Can You Define These Words 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Fork

For those of you who love gardening, there's nothing quite as satisfying as digging up a pesky weed or turning over rich soil with a garden fork to aerate it, is there? And nothing like the aroma of that lovely rich soil as well. They should bottle it. Garden forks are also known as pitchforks. A common sight out in the fields in days gone by was farmhands tossing cut hay up onto wagons with their yelves. Today that is all done by machinery. Less back breaking work, of course, but not nearly as picturesque looking.

Yelve was a word in use for at least 800 years in European countries, but began to fade from the everyday from the late 19th century, probably coinciding with the rise of the agricultural machines that replaced manual labour.

Answer: A mild oath

A mild oath it was indeed, along with other colourful expressions such as "God's truth!" (that has evolved into "Struth" today), "Odds bodkins!" (that originated as "God's body!" and a bodkin itself was a small tool used for poking holes through leather) or "Gadzooks!" (originally "God's hooks" and used as a reference to the nails used at the crucifixion). "Woundikins" itself was possibly a reference to the wounds inflicted on Christ as that time as well. All of the above, and others, were mild oaths used by gentlemen in everyday life to express frustration at some annoyance or another. Ladies, though, were expected to be demure and respectable, and to never, ever let such profane expressions emerge from their dainty mouths. Pooh to that.

Woundikin appeared in the early 1800s, but like trendy words even today, it soon faded from use, only to be replaced by others of its kind.

Answer: Pale and sickly looking

Anything that makes your stomach churn in a rather unpleasant fashion can have you looking welmish - pale and green around the gills - not just an over consumption of alcohol. Some people can't handle the sight of blood, for example, and their faces reflect that aversion. And children with dark green mucous running from their noses down towards their mouths - that's when you'll see me looking most decidedly welmish. It makes me feel really ill.

Welmish appeared in the vernacular in the late 17th century, but quickly faded from use within a couple of years.

Answer: Sad and solemn

A vultuous expression is one expressing sorrow and/or a serious frame of mind. Though it certainly can be caused by any serious or distressing occasion or event, it is also used with great dexterity by those engaged in the game of deceit in some way, or by anyone wishing to pull someone's leg in a harmless prank. An example could be an adult who solemnly assures a child that if she eats her despised Brussels sprouts, she'll swim a lot faster in the swimming carnival later that day. How could she! I ate everyone else's Brussels sprouts as well - and almost drowned!

Vultuous as an adjective lasted for almost one hundred years in everyday language, from 1633 until 1721, before disappearing completely.

Answer: Named it

People vocitate many different things, apart from their pets. Some like to name their cars or bikes, some like to name their plants, and, peculiarly so, some even like to name their bodily attachments as well. The latter is a rather strange habit that many men, according to their wives, seem to possess, but it's hard to imagine why. It's as though they see those endowments as another member (pardon the pun) of their families, with their own distinct personalities and likes and dislikes. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that they even shout them a beer now and then, or knit them mini-sized berets to wear to the footy.

Vocitate and its derivatives only lasted for a short while in the everyday lingo in the mid 17th century before disappearing from use.

Answer: A metal support for an axle

This word was in use during the late 1790s but didn't last too long after that, and, to be honest, there doesn't seem to be much more to add to this than that. Virtivals were metal supports for the axles on the many wheeled vehicle that abounded during that period of history.

Answer: Tending vines

If you were endowed with excellent vinitorian skills in the mid 17th century when this word was in use, you were a dab hand at growing vines, and grape vines in particular. Today, oddly so, that skill is usually referred to as wine growing, but there's many a step between the vine and the palate. Vinitorian should be re-instated if we are to make sense of our language.

There are two wine growing industries, also known as wineries, in this area. These offer guided tours for visitors and quite a few samples of the finished grape product as well. It's fascinating to see people walking calmly and sensibly into their premises - and exiting some time later, a little unsteady on their feet at times, definitely flushed, and with several bottles of the palate pleasing wine of their choice clasped firmly in each hand. So then, is a vinitorian skill the art of growing wine - or really the art of selling it?

Answer: Widow making

A woman could be made a widow in many ways when this word was in use - by accident, by disease, by illness, just to name a few - but because the word viduifical first appeared in the 1650s in European countries, it was possibly as a result of all the constant wars then, and over the centuries before and since. It is no longer in use today. Would that war would just as easily disappear.

Answer: Full of brambles

In use from 1720 for a few short years, vebrecose was a word that described land that was little more than useless in that condition. Completely overgrown with brambles, it was totally unproductive until the back-breaking work of clearing it was carried out. For the vast majority of people right up to modern times, your piece of land was your livelihood. If looked after well, it, the plants that grew on it and the animals and bird that fed from it, provided you with a yearly supply of sustenance, materials for clothing, housing and furniture, and a surplus for trading and a small income if lucky.

It was neglected at one's peril. If tended with care, it gave the gift of life.

Answer: Causing to look beautiful or handsome

Venustation was a noun in use from the 1650s for some years, but like all the other words in this quiz, this is no longer the case. It is defined as the act of making someone or oneself appear more beautiful, handsome or young looking than normal - commodities that were very high stakes in the marriage market of the times. If you were poor, but reasonably attractive looking, you may attract an offer of marriage from someone a little better off than yourself. Starving to death from hunger is not an attractive quality, and love and romance had little to do with marriage in most cases.

The answer? Venustation! Make yourself look as appealing as possible. Pinch those cheeks to appear healthy looking, curl that hair to appear beautiful, suck in that stomach to seem more manly, pad those shoulders to look well-muscled, thrust up the bosoms to appear nubile and seductive.

It was the way things were then, and in the long run, it still remains the case well into the 21st century. Assisted in every way by the multi-billion dollar cosmetic and beauty aid industries that ply their trade as insidiously and assidiously today as they did two thousand years ago.