countenance
This conceit, though countenanced by learned men, is not made out either by experience or reason.
Cremation
Without cremation . . . of their bodies.
Curricle
Upon a curricle in this world depends a long course of the next.
Decumbence
The ancient manner of decumbency.
Definitive
A strict and definitive truth.
Deflect
At some part of the Azores, the needle deflecteth not, but lieth in the true meridian.
Degeneration
Cockle, aracus, . . . and other degenerations.
Demit
They [peacocks] demit and let fall the same [i. e., their train].
Denouncement
False is the reply of Cain, upon the denouncement of his curse.
Dichotomy
A general breach or dichotomy with their church.
Dignity
Sciences concluding from dignities, and principles known by themselves.
Discourser
Philologers and critical discoursers.
Disservice
We shall rather perform good offices unto truth than any disservice unto their relators.
Dubiosity
Men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, possibilities for feasibilities.
Earsore
The perpetual jangling of the chimes . . . is no small earsore s.
Empeople
We now know 't is very well empeopled.
Errant
Seven planets or errant stars in the lower orbs of heaven.
Estimable
One of the peculiar estimables of her country.
Exasperate
To exasperate the ways of death.
Excoriable
The scaly covering of fishes, . . . even in such as are excoriatable.
Extradictionary
Of these extradictionary and real fallacies, Aristotle and logicians make in number six.
Farraginous
A farraginous concurrence of all conditions, tempers, sexes, and ages.
Fasten
A horse leech will hardly fasten on a fish.
favillous
Light and favillous particles.
Feasibility
Men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, possibilities for feasibilities.
Festucine
A little insect of a festucine or pale green.
Flap
A cartilaginous flap upon the opening of the larynx.
Frigidity
Ice is water congealed by the frigidity of the air.
Funambulatory
This funambulatory track.
Genial
Natural incapacity and genial indisposition.
Geometrize
Nature geometrizeth, and observeth order in all things.
Gesture
Accubation, or lying down at meals, was a gesture used by many nations.
Grained
Persons lightly dipped, not grained, in generous honesty, are but pale in goodness.
Graphic
The finger of God hath left an inscription upon all his works, not graphical, or composed of letters.
Guttulous
In its [hail's] guttulous descent from the air.
Hater
An enemy to God, and a hater of all good.
Horary
Horary, or soon decaying, fruits of summer.
Ideate
The ideated man . . . as he stood in the intellect of God.
Illation
Fraudulent deductions or inconsequent illations from a false conception of things.
Improvable
The essays of weaker heads afford improvable hints to better.
Inauguration
At his regal inauguration, his old father resigned the kingdom to him.
Incertain
Very questionable and of uncertain truth.
Incession
The incession or local motion of animals.
Inconsequent
Loose and inconsequent conjectures.
Incorruption
The same preservation, or, rather, incorruption, we have observed in the flesh of turkeys, capons, etc.
Incrassate
Liquors which time hath incrassated into jellies.
Indeciduous
The indeciduous and unshaven locks of Apollo.
Indigenous
Negroes were all transported from Africa and are not indigenous or proper natives of America.
Indigitate
The depressing this finger, . . . in the right hand indigitates six hundred.
Indistinction
The indistinction of many of the same name . . . hath made some doubt.
Indubitate
To conceal, or indubitate, his exigency.
Insecurity
With what insecurity of truth we ascribe effects . . . unto arbitrary calculations.
Insensible
Two small and almost insensible pricks were found upon Cleopatra's arm.
Jetty
The people . . . are of a jetty.
jovial
The fixed stars astrologically differenced by the planets, and esteemed Martial or Jovial according to the colors whereby they answer these planets.
Juggler
Jugglers and impostors do daily delude them.
Junior
Our first studies and junior endeavors.
Jut
It seems to jut out of the structure of the poem.
Knabble
Horses will knabble at walls, and rats gnaw iron.
Laqueary
Retiary and laqueary combatants.
Laughter
The act of laughter, which is a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves.
Lentous
Spawn of a lentous and transparent body.
Lily
But sailing further, it veers its lily to the west.
Limn
Let a painter carelessly limn out a million of faces, and you shall find them all different.
Litter
We might conceive that dogs were created blind, because we observe they were littered so with us.
Longilateral
Nineveh . . . was of a longilateral figure, ninety-five furlongs broad, and a hundred and fifty long.
Magisterial
We are not magisterial in opinions, nor, dictator-like, obtrude our notions on any man.
make
They that sail in the middle can make no land of either side.
Mechanic
An art quite lost with our mechanics.
Moralize
Good and bad stars moralize not our actions.
Occurrent
These we must meet with in obvious occurrents of the world.
