And so I did ... and so they cost me a little work, a little time, but here they are ... full definitions pasted below.
1. heyday (or hey-day)--as in In his heyday he was quite the athlete. Below, you see what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say about this one. The origin of the word is "unknown," and it dates back farther than I would have guessed--to the young manhood of Shakespeare, who would use it in Hamlet (1603). And just look at the other writers who used it--a Hall of Fame cast: More, Southey, Emerson, Smollett, Sterne, Scott, Longfellow, etc. Not bad company to be in, eh?
2. lurch--as in He left me in the lurch. (Remember that TV character Lurch on The Addams Family, played by Ted Cassidy? His name, of course, comes from the verb sense of lurch (see below). He bore, of course, a resemblance to Frankenstein's creature. (Remember Lurch's catch-phrase: "You rang?"?)
But lurch, it seems, was once a game resembling backgammon--and leaving one in the lurch was leaving them in a precarious position on the board? Or so we think ...
It also goes back a long, long way--into the 16th century.
Anyway, I am now relieved of any further responsibility for these words. They came; I saw; I conquered. Well ... the OED conquered, let's be honest ...
hey-day | heyday, n. (and adj.)
Forms: Also 15 hayday, 17 hay day.
Frequency (in current use):
Etymology: Of uncertain origin; perhaps connected with hey-day int. The second element does not
seem to have been the word day ,
though in later use often identified with it: see sense 2.
1. State of exaltation or
excitement of the spirits or passions.
c1590 Play Sir Thomas More
(1844) 41 To be greate..when the thred
of hayday is once spoun, A bottom great woond vpp greatly vndoun.
1603 Shakespeare Hamlet iii.
iv. 68 At your age The heyday in the
blood is tame, it's humble.
1633 J. Ford 'Tis Pitty shee's
Whore iv. sig. G4 v Must your hot ytch
and plurisie of lust, The heyday of your luxury be fedd Vp to a surfeite.
1781 J. Burgoyne Lord of Manor
i. i. 1 A merry peal puts my spirits
quite in a hey-day.
1794 R. Southey Wat Tyler i.
i Ay, we were young, No cares had
quell'd the heyday of the blood.
1867 R. W. Emerson May-day
& Other Pieces 54 Checked in these
souls the turbulent heyday.
(Hide quotations)
2.
a. The stage or period when
excited feeling is at its height; the height, zenith, or acme of anything which
excites the feelings; the flush or full bloom, or stage of fullest vigour, of
youth, enjoyment, prosperity, or the like. Often associated with day, and taken
as the most flourishing or exalted time.
1751 T. Smollett Peregrine
Pickle II. lxxi. 262 Our imperious
youth..was now in the heyday of his blood.
1768 L. Sterne Sentimental
Journey II. 24 I was interrupted in the
hey-day of this soliloquy, with a voice.
1768 L. Sterne Sentimental
Journey II. 167 To travel it
through..the sweetest part of France—in the hey-day of the vintage.
1807 Salmagundi 25 Apr.
164 In the good old times that saw my
aunt in the hey-day of youth.
1823 Scott St. Ronan's Well I.
iii. 73 In his heyday he had a small
estate, which he had spent like a gentleman.
1833 E. Bulwer-Lytton Godolphin
I. xvii. 154 In the flush and heyday of
youth, of gaiety, and loveliness.
1839 H. W. Longfellow Hyperion
II. iv. ii The heyday of life is over
with him.
1873 J. A. Symonds Stud. Greek
Poets vii. 232 In the bloom and heyday
of the young world's prime.
1877 M. Oliphant Makers of
Florence (ed. 2) xiv. 346 He was no
more than thirty-six, in the hey-day of his powers.
b. attrib. Of or pertaining to
the hey-day of youth; erron. belonging to a festive or gala day.
1740 C. Cibber Apol. Life C.
Cibber i. 10 All the hey-day Expences
of a modish Man of Fortune.
1792 J. Budworth Fortnight's
Ramble Lakes viii. 44 A man with his
hayday dress..is passing over the bridge.
lurch, n.1
Forms: Also 15–16 lurche, lurtch.
Frequency (in current use):
Etymology: < French lourche
(erroneously written l'ourche ...
†1. A game, no longer known, supposed to have resembled backgammon.
Obs.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French
& Eng. Tongues Lourche, the game
called Lurche.
1653 T. Urquhart tr. Rabelais
1st Bk. Wks. xxii. 94 There he played..At
the lurch.
1656 Earl of Monmouth tr. T.
Boccalini Ragguagli di Parnasso (1674) i. xli. 57 He might account business his
pastime..instead of Picquet or Lurch.
1693 T. Urquhart & P. A.
Motteux tr. Rabelais 3rd Bk. Wks. xii. 98
My Mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack.
2. Used in various games to
denote a certain concluding state of the score, in which one player is
enormously ahead of the other; often, a ‘maiden set’ or love-game, i.e. a game
or set of games in which the loser scores nothing; at cribbage, a game in which
the winner scores 61 before the loser has scored 31; in whist, a treble. to
save the lurch: in whist, to prevent one's adversary from scoring a treble. Now
rare (? or Obs.).
1598 J. Florio Worlde of
Wordes Marcio, a lurch or maiden set at
any game.
1606 T. Dekker Seuen Deadly
Sinnes London iv. sig. E2 What by
Betting, Lurches, Rubbers and such tricks, they neuer tooke care for a good
daies worke afterwards.
1608 T. Dekker Belman of London
F 3 Whose Inne is a Bowling Alley,
whose bookes are bowles, and whose law cases are lurches and rubbers.
1653 T. Urquhart tr. Rabelais
2nd Bk. Wks. xii. 86 By two of my table
men in the corner-point I have gained the lurch.
