Fossils

The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson famously called language "fossil poetry."

Like a seaside cliff, he said, language comprises fossilized images—out-of-date tropes that have "long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin."

Some words are obsolete except when we use them in idioms. 

Linguists, too, call these words "fossils."

We'd never use them otherwise—and don't even know what the words mean.

A bumper

A few examples include:

Bumper. We're comfortable saying, "Farmers enjoyed a bumper crop last season," but we'd never say, "Everyone, raise your bumper!" A bumper was a 17th-century tavern glass, so called because a drinker would bump it down on the bar when offering a toast. First, however, the barkeep had to fill it to the brim with grog. The word eventually became synonymous with "voluminous."

A spiked horseshoe

Roughshod. We say, "The backfield ran roughshod over the defense," but we'd never say, "The players were roughshod in Adidas." In the 16th century, roughshod referred to spiked horseshoes. The spikes improved traction, but were brutal on fallen infantry when the cavalry overran them. With the addition of "run," the word came to mean to "clobber" or "punish."

A pinking

Pinking. We're comfortable saying, "My pinking shears have orange handles," but we'd never say, "I was pretty drunk when I got this pinking." A 17-century word, a pinking was a decoration on a body part—in other words, a tattoo (to pink someone meant to "pierce" him). To prevent bad luck, sailors in the British navy would cover themselves with "pinkings," but the word over time came to refer only to the tool we use to add decorative edges to cloth.

Wend. We say, "I'll wend my way home," but we'd never say, "I'll wend to the office on Monday." The verb wend, meaning to "go," dates to the 13th century, when people wended everywhere—the field, the barn, the privy, the square, the church, the market, the castle, the theater—but today we only "wend our way." We never just wend.

Full of sleight

Sleight. We'd readily say, "McConnell performed a sleight of hand this week," but we'd never say, "McConnell is full of sleight." Sleight is a 14th-century word that meant "cleverness," "nimbleness," "cunning," or "trickery." It was the latter sense from which we got the idiom sleight of hand.

Lots of words that grow obsolete never fossilize; they merely fade. A few examples are:

Sockdolager. We'd say an incomparable person was an "original," but in the 19th century she'd be a sockdolager. (Sockdolager was the last word Lincoln ever heard spoken.)

Pumblechook

Pumblechook. We'd call Bernie Madoff a "crook," but in the 19th century he'd be a pumblechook. The word came from Great Expectations, where Dickens described the despicable character Uncle Pumblechook as the "basest of swindlers."

Shoddyocracy. We'd say, "Champlain Towers is shoddy," but we'd never say, "Florida is home to the shoddyocracy." In the 19th century, an entire class of people enriched themselves by selling shoddy merchandise. Newspapers gave these pumblechooks a collective name: the shoddyocracy.

Shrift. Before they were executed, 14th-century felons were permitted a shrift—a confession to a priest. But it had to be brief, so the mob's entertainment wasn't delayed. We still know the word from the idiom short shrift, which means "little to no consideration." But the word has otherwise faded from use.

Morphiated. Cocaine and morphine abuse were common in the 19th century (think of Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes). A user who we'd say is "stoned" was in the 19th century morphiated. I would not feel so all alone: everybody must get morphiated.

Linguists used to believe words had a shelf-life of from 8,000 to 9,000 years; but, as they have recently discovered, 23 fossil words are truly ancient—more than 15,000 years old. One study calls these words, preserved for millennia with "remarkable fidelity," ultraconserved.

Deriving from "Proto-Eurasiatic"—humanity's first language—the ultraconserved words include mother, brother, man, fire, ashes, and worm.

That last word sounds fishy to me.