Official
The stomach and other parts official unto nutrition.
Omniety
Omniety formed nullity into an essence.
Oriental
The sun's ascendant and oriental radiations.
ornamental
Some think it most ornamental to wear their bracelets on their wrists; others, about their ankles.
Parallel
The needle . . . doth parallel and place itself upon the true meridian.
Parental
The careful course and parental provision of nature.
Parity
Equality of length and parity of numeration.
Passant
Many opinions are passant.
Patois
The jargon and patois of several provinces.
Pedantry
'T is a practice that savors much of pedantry.
Petrifactive
The . . . petrifactive mutations of hard bodies.
Plunge
Plunged and graveled with three lines of Seneca.
Positional
Ascribing unto plants positional operations.
Preferment
Natural preferment of the one . . . before the other.
Preparation
I wish the chemists had been more sparing who magnify their preparations.
Preventive
Physic is either curative or preventive.
Prodigious
It is prodigious to have thunder in a clear sky.
Propriety
We find no mention hereof in ancient zoographers, . . . who seldom forget proprieties of such a nature.
Pubescent
That . . . the men (are) pubescent at the age of twice seven, is accounted a punctual truth.
Qualify
It hath no larynx . . . to qualify the sound.
Rationality
Well-directed intentions, whose rationalities will never bear a rigid examination.
Receipt
She had a receipt to make white hair black.
Recourse
Preventive physic . . . preventeth sickness in the healthy, or the recourse thereof in the valetudinary.
Refrain
Who, requiring a remedy for his gout, received no other counsel than to refrain cold drink.
They refrained therefrom [eating flesh] some time after.
Resent
Which makes the tragical ends of noble persons more favorably resented by compassionate readers.
Respect
Palladius adviseth the front of his house should so respect the uth.
Retiary
This work is in retiary, or hanging textures.
Salamander
Whereas it is commonly said that a salamander extinguisheth fire, we have found by experience that on hot coals, it dieth immediately.
Saltimbanco
Saltimbancos, quacksalvers, and charlatans.
Sapid
Camels, to make the water sapid, do raise the mud with their feet.
Sapor
There is some sapor in all aliments.
Satisfactive
Satisfactive discernment of fish.
Scintillation
These scintillations are . . . the inflammable effluences discharged from the bodies collided.
Scut
How the Indian hare came to have a long tail, whereas that part in others attains no higher than a scut.
Septuagesimal
Our abridged and septuagesimal age.
Siccity
The siccity and dryness of its flesh.
Sinistrously
Many, in their infancy, are sinistrously disposed, and divers continue all their life left-handed.
Soft
The sun, shining upon the upper part of the clouds . . . made the softest lights imaginable.
Soliped
The solipeds, or firm-hoofed animals, as horses, asses, and mules, etc., -- they are, also, in mighty number.
Sopition
Dementation and sopition of reason.
Spiritual
God's law is spiritual; it is a transcript of the divine nature, and extends its authority to the acts of the soul of man.
Spout
In whales . . . an ejection thereof [water] is contrived by a fistula, or spout, at the head.
Stamp
Of the same stamp is that which is obtruded on us, that an adamant suspends the attraction of the loadstone.
Station
All progression is performed by drawing on or impelling forward some part which was before in station, or at quiet.
Sticked
They sticked not to give their bodies to be burnt.
Succeed
Destructive effects . . . succeeded the curse.
Swallow
Though that story . . . be not so readily swallowed.
Tenet
That al animals of the land are in their kind in the sea, . . . is a tenet very questionable.
Terse
Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive.
Tiffany
The smoke of sulphur . . . is commonly used by women to whiten tiffanies.
Tract
Efface all tract of its traduction.
Transgressively
Adam, perhaps, . . . from the transgressive infirmities of himself, might have erred alone.
Transpeciate
Power to transpeciate a man into a horse.
Typify
Our Savior was typified, indeed, by the goat that was slain, and the scapegoat in the wilderness.
Unteach
Experience will unteach us.
Vary
God hath varied their inclinations.
Verisimility
The verisimility or probable truth.
Verticality
The different points of the verticality.
Verticity
I hardly believe he hath from elder times unknown the verticity of the loadstone.
Vespillo
Like vespilloes or grave makers.
Virtuality
In one grain of corn, there lieth dormant a virtuality of many other.
Vital
Pythagoras and Hippocrates . . . affirm the birth of the seventh month to be vital.
Waster
Being unable to wield the intellectual arms of reason, they are fain to betake them unto wasters.
Wingy
Those wingy mysteries in divinity.
Zoilism
Bring candid eyes the perusal of men's works, and let not Zoilism or detraction blast well-intended labors.