The Cognātarium: Appendix I

Words Derived from Literary Works

Word Work Author
amaryllis Various classical pastoral poems  
Brobdingnagian Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
chortle Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll
fedora Fédora Victorien Sardou
galumph Jabberwocky Lewis Carroll
gamp Martin Chuzzlewit Charles Dickens
gargantuan Gargantua and Pantagruel François Rabelais
hawkshaw The Ticket-of-Leave Man Tom Taylor
Lilliputian Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
Lorna Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore
lothario The Fair Penitent Nicholas Rowe
lotus eater The Odyssey Homer
malapropism The Rivals Richard B. Sheridan
mentor The Iliad/The Odyssey Homer
micawber David Copperfield Charles Dickens
milquetoast The Timid Soul Harold T. Webster
muckrake Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan
odyssey The Iliad/The Odyssey Homer
Pamela Arcadia Sir Philip Sidney
pamphlet Pamphilus, seu de Amore (12th-c. Latin poem)
pandemonium Paradise Lost John Milton
pander Troilus and Cressida Geoffrey Chaucer
Pollyanna Pollyanna Eleanor Porter
pooh-bah The Mikado Gilbert & Sullivan
quark Finnegans Wake James Joyce
quixotic Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
ragamuffin Piers Plowman William Langland
robot R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) Karel Capek
rodomontade Orlando Furioso Lodovico Ariosto
runcible spoon The Owl and the Pussycat Edward Lear
scrooge A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
serendipity The Three Princes of Serendip (Persian fairy tale)
shangri-la Lost Horizon James Hilton
shylock The Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare
simon-pure A Bold Stroke for a Wife Susanna Centlivre
tam-o’-shanter Tam o’Shanter Robert Burns
utopia Utopia Sir Thomas More
Vanessa Cadenus and Vanessa Jonathan Swift
Wendy Peter Pan James M. Barrie
yahoo Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift

40 entries found.

Copyright © 2005–2007 Daniel M. Short. All Rights Reserved.