This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.
Background
The earliest -ize verbs to enter English did so from Latin verbs ending in -izare, which had in turn often got them from Greek verbs with the suffux -izein. Some of the very earliest, like recognise, appear to have originally adopted the Old English suffix -isen, as the letter z hadn't yet been adopted into English (from French). Some came directly from Latin, others via French, for example realise.
If we look at the most common -ize verbs today, however, many of them don't owe their derivation to Latin or Greek verbs, but simply started by somebody adding the -ize suffix to existing nouns and adjectives, whose own derivation may or may not be Latin. Examples include stabilise, finalise and a raft of business buzzwords, including incentivise.
Thomas Nashe 1567 - c.1601
Traditionally, or at least according to the OED (and perhaps also the gentleman in question), the first person to do this was Thomas Nashe (or Nash), a pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist in late Elizabethan England, who, writing about reactions to his own writing style, said:
'The ploddinger sort of unlearned Zoilists about London exclaim that it is a puffed-up style, and full of profane eloquence; others object unto me the multitude of my boisterous compound words, and the often coining of Italianate verbs which end all in -ize, as mummianize, tympanize, tyrannize'
Epistle to the Reader, introduction to the 1594 second edition of Christ's Tears over Jerusalem
The word ploddinger seems to be an invention of Nashe's, Zoilists were imitators of Zoilus, a Greek grammarian, Cynic philosopher, and literary critic from Amphipolis in East Macedonia famous for his carping cryticism. Nashe seems to be claiming tyrannise as one of his neologisms, but Online Etymology Dictionary has it as late 15c., from Middle French tyranniser (14c.).
I'm pretty sure, however, that we can credit him with mummianize and tympanize, as well as alchumise and paradize from The Unfortunate Traveller (1593), which don't seem to appear in any dictionaries.
For the late William Safire, writing in the New York Times, Nashe seems to have been held single-handedly responsible for the modern tendency of creating new verbs and their derivatives by adding -ise/-ize to existing nouns and adjectives, which, far from being something new, has been going on for four hundred years or so. You can read more about this at the New York Times and Language Log links at the end of the post.
You can find lots of information about Nashe, with a complete list of hs works and links to other websites, encyclopedias etc at Luminarium.org - 'An Anthology of English Literature'. They also have links to the title pages of his books. (Link below)
Here I look for -ize suffix verbs and French-based -ise verbs in just three of his works:
- The Unfortunate Traveller 1594
- Christ's Tears over Jerusalem 1593
- Pierce Penniless 1592
Nashe's prolific use of -ize verbs
As well as apparently inventing quite a few -ize verbs, Nashe seems to be have been very fond of using existing ones as well. The use of -ize verbs was quite rare at the time. Shakespeare only uses about thirty, and there is only one, baptize, in the King James Bible.
Yet in Christ's Tears alone, we have more than in the whole of Shakespeare, and in The Unfortunate Traveller, the number of -ize suffix verbs is almost equal to that of French-based -ise verbs, which was highly unusual for that time. This delight in -ize verbs doesn't seem to appear again until the middle of the eighteenth century.
Here are some of the stranger -ize verbs he uses. Those asterisked are probably his own invention. Links are to OneLook Dictionary (A dictionary of dictionaries, and even then some don't appear):
- alchumize *** - The Unfortunate Traveller
- carrionized - Christ's Tears
- citizenized - Christ's Tears
- diagorized *** - Christ's Tears
- disparadized - Christ's Tears
- epicurize - The Unfortunate Traveller
- eternizing - The Unfortunate Traveller
- gurmandize - Pierce Penniless
- mirmidonized *** - Christ's Tears
- monarchizing - Christ's Tears, Pierce Penniless
- mummianize *** - Christ's Tears
- oblivianize - Christ's Tears
- oraculized - Christ's Tears
- paradize - The Unfortunate Traveller
- palpabrize - Christ's Tears
- signiorizing - Christ's Tears
- soldierized - Christ's Tears
- tragedize - Christ's Tears
- tympanize - The Unfortunate Traveller, Christ's Tears
- unmortalize - Christ's Tears
- warrantized - Christ's Tears
Other words attributed to Nashe
Nashe is also listed in the OED as being responsible for the earliest occurrence of the word jobbernowl - A stupid or foolish person; an idiot, a numbskull.
