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herminate
I believe the nautical expression herminate with its many spellings has its roots in the 1797 mutiny aboard His Majesty's Frigate Hermione (pronounced hur-MY-o-nee), the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy. The mutineers rebelled against a sadistic captain, ran wild about the ship, slaughtered innocent and guilty alike, and committed other heinous crimes beyond the imagination. The incident haunted mariners for the next century, during which Hermione became a colloquial verb, whose root meaning was lost during the 20th century.
For more on this incident, read The Black Ship, by Dudley Pope. You will not have wasted your time. It is a page turner.
Sawyer Rank
Indianapolis
I was also interested in the word hermatile, and made more interested by the lack of information about it online. So without any evidence I'll now resort to pure speculation.
For me it makes sense that hermatile would be related to words like hematite, hemoglobin, hematidrosis the hema/hemo coming from the Greek haima meaning blood. It reminds me of the expression "you make my blood boil," or of cartoons showing a characters face going red when he's angry. Also theres the suffix of 'ile' at the end meaning, suitable for; pertaining to, like, belonging to etc. So someone who has gone hermatile is "blood like" or "blood belongs to him." Though that might be stretching it a bit.
Also, in a quick search in google books hermatile pops up at least once as some sort mineral related to iron ore " with or without the addition of ground or pulverized hermatile, magnetic or black oxide or other iron ore or coloring matter" from Canadian magazine of science and the industrial arts ..., Volume 15, Issues 1-12
Robert
Dallas
That's a good scholarly guess that herminate is derived from Greek or Latin Roots.
I'm assuming the herminate varieties began as 19th century nautical jargon, and remained on a colloquial (slang) register until they faded out with memories of the Hermione mutiny. Had the herminate varieties been of inkhorn origin, they are likely to have been recorded in some literary works, which apparently they have not. Therefore it is likely that herminate flourished and disappeared within the register of 19th century nautical slang jargon, though this is all speculation and the truth may never be known.
S. Rank
Indianapolis
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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