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prettygoodwordIt's Forgotten English Friday:
tissick - A tickling faint cough; called also a "tissicky cough." —Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
A more common modern spelling than tissicky is tisicky, the form used in the 1913 Webster's Unabridged, which defined it as "consumptive, phthisical" -- in other words, tubercular. (Is it too soon to do phthisical as a repeat word?) Tisick is indeed an alternate (and early, going back to 1533) spelling, as is tissique, where the earlier senses are of having shortness of breath, as in asthmatic. By the 18th century it was specifically tubercular.
---L.
tissick - A tickling faint cough; called also a "tissicky cough." —Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
A more common modern spelling than tissicky is tisicky, the form used in the 1913 Webster's Unabridged, which defined it as "consumptive, phthisical" -- in other words, tubercular. (Is it too soon to do phthisical as a repeat word?) Tisick is indeed an alternate (and early, going back to 1533) spelling, as is tissique, where the earlier senses are of having shortness of breath, as in asthmatic. By the 18th century it was specifically tubercular.
---L.