1674 F. Gouldman Copious Dict.
(ed. 3) 1 A lurch, duplex palma,
facilis victoria.
1742 E. Hoyle Short Treat. Game
Whist i. 13 A Probability either of
saving your Lurch, or winning the Game.
1745 Gentleman's Mag. Nov.
606/2 A King!—we're up—I vow I fear'd a
lurch.
1784 H. Walpole Let. 14 Aug.
(1858) VIII. 495 Lady Blandford has
cried her eyes out on losing a lurch.
1860 Bohn's Handbk. Games iii.
83 The game [long whist] consists of
ten points; when no points are marked by the losing partners, it is treble, and
reckons three points;..This is called a lurch.
1876 ‘Capt. Crawley’ Card
Player's Man. 18 Lurch (at Long Whist),
not saving the double.
1876 ‘Capt. Crawley’ Card
Player's Man. 128 [Cribbage] A
lurch—scoring the whole sixty-one before your adversary has scored
thirty-one—is equivalent to a double game.
1897 Earl of Suffolk et al.
Encycl. Sport I. 129/2 Lurch game, a
game in which one side has scored five before the other has scored one.
3.
†a. A discomfiture. Obs.
1584 T. Lodge Alarum against
Vsurers C ij b If heereafter thou fall
into the lyke lurch,..so then I will accompt of thee as a reprobate.
1607 Merrie Iests George Peele
30 The Tapster hauing many of these
lurches fell to decay.
1608 R. Armin Nest of Ninnies
sig. D1v Often such forward deedes,
meete with backward lurches.
1679 Heart & Right
Soveraign 119 The Italian out-wits the
Jew in his part, and the lurch befalls the English side.
†b. to give (a person) the lurch: to discomfit, get the better of. Obs.
1598 E. Guilpin Skialetheia
sig. B6 Gellia intic'd her good-man to
the Citty, And often threatneth to giue him the lurch.
?c1600 Bride's Buriall 38 in
Roxburghe Ballads (1871) I. 248 Faire
Hellens face gaue Grecian Dames the lurch.
1626 N. Breton Pasquils Mad-cap
(Grosart) 6/2 How ere his wit may giue
the foole the lurch, He is not fit to gouerne in the Church.
†c. to have (take) on (in, at) the lurch: to have or take (a person) at
a disadvantage. Obs.
1591 R. Greene Notable
Discouery of Coosenage f. 5 There was
forty to one on my side, and ile haue you on the lurch by and by.
1601 J. Weever Mirror of Martyrs
sig. Bviijv Shee..Sels lyes for
nothing, nothing for too much; Faith for three farthings, t'haue thee in the
lurch.
1615 T. Adams Blacke Devill
74 Thus the great Parasite of the
soule, that heretofore..flatter'd this wretch with the paucity of his sinnes;
now takes him in the lurch, and ouer-reckons him.
a1657 G. Daniel Trinarchodia:
Henry IV clx, in Poems (1878) IV. 41
The Sage Span of a Circle tooke the Starres at Lurch, To Conspire
Storme.
1719 in T. D'Urfey Wit &
Mirth V. 3 He took me in the lurch.
†d. in a person's lurch: in his power. Obs.
1607 R. C. tr. H. Estienne
World of Wonders 195 Hauing him in his
lurch and at his lure.
1641 T. Goodwin Tryall
Christians Growth i. 126 David, when he
had Saul in his lurch, might as easily have cut off his head.
a1643 J. Shute Sarah &
Hagar (1649) 93 They lose their
authority when they come within the lurch of their servants.
e. to leave in the lurch: to
leave in adverse circumstances without assistance; to leave in a position of
unexpected difficulty.
Cf. the somewhat earlier phr. to leave in the lash (see lash n.1 4).
1596 T. Nashe Haue with you to
Saffron-Walden sig. Q Whom..he also
procured to be equally bound with him for his new cousens apparence to the law,
which he neuer did, but left both of them in the lurtch for him.
1600 P. Holland tr. Livy Rom.
Hist. 222 The Volscians seeing
themselves abandoned and left in the lurch by them,..quit the campe and field.
1663 S. Butler Hudibras: First
Pt. i. iii. 220 And though th' art of a
diff'rent Church, I will not leave thee in the lurch.
1694 R. South 12 Serm. II.
192 In Transubstantiation; where
Accidents are left in the lurch by their proper Subject.
1711 J. Addison Spectator No.
119. ¶6 If the Country Gentlemen get
into it they will certainly be left in the Lurch.
1873 E. FitzGerald Lett. (1889)
I. 357 My Eyes have been leaving me in
the lurch again.
1879 R. Browning Martin Relph
66 He has left his sweetheart here in
the lurch.
†4. A cheat, swindle. Obs.
(In our quots. the earliest recorded use.)
1533 J. Heywood Mery Play
Pardoner & Frere sig. B.iv No more
of this wranglyng in my chyrch I shrewe your hartys bothe for this lurche.
c1540 Image Ipocrysy ii, in J.
Skelton Poet. Wks. (1843) II. 432 They
blered hym with a lurche.
1604 T. Middleton Blacke Bk. E
iv I giue and bequeath to thee..All
such Lurches, Gripes, and Squeezes, as may bee wrung out by the fist of
extortion.
1611 R. Badley in T. Coryate
Crudities sig. k2 Briefly, for triall
of a religious lurch, Thou nimbd'st an image out of Brixias Church.
?1624 G. Chapman tr. Hymn to
Hermes in tr. Crowne Homers Wks. 63
I'le haue a Scape, as well as he a Serch, And ouertake him with a
greater lurch.
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