- Gaffer Iobbernoule,..how dost thou? (Strange Newes 1592)
The Unfortunate Traveller 1594
In the opening phrases of his dedication of the The Unfortunate Traveller to the poet, the Lady Elizabeth Carey, Nashe includes a word apparently of his own making - mummianized. The word preludately also seems pretty well unique to Nash:
Excellent accomplished court-glorifying Lady, give me leave, with the sportive sea-porpoises, preludiately a little to play before the storm of my tears, to make my prayer before I proceed to my sacrifice. Lo, for an oblation to the rich burnished shrine of your virtue, a handful of Jerusalem's mummianized earth, in a few sheets of waste paper enwrapped, I here, humiliate, offer up at your feet.
As well as somewhat strange -ize verbs, Nashe uses niggardise (meaning niggardliness) a couple of times. This is now listed as obsolete, and is usually referenced to Nashe's contemporary, Spencer. Nashe possibly also coined armourwise and siring-wise, as they don't appear in any of the dictionaries at OneLook.
and another that had bent a couple of yron dripping pans armourwise
& charged siring-wise with searching sweet water,
were for meere niggardise
He was dame Niggardize sole heyre
& charged siring-wise with searching sweet water,
were for meere niggardise
He was dame Niggardize sole heyre
A note on the Project Gutenberg version
The Project Gutenberg version is taken from an edition published in 1892, with an essay on Nashe's life and times by Edmund Gosse, and published in London by C.Whittington. It appears to keep to the spelling of the original.
Searchable editions at Google Books
Unfortunately there don't seem to be any Full View versions at Google Books, but there are at least four versions with a limited search function. Occasionally the word shows up in search but isn't visible.
Suffix -ize verbs - 18 instances of 14 verbs
OneLook Dictionary, which links to hundreds of other dictionaries, finds no definitions for alchumize or paradize.
1920 Facsimile | 1885 | 1892 | |||||
-ise | -ize | -ise | -ize | -ise | -ize | alchumize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | anatomize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | authorize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | authorized | (3) | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | canonize | (1) | 1 | 3 | 1 | canonized | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | epicurising | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | epitomize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | eternize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | exorcized | (1) | 1 | 1 | memorize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | organizing | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | paradized | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | particularize | (1) | 1 | 2 | 1 | temporizers | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | tyranize | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
French -ise verbs - 19 instances of 10 verbs
1920 Facsimile | |||
-ise | -ize | aduertised | (1) | characterise | (1) | 1 | chastise | (1) | 1 | despise | (1) | 1 | despised | (2) | 2 | deuise | (2) | 1 | deuised | (2) | deuising | (2) | 2 | disguised | (2) | 1 | exercised | (1) | exercising | (1) | 1 | supervising | (1) | 1 | surmise | (1) | 1 | surprized | (1) | 1 |
Showing all instances of -ize and -ise as shown in Project Gutenberg
get mee, to canonize your name to |
nutriment of whose authorized commendation they may |
quart pots to authorize it, it were |
pots, I came disguised vnto him in |
men Roman histories canonised, was not borne |
they must liue despised and in miserie |
sparke of Adams paradized perfection yet emberd |
none more contemned. Despised they are of |
it is that exercising his empire in |
my eyes, hath exorcized and cleane coniured |
continued deserts will eternize me vnto thee, |
a knight arrant, exercised in the affaires |
into their kandes, deuised the meanes to |
For in deede they were meere temporizers |
he determined to tyranize. Nere a line |
blushing Sabine maids surprized on the sodain |
my defence lesse authorized. It will be |
it did he anatomize these bodie-wanting mots, |
when hee was aduertised of to the |
this did hee characterise a man desirous |
he could not deuise which waie to |
Florence yelded. To particularize their maner of |
passe. Should I memorize halfe the myracles |
their heeles againe. Disguised as they go, |
were all those organizing implements obscured in |
a notable Bandetto, authorized by ye pope, |
her braine doates? Deuise with your selues |
pure deceasing spirite despise me when we |
chastisement, is to chastise our selues in |
the art of epicurising, the art of |
off, hee would alchumize an oyle, that |
vnder my side, deuising what a kinde |
little did I surmise that fortune reserued |
discontentment, and other supervising espialls, to plye |
for me to epitomize his impietie, as |
as I stood deuising how to frame |
my selfe I deuised how to plague |
Christ's Tears Over Jeruasalem 1593
First search was done with a plain text at EBooksRead and checked with an 1815 version at Google Books.
