Hi, does anybody know the formal definition of capernoited, as well as its Greek/Latin roots? Thanks!

The OED1 says etymology unknown. It is a Scottish term.

There are varying definitions depending on which source you use. Many simply say it means slightly intoxicated or tipsy; others that it means peevish; irritable; crabbed; snappish. A few combine them to say it means peevishly or irritably drunk.

As zmjezhd says it is of Scottish origin. I suspect it's a nonsense word, along the same lines as pifflecated, or nimptopsical.

quote:

pifflecated

I am reminded of a pre-computer-graphical use of the word pixelated for inebriated.

uh, not quite, z. Computer graphics are pixelated, while one who is mildly tipsy is pixilated. See here. But admittedly, some authorities give both meaning for the first spelling.

Checking this out led to an interesting factoid. Apparently pixilated, akin to capernoited, was popularized by the 1936 hit movie Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Sounds like a good movie, too.

Very interesting. I pronouce them the same, and Mr Deeds Goes to Town may be where I heard it last. The computational term pixel is supposed to be a sort of portmanteau abbreviation: picture + s + element. Pixilated is supposedly from pixie. So, in one case we have an epnethetic s and in the other a mysterious suffix -la-. Perhaps as in pixie elated ...

Welcome to our board, Mary.

It's a very interesting question, interesting enough to have been the lead item of an article in Verbatim Magazine. I'll quote Verbatim verbatim.

You won’t find capernosity in any dictionary. It crops up in Irish playwright Brendan Behan, quoted in his brother Brian’s memoir, Brendan Behan’s Island (1962): “My grandmother was a woman of capernosity and function. She had money and lay in bed all day, drinking porter or malt, taking pinches of snuff, and talking to the neighbours.”
. . . .The word looks confected from the old and rarely used capernoity and capernoited, both variously spelled. Noun and adjective denote a head slightly fuddled with drink. Between them they began life in 1719 and vanish after 1853. The five texts they appear in are all Scottish. This couplet from the ballad Whistle Blinkie (Scottish Songs, series 2, 1853) would have been agreeable to the bibulous Celt Behan: “Of the spark aquavitae they baith lo’ed a drappie/And when capernutie then aye unco happy.” Or he might have remembered “capernoited maggots and nonsense” in chapter 2 of Sir Walter Scott’s Redgauntlet.
. . . .Still, granny does not sound fuddled with drink, so maybe Behan’s neologism also owes a debt to caper, the Latin for “goat,” an animal associated by the Romans with large appetite, wrinkled skin, and rank smelliness. Behan, like Sean O’Faolin and other Irish writers, was Jesuit-educated and knew his classics.
– Barry Baldwin, Verbatim Magazine, Summer 2000, page 20. pdf file here.

Amazing what you can find when someone is good enough to ask a good question. Thanks!

Welcome to our board, Mary!

And what a great question, too. I have learned a lot.

Welcome, Sometime Mary. Your name is very intriguing. Who are you when you're not Mary? If you care to share how you picked your Wordcraft name, please post it on Names and what they mean. That goes for the rest of you, too. I'm always curious about the nicknames people choose on this forum.

Tinman

Oops! I forgot the s. Sorry, Sometimes Mary.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

Glad to hear a new voice here, S. Mary!

I'm surprised to see "aquavitae" showing up in a Scottish song. How widespread is this euphamism for booze? I know the Swedes use it, and I wonder if "vodka" might be related to this Latin term.

Vodka is related to English water, but not Latin aqua. It is from the Russian voda 'water' + -ka dim. suffix. Aqua vitae 'water of life' is the standard Latin term for distilled alcohol. English alcohol is from the Arabic. It's various etymologies are discussed at Wikipedia.

The name 'whisky' comes from the Gaelic uisge beatha, meaning 'water of life', just as does 'aqua vitae'.