mid-14c., pencel, “an artist’s small, fine brush of camel hair,” used for painting, manuscript illustration, etc., from Old French pincel “artist’s paintbrush” (13c., Modern French pinceau) and directly from Medieval Latin pincellus, from Latin penicillus “painter’s brush, hair-pencil,” literally “little tail,” diminutive of peniculus “brush,” itself a diminutive of penis “tail” (see penis).
Small brushes formerly were used for writing before modern lead or chalk pencils. Sticks of pure graphite (commonly known as black lead) were used for marking things in England from the mid-16c., and the wooden enclosure for them was developed in the same century on the Continent. This seems to have been the time the word pencil was transferred from a type of brush to “graphite writing implement.” The modern clay-graphite mix was developed early 19c., and pencils of this sort were mass-produced from mid-19c. Hymen L. Lipman of Philadelphia obtained a patent for the pencil with an attached eraser in 1858.
Derogatory slang pencil-pusher “office worker” is from 1881 (pen-driver, jocular for “clerk, writer,” is from 1820); pencil neck “weak person” first recorded 1973. Pencil-sharpener as a mechanical device for putting the point on a lead pencil is by 1854.
And here is a new and serviceable invention—a pencil sharpener. It is just the thing to carry in the pocket, being no larger than a lady’s thimble. It sharpens a lead pencil neatly and splendidly, by means of a small blade fitted in a cap, which is turned upon the end of a pencil. A patent has been applied for. Made by Mr. W. K. Foster, of Bangor. [“The Portland Transcript,” Portland, Maine, Sept. 30, 1854]
pencil (v.)
c. 1500, pencellen, “apply (gold or silver) in manuscript illustration;” 1530s, “to mark or sketch with a pencil-brush,” from pencil (n.). In reference to lead pencils from 1760s. Related: Penciled; penciling. To pencil (something) in in the figurative sense of “arrange tentatively” (on the notion of being erasable) is attested by 1942.
“the male organ of copulation,” 1670s, from French pénis or directly from Latin pēnis “penis,” earlier “tail,” from PIE *pes-, usually said to be originally “penis” (source also of Sanskrit pasas-, Greek peos, posthe “penis,” probably also Old English fæsl “progeny, offspring,” Old Norse fösull, German Fasel “young of animals, brood”). But de Vaan writes that “the meaning of pēnītus [‘furnished with a tail’] as well as general semantic considerations suggest that the meaning ‘tail’ is original, and ‘penis’ metaphorically derived from it.” The proper plural is penes. The adjective is penial. In psychological writing, the term penis envy is attested by 1922.
jocular or slighting term for a clerk or author, by 1820, from pen (n.1) + driver. Earlier was quill-driver (by 1760).
The Author goes on, and tells us, “that the two thousand hogs were not driven into the sea by evil spirits, but by the two madmen, who, in one of their frantic fits, frightened them into it.”— But is it not more than intimated that the men were restored to their right mind before the hogs took to their heels? Besides, that two madmen should drive two thousand such ungovernable creatures as hogs one way, does, I think, exceed the belief of any hog-driver on the road, if not of the pen-driver in his closet. [introduction to “Beelzebub Driving and Drowning his Hogs,” a sermon on Mark v.12, 13, by James Burgess, 1820]
lead
penicillin
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I’m the Great I Am
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Flux Capacitor
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I Am
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Keanu Reeves
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Kyle Reese
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Simulation
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Terminator
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Billowing Smoke
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Bill Smoke
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Twin Towers
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I’m A Black Star
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Drive Shaft
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We Live in side A Dream
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The Matrix Resurrections
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Back To The Future
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Coronavirus
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The Man WHO Fell to Earth
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Why So Serious?
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Sheriff Truman
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Operation Warp Speed
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The Truman Show
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On the Day of Execution
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Eye
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Solitary Candle
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Military Industrial Complex
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Apocalypse
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Complex
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The Sun God
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Industrial
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Dis Aster
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Military
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Son of God
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Warp Speed
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Clark Kent
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Superman
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Omikron
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Supernatural
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O(micro)n
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Thomas Anderson
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Secret Society
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Sam Weiss
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The Government
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Cloud Atlas
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Epstein
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End
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Eve
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Ewe
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Death Valley
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You
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Morpheus
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Trinity
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What Are You Looking At, Butthead?
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Black Lodge
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Cooper
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R eyes
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Elizabeth Keen
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Frank
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Underwood
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Walternate
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Delta
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Clue
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Cathode Ray Tube
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Fringe
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Disneyworld
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Ex plan at ion
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Walter Bi shop
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Election Day
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TIME Traveler
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Donald J. Trump
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The Science of Music
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Donald Trump
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Kyle XY
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Pontius Pilate
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by Bob Dylan
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Murder Most Foul
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‘The’ Smoke Monster?
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Smoke Monster
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Ruth FUcking Langmore
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President Kyle Grant
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Trans mission Com plete
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Current
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Con spir e
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Spear it
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Spirit
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Darkness
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illumination
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illuminati
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Quarantine
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initiation
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ad infinitum
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et cet e RA\
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Finkle is Einhorn
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The Crying Game
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Trump TIME
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Bi den TIME
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Mask Up
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Mars Day
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Tues Day
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Mars Attacks
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Jesuit Order
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Russian Doll
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Massive Dynamic
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Two Hundred and Fifty Nine
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Charlton, Massachusetts
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Newton, Massachusetts
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Follow the White Rabbit
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Mask
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TJN
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Thomas Jerome Newton n
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The Lord Jesus Christ
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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Peter Pumpkinhead
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JFK
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Jake
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Biff Tannen
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Stargate
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Dynamite
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Massive
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Obama
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Jah
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Bomb
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Bob
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Ra
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Uranium
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Is A God
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Is A Planet
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Marblehead
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Demon
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Hugo
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Is There Life on Mars?
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February (n.)
month following January, late 14c., ultimately from Latin februarius mensis “month of purification,” from februare “to purify,” from februa “purifications, expiatory rites” (plural of februum “means of purification, expiatory offerings”), which is of uncertain origin, said to be a Sabine word. De Vaan says from Proto-Italic *f(w)esro-, from a PIE word meaning “the smoking” or “the burning” (thus possibly connected with fume (n.)). The sense then could be either purification by smoke or a burnt offering.
The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month. The Old English name for it was solmonað, which is said to mean “mud month.” English first borrowed the Roman name from Old French Feverier, which yielded Middle English Feverer, Feoverel, etc. (c. 1200) before the 14c. respelling to conform to Latin.
late 14c., “vapor, odorous vapor; exhalation,” from Old French fum “smoke, steam, vapor, breath, aroma, scent” (12c.), from Latin fumus “smoke, steam, fume, old flavor” (source also of Italian fumo, Spanish humo), from PIE root *dheu- (1) “dust, vapor, smoke.”
In old medicine, an “exhalation” of the body that produces emotions, dreams, sloth, etc; later especially of smokes or vapors that go to the head and affect the senses with a narcotic or stifling quality.