In an effort to bestow some gravity on Christ's Tears, Nashe clutters its style with huge and compound words, with coinages ending in -ate or -ize, and with alliteration. Readers must make their way among preludiately, mummianized, gross-brained formallity, purely pacificatory suppliants, assertionate, oblivionize, and luciferious passionate-ambitious.
PoetryFoundation
Suffix -ize verbs - 47 instances of 44 verbs
1815 | |||
-ise | -ize | adulterised | (1) | 1 | agonizing | (1) | 1 | anatomize | (1) | 1 | authorise | (1) | 2 | authorized | (1) | 1 | baptized | (1) | 1 | canonized | (1) | 1 | canonizing | (1) | 1 | carrionized | (1) | 1 | chastised | (1) | christianized | (1) | 1 | citizenized | (1) | 1 | covetise | (4) | 4 | diagorized | (1) | disparadised | (1) | 1 | equalize | (1) | 1 | eternizing | (1) | 1 | memorize | (2) | 2 | mirmidonized | (1) | 1 | monarchizing | (1) | 1 | mummanized | (1) | nectarized | (1) | 1 | oblivionize | (1) | 1 | oraculized | (1) | 1 | palpabrize | (1) | 1 | re-tranquillized | (1) | royalize | (1) | 1 | rumatize | (1) | 1 | scandalized | (1) | 1 | signiorizing | (1) | 1 | soldierized | (1) | 1 | spiritualized | (1) | 1 | superficialized | (1) | 1 | tragedize | (1) | 1 | tympanized | (1) | 1 | tyrannise | (1) | 1 | tyrannizing | (1) | 1 | unauthorised | (1) | 1 | unmortalize | (1) | unparadised | (1) | 1 | warrantized | (1) | 1 |
French -ise verbs - 33 instances of 18 verbs
1815 | |||
-ise | -ize | chastise | (3) | 3 | chastised | (2) | 4 | chastising | (3) | 3 | circumcise | (1) | 1 | comprise | (1) | 1 | despise | (8) | 8 | despised | (3) | 3 | despising | (3) | 3 | devised | (1) | 1 | disguised | (2) | 2 | disguising | (1) | 2 | enfranchise | (1) | 1 | exercise | (1) | 1 | surprise | (1) | 1 | surprised | (2) | 2 |
Showing all instances of -ize and -ise as shown in the EbooksRead version, with links to the edition published in London in 1815
words might not comprise thy fame. |
a handful of Jerusalem's mummanized 1 earth (in |
you. To the eternizing of the heroical |
supportive perpetuating of your canonized reputation wholly this |
must and will memorize more especially, for you |
soever I have scandalized the meanest. Into |
not to be despised or disannulled. Next this, |
tribulation that shall exercise or try thee, |
hath his texts to authorise him. Nothing doth |
for pride of despising the preaching of |
repent and be baptized, but thou wouldst not |
thou hast been chastised but with wanton whips; |
woman, child, he shall unmortalize and mangle ; |
her gall, all are carrionized and contaminated with |
let thy deep-entering dart oblivionize their memories. |
fast-fortified prayer, and ear- agonizing invocation, I have |
impressive heart, and mirmidonized mine eyes, that |
Seneca I should tragedize myself, by bleeding |
a subject to royalize your Muses with. Of |
seminarized this hope of signiorizing and freedom amongst |
perplex pale paper, rumatize my reader's eyes, with |
had repining victual-scanting masters, tyrannizing nevertheless for their |
already slain Til anatomize and embowel, the more |
re-tranquillized and rejoiced it, |
sin shalt thou clean circumcise, by this one |
yet, that it may memorize against you ; |
Two thousand by this covetise slept their last. |
into his hands unauthorised. Thou sufferedst him |
substance of, by canonizing such a multifarious |
ere this hast disparadised our first parent |
that the spirit of monarchizing in private men, |
; as riches or covetise there is nothing |
at sea, or disasterly soldierized it by land, |
us, than the nectarized aqua calestis of water-mingled |
; learn to despise the world, despise |
despise the world, despise vanity, despise thyself, |
world, despise vanity, despise thyself, to despise despising, |
