Friday, February 21, 2020

Are we keeping you up? Don't OSCITATE!

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

OSCITATE [OSS-it-ayt] (verb)

To yawn or gape

"There are persons whose physical constitutions are so delicate that mere thoughts of taking snuff (and medicines generally) produce the same effect as inhaling the powder itself: now, if the imagination of the reader has a similar influence over his system, he can have no disposition to oscitate while finishing the chapter; on the contrary, the greatest obstacle to his progress will arise from a disposition to sneeze."
--Thomas Ewbank, The Spoon (1844) (TWITO, page 104)




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