Inspiriting Habiliments

Yesterday I provided links to one video and one site with lists of highfalutin words used by Moira Rose (played by Catherine O’Hara) on Schitt’s Creek.  I wondered if Dickinson had ever used any of the terms in any of her poetry.  Dickinson did not use any of the sixteen shared on the video; however I noted that she had, in fact, used three of the ten words from the site – well, at least related forms of three of the words.  I ended my post with this: “Take a guess as to which three, and then I’ll fill you in tomorrow.”

As Little Orphan Annie used to sing on Broadway, tomorrow is just a day away – and based on my previous post, that day is today (although the sun did not come out).  Here are the ten words from the site:

So which three words did Dickinson use?  I would have guessed capricious, vigor, and potable – and I would have been one-third right. 

The words that she did NOT use in any of her poems are ennui, encumbered, capricious, balatron, irksome, gutted and potable.

The words she did use – or at least some form of the words – were mercurial, vigor, and habiliment.

In “The sun retired to a cloud,” she used “mercury,” not the capital-M “Mercury" (i.e., the planet), but “mercury” as “red oxide color; blazing scarlet tincture” to describe a sunset – and what a colorful sunset it is!  I LOVE that image in line 6, “Home flew the loaded bees.”  (LOL – you think those bees were just “loaded” down with pollen from their day's work – or “loaded” in the sense of being drunk on pollen?)

Dickinson never used the word “vigor”; however, in “The truth is stirless” she used “vigorous.”  The word comes in the opening line of the final stanza, “How vigorous a force” is truth.

The surprise for me was Dickinson’s use of “habiliment” – and the fact that she used it in two different poems, “Before you thought of spring” and “The way to know the Bobolink.”

“Habiliment” is an out-of-fashion word for fashion, more precisely the clothing one dons.  Here’s an example from a dictionary that popped up on Google:  “You may want to get up extra early on the first day of school so you have time to choose the perfect habiliments to wear.”

Check out the OED’s examples below of the word in uses dating back to the 1400s.  My favories are the “meit, drynk, and abuilyement” from 1554, 1590’s “S[t]raunge Lady, in so straunge habiliment,” and “the costlie excessive of cleithing, and abulzament of mens boeides” from 1609.  (Click the images to enlarge.)

LOL - I’m at that age where my “abulzament” is rather “costlie.”  How is it for you ladies?
​
The two poems below are those by Dickinson with the word “habiliment.”   There are some lines and images in these two poems that leave me in awe.  Read through them, and then I’ll share what I love about them tomorrow.