vanity, despise thyself, to despise despising, and, lastly, |
despise thyself, to despise despising, and, lastly, to |
and, lastly, to despise no man. If |
a man is so tympanized with prosperity, and |
they cannot grossly palpabrize or feel God with |
kings to walk disguised amongst their subjects. He |
and yet is Diagorized 1 , will |
will never be Christianized. University men, that are |
of Terence is oraculized, Patres aquum censer e |
blessing hath he warrantized. |
senses, he will despise you and flout you. |
their eyes with spiritualized distillations? Why tip |
suck up that adulterised sinful beauty, wherewith she |
our royalty, we cannot equalize one of the |
await, for wanton disguising thyself against kind, |
covets nought but gold covetise. None, in a |
into thee and surprise thee. Watch and |
thou be not surprised. In vain is |
a form-shifting devil, disguised in man's likeness. Utterly |
their cheeks you behold superficialized, is but Sir |
The devil to enfranchise them of hell, |
Awake, you wits, grave authorized law distributors, and |
in her apparel citizenized, she is the |
any price. God is despised in comparison of |
mortality but to covetise. |
Let covetise be enlarged out |
sleep, so we ( surprised with a lethargy |
the apostle, " despise not the chastisement of |
V The Lord's chastising we think to |
to escape by despising it. Quod in |
of all is despised. Est tentatio adducens |
us not to despise the chastising of God, |
to despise the chastising of God, so he |
Hath God chastised or scourged such |
for in his chastising, he hath shewed more |
a few days chastise us at their |
and chastise us, yet cannot |
transitory chaff, they tyrannise and reign over |
is to be chastised of the Lord |
wherein Adam was unparadised, and the fruit-fostering summer |
pleasant sportive wits have devised to gull them |
in thine anger, neither chastise us in thy |
Pierce Penniless 1592
I did my original search in an HTML version of the 1592 original available at Luminarium, an excellent website for early English literature, and then checked it with a reprint of this edition at Google Books, as well as a later reprint (1964).
The 1592 version at Google Books is reprinted in a later edition of 'Miscellaneous Tracts' (date unknown), which also includes the much longer 'Pierce's Supererogation, or a New Prayse of the Old Asse' of 1593, a critique of Nashe by Gabriel Harvey, as well as a piece by Harvey critical of Nashe called 'A New Letter of Notable Contents'. This accounts for the greater number of instances of some -ise words.
Nashe and Harvey had a long-standing literary quarrel, which you can read about in an article at Elizabethan Authors and in the entry for Gabriel Harvey at Wikipedia, both linked to below.
Spelling idiosyncracies and discrepancies
There is another problem, in that the s in -ise words sometimes shows up in search as an s and sometimes as an f, and in the case of devise, both (in the Google Books version).
At this time the letters u and v were often interchanged, for example the full title of the piece is printed in both the Luminarium version and the 'Miscellaneous Tracts' version of the 1592 edition as:
Pierce Penilesse
HIS SVPPLICATION
to the Deuill
HIS SVPPLICATION
to the Deuill
But there are also spelling discrepancies between the two versions of the same edition, with Luminarium going for s rather than f, but also for u instead of v and the Miscellaneous Tracts version doing the opposite, which is shown by what follows the title:
Luminarium | Miscellaneous Tracts |
printed by Abell Iesses, for I.B. 1592. |
Printed By Abell Jeffes, for Iohn Busbie. 1592 |
A priuate Epistle of the Author to the Printer | A Private Epiftle of the Author to the Printer |
This all makes searching and checking rather a hit-and-miss process.
