Fossil Word - English Language Examples

English Language Examples

• Ado, as in "without further ado" or "much ado about nothing", although the homologous form "to-do" remains attested ("make a to-do", "a big to-do", etc.)
• Amok, as in "run amok"
• Bandy, as in "bandy about" or "bandy-legged"
• Bated, as in "wait with bated breath", although the derived term "abate" remains in non-idiom-specific use
• Batten, as in "batten down the hatches"
• Beck, as in "at one's beck and call", although the verb form "beckon" is still occasionally seen in non-idiom-specific use
• Bygones, as in "let bygones be bygones"
• Caboodle, as in "kit and caboodle" (a "born fossil" in that "kit and caboodle" evolved from "kit and boodle", which itself was a fixed phrase borrowed as a unit from Dutch kitte en boedel)
• Craw, as in "sticks in (one's) craw"
• Coign, as in "coign of vantage"
• Deserts, as in "just deserts", although singular "desert" in the sense of "state of deserving" occurs in non-idiom-specific contexts including law and philosophy
• Dint, as in "by dint of"
• Druthers, as in "if I had my druthers..." (note that "druthers" is a "born fossil", having been formed by elision from " [I'd/(I would) rathers and never occurring outside the listed phrase to begin with)
• Dudgeon, as in "in high dudgeon"
• Eke, as in "eke out"
• Fettle, as in "in fine fettle"
• Fro, as in "to and fro"
• Hither, as in "come hither", "hither and thither", and "hither and yon"
• Immemorial, as in "time immemorial"
• Jetsam, as in "flotsam and jetsam", except in legal contexts (especially admiralty, property, and international law)
• Ken, as in "beyond ken"
• Kith, as in "kith and kin"
• Loggerheads as in "at loggerheads" or loggerhead turtle
• Mettle, as in "test one's mettle"
• Neap, as in "neap tide"
• Offing, as in "in the offing"
• Petard, as in "hoist by own petard"
• Shebang, as in "the whole shebang"
• Shrive, preserved only in inflected forms occurring only as part of fixed phrases: shrift in "short shrift" and shrove in "Shrove Tuesday"
• Sleight, as in "sleight of hand"
• Spick, as in "spick and span"
• Tarnation, as in "what in tarnation...?" (a "born fossil" in that it evolved only in the context of fixed phrases formed by mincing of previously fixed phrases that include the term "damnation")
• Thither,
• Turpitude, as in "moral turpitude"
• Ulterior, as in "ulterior motives"
• Vim, as in "vim and vigor"
• Wreak, as in "wreak havoc"
• Wrought, as in "wrought iron" and "What hath God wrought"
• Yore, as in "of yore", usually "days of yore"