(Vol. ix., p. 54.)
Until your correspondent Q. designated the word _starvation_ as "an
Americanism," I never had the least suspicion that it was obtained from
that source. On the contrary, I remember to have heard some thirty or forty
years ago, that it was first employed by Harry Dundas, the first Viscount
Melville, who might have spoken with a brogue, but whose despatches were in
good intelligible English. I once asked his son, the second Viscount, whose
correctness must be fresh in the recollection of many of your readers, if
the above report was true, and he seemed to think that his father had
coined the word, and that it immediately got into general circulation. My
impression is, that it was already current during the great scarcity at the
end of the last, and the commencement of this century; but the dictionary
makers, those "who toil at the lower employments of life," as old Sam
Johnson termed it, are not apt to be alert in seizing on fresh words, and
"starvation" has shared in the general neglect.
If you permit me I will, however, afford them my humble aid, by
transcribing some omitted words which I find noted in a little Walker's
_Dictionary_, printed in 1830, and which has been my companion in many
pilgrimages through many distant lands. Many of them may by this time have
found their way even into dictionaries, but I copy them as I find them.
Fiat.
Lichen.
Dawdle.
Compete (verb).
Starvation.
Cupel (_see_ test).
Stationery (writing materials).
Chubby.
Mister (form of address).
Iodine.
Disorganise.
Growl (substantive).
Avadavat (School for Scandal).
Apograph.
Flange.
Effete.
Jungle.
Celt (formed of touchstone).
Minivar.
Unhesitating.
Remittent.
Tannin.
Curry (substantive).
Uncompromised.
Duchess.
Resile (verb).
Gist.
Nascent.
Dictum.
Retinence.
Phonetic.
Lacunæ.
Extradition.
Laches.
Fulcrum.
Statics.
Æsthetical.
Complicity.