Subject: |
From:
"A. Bouazza" <mushtary@yahoo.com> |
Date:
3/5/2013 7:14 AM |
To:
'Vladimir Nabokov Forum' <NABOKV-L@listserv.ucsb.edu> |
VN’s favourite was Webster’s Second. W III got rid
of all those obsolete words that we encounter in his oeuvre.
The 1828 & 1913 Webster that is available
online does not include the obsolete “delire”, but the OED does,
not the digital version but the hefty tomes I have in my
library.
Delire. v. Obs. To be delirious or mad, to rave.
In this sense, the first and last instances cited
by the OED are from the 17th century; the latter is
dated 1675 from R. Burthogge’s Causa Dei, 196:
He delires, and is out of his Wits,
that would preferr it [moonlight] before the Sun by Day.