dicacious

English

Etymology

From Latin dicāx, from dīcō (“to say”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /daɪˈkeɪʃəs/
• Hyphenation: di‧ca‧cious
• Rhymes: -eɪʃəs

Adjective

dicacious (comparative more dicacious, superlative most dicacious)

1. (rare) Talkative; pert; saucy.
   • 1792: [ANONYMOUS EDITOR AC02751662], Sporting Magazine, serial 3, volume 32 (July–December, 1858), page 360 ^{duplicate links: [1], [2]} (Rogerson & Tuxford)

     So obstinate was this dicacious and pleonastic old man, in his struggles to monopolise the whole conversation in the salle-à-manger, that upon a gentle, respectable, and seedy English clergyman, with the usual amount of wife and children, gliding in, and beginning quietly to converse with his family, he violently wrenched the newspaper from the hands of the nearest waiter, and read out loud, at the top of his voice, an entire leading article!

   • 1840, in The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health, pp237–238 ^{duplicate link}

     “Believers, then, as we are, in phrenology, we cannot say that we believe in it as a trade. It is a science ( so to speak ) in embryo. It may be likened to a noble edifice, the foundations of which are laid broad and deep, upon the principles of unchangeable, eternal truth, and the superstructure of which, it must be the work of patient perseverance, deep study, close observation, and rational philosophy to rear, range after range, until it shall stand a firm and lasting monument, at once of the blessings arising from a careful cultivation of those powers of research, into the deep mysteries of our nature, wherewith God has endowed us, as well as of his benevolent providence, his fatherly kindness, and his consummate wisdom. There will be quacks and sciolous pretenders around the edifice while it is rearing, with their handicraft tools, and dicacious mystifications ( ‘blind leaders of the blind’ ) — but as in the building of the great temple, the sound of the hammer and the axe must not be heard in preparing its massive ranges, as they rise, mind impelled, towards the sky, displaying to the world, at last, the true philosophy of that most wondrous work of the Creator — THE HUMAN MIND.”

   • 2004 July 2 (reprint date; date of first publication unknown), Hugh McAlister, The Flight of the Silver Ship: Around the World Aboard a Giant Dirigible, p103 (Kessinger Publishing's Rare Reprints); →ISBN, →ISBN)

     “Gr-r-r-r!” from Doctor Sims, lunging for the saltcellar as it skated away. “Your mental attitude, Martin, always inclines to the flippant and dicacious. Personally, I find the present exuberant actions of the ship most distasteful.”

   • 2003: “tomcatpolka”, rec.arts.books (Google group): lepid, the 5^th day of October at 3:13am

     Don’t be so dicacious!

     • In response to the comment posted by “francis muir” at 3 o’clock a.m.:

       I’d get back on to your medication pronto.

     • Itself in response to the question posted by “tomcatpolka” at 2:22am:

       My dictionary says that lepid (pleasant, jocose) comes from the Latin lepidus. Should I think flitting like a butterfly or leaping like a rabbit?

Related terms

• dicacity

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989

Anagrams

• accidious