fescennine

See also: Fescennine

English

WOTD – 8 February 2011

Alternative forms

• Fescennine

Etymology

From Latin Fescennīnus, from the name of the ancient Etruscan town of Fescennia, noted for the "Fescennine Verses", a tradition of scurrilous songs performed on special occasions.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛsənʌɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

fescennine (comparative more fescennine, superlative most fescennine)

1. Obscene or scurrilous.
   • 1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter XV, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC, pages 264–265:

     [T]he frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of High Jinks. This game was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain, for a time, a certain fictitious character, or to repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the characters assigned, or if their memory proved treacherous in the repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper, or by paying a small sum towards the reckoning.

   • 1988, James D. Simmonds, Milton Studies, volume 6, University of Pittsburgh Press, page 168:

     As the poet decorously shows his desire to consummate the marriage, he retains the fescennine element without being crude.

   • 1995, John Donne, Gary A. Stringer, The variorum edition of the poetry of John Donne: The Epigrams, Epithalamions, Epitaphs, Inscriptions and Miscellaneous poems, Indiana University Press, pages 380–1:

     The conventional complaint over the delay in the proceedings is voiced by the poet in […] [this] series of questions which include fescennine teasing of the bridal couple

   • 2003, Mark Steven Morton, The Lover's Tongue: A Merry Romp Through the Language of Love and Sex, Insomniac Press, page 25:

     For instance, I admit that this book is anacreontic, paphian, and sometimes even fescennine […]

Translations

obscene or scurrilous

• Finnish: ruokoton (fi)
• French: fescennin (fr), licencieux (fr), égrillard (fr), salé (fr)
• Italian: fescennino, licenzioso (it)
• Spanish: licencioso (es), chocarrero, verde (es), de color, picante (es), cachondo

Italian

Adjective

fescennine

1. feminine plural of fescennino