Etonicè

alternative Etonice · alternative Etonicé

1. EnglanddatedhumorousThe characteristic speech or slang of Eton College.

   To do this in proper style, is, I assure you, reckoned a most difficult thing among the most expert performers; utterly unattainable, I am sure, by any of the rustics (Etonicè Clods) whom one sees playing at home.

   1821 May 23, Samuel Rashleigh, “The Rashleigh Letter-Bag: VI. Mr Samuel Rashleigh to the Rev. Marmaduke Bradshaw”, in The Etonian, volume II, Windsor, Berkshire: Knight and Dredge; London: John Warren, published 1821, →OCLC, page 301, column 2

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   The crew consists of ten men, besides there is or captain; they are active, willing, good-humoured fellows, and have harmonious voices, a great lounge (to speak Etonicé), as the Arab boatmen are a noisy set, constantly singing to their work, and always in chorus; one of them leads, and the rest join in, generally line by line, alternately, neither uttering more than five or six words at a time.

   1838 October, Alexander Lindsay, “Lord Lindsay's Letters on Egypt and the Holy Land”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, Edinburgh: W. Tait, →OCLC, page 659, column 2

   We remember in ancient times, when William IV. was king, on a magnificent sheet of brownish water, gracefully named Duck Puddle, a select little coterie of waterfunks (the title sufficiently explains itself—Etonicè frousts) would be unjustifiably but carefully placed on two old punts, or on a punt and an unhinged door, massive as that of Gaza, and on those treacherous rafts committed like Danae to the mercy of the waves.

   1861 September 7, “Tale of the Tub”, in The Living Age, volume XIV (third series), number 901, Boston, M.A.: Littell, Son, & Co., →OCLC, page 613, column 1

   The Comte de Ségur, in his amusing 'Mémoires et Souvenirs,' observes, à propos of his first interview with Frederick the Great of Prussia, that anyone with a due allowance of 'élevation dans l'âme' (Hibericè, 'asy assurance') can undergo the ceremony of introduction to a crowned head with proper dignity and composure; but that a certain degree of émotion—(Etonicè, 'funk')—is inevitable on being first brought face to face with a really Great Man.

   1863, Charles Phillips, chapter IX, in The Cream of a Life, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, page 135

   I've funk'd and stew'd¹ to think what earthly power / […] ¹Etonice for being frightened, or alarmed at, as may be illustrated by the following imaginary talk between two lower boys:—"I say, old fellow, who funks a flogging?" "Not I, my boy! but I am in a precious stew about that licking Box Major promised me!"

   1869, Philip Lybbe Powys Lybbe, The Lay of the Sheriff, London: Chiswick Press, page 14