Suffix -ize verbs - 5 instances of 5 verbs
1592 | 1964 | ||||
-ise | -ize | -ise | -ize | ||
anatomizing | (1) | 1 | 1 | ||
canonized | (1) | 1 | 1 | ||
gurmandise | (1) | 1 | 0 | ||
monarchizing | (1) | 1 | 1 | ||
moralizing | (1) | 1 | 1 |
Nouns ending in -ize and -ise
1592 | 1964 | ||||
-ise | -ize | -ise | -ize | ||
cowardize | (1) | -ize | -ice | ||
niggardize | (1) | 1 | 2 | ||
sumise | (1) | 0 | 0 |
French -ise verbs - 27 instances of 14 verbs
1592 | 1964 | ||||
-ise | -ize | -ise | -ize | ||
aduertised | (2) | 1 | 3 | ||
aduise | (1) | 1+(5) | 0 | ||
comprise | (1) | 1 | 1 | ||
aduise | (1) | 1+(5) | 0 | ||
despise | (3) | 1 + 1 | 3 | ||
despised | (1) | 1 | 3 | ||
deuise | (7) | 5+(12) + 2 | 11 | ||
deuised | (2) | 2+(11) | 2 | ||
deuisers | (1) | 1 | 1 | ||
deuising | (1) | 2 | 2 | ||
enterprise | (2) | 2+(6) | 2 | ||
exercise | (3) | 3 | 3 | ||
surmise | (1) | 1 | 3 | ||
surmize | (1) | 0 | 0 |
Showing all instances of -ize and -ise as shown at Luminarium
that if any such lewde deuise intrude it selfe to their |
Other news I am aduertised of, that a scald triuial |
is odious, specially, in this moralizing age, wherein euery one seeks |
vnfruitfull studie, or seeme to despise the excellent qualified partes of |
a most false and iniurious sumise. There is nothing that if |
losse, my vulgar Muse was despised & neglected, my paines not |
young maisters doe nothing but deuise how to spend and aske |
vpon, and he could not deuise how to wrest an odde |
On the other side, Dame Niggardize his wife, in a sedge |
walls of Roan. Hee will despise the barbarisme of his own |
Latine. You that bee wise despise it, abhorre it, neglect it; |
all points as might be deuised; and the grunting Dogge somewhat |
lookes? The Poets were ill aduised, that fained him to be |
soules would not need bee canonized for Martyrs, that on the |
not. Be aduertised Master Os fœtidum, Bedle of |
the Blackesmithes, that Lawyers cannot deuise which way in the world |
of vices, and mother of cowardize, alledging many examples, how there |
much encouragement, as hee should surmize his superficiall arguments had shaken |
Smithi. the Muses, queintlie couldst thou deuise heauenly Ditties to Apolloes Lute, |
water, or beene at the anatomizing of the Skies intrailes in |
And whereto tends all this gurmandise, but to giue sleepe grosse |
Drinking super nagulum, a deuise of drinking new come out |
long doth not amisse to exercise the eies withall. Fat men |
Vinterns, Alewiues, and Victuallers, who surmise if there were no Playes, |
sits melancholie in his Chamber, deuising vpon felonie or treason, and |
degrees greater than he was, aduised him to digge a pit |
so customablie practised, that often exercise had quite abrogated the opinion |
wife, but first askt their aduise, nor pare his nailes, nor |
one daie, as these two Deuisers were plotting by themselues how |
in force fraile men to enterprise all wickednesse that maie be, |
maleuolence and enuie. Such a monarchizing spirit it was, that said |
to be such as first deuised cards and dice, and I |
was licensed by God, nor exercise his tyranie ouer Iob till |
to steale a horse, should deuise by the waie as he |
my vnable pen should euer enterprise such a ccontinuate taske of |
Because few words might not comprise thy fame. |
Links - Thomas Nashe - biographies etc
- Wikipedia
- Luminarium
- Poetry Foundation
- Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900) - at Wikisource
- The Cambridge History of English and American Literature (1907–21) - at Bartleby.
- Luminarium - List of Works by Nashe
Links - Thomas Nashe - controversies and a quarrel
- Language Log - Faults "intollerable and euer vndecent" - Nashe and -ize verbs
- Language Log - Centuries of disgust and horror? - Nashe and -ize verbs
- William Safire - New York Times - Nashe and the use of -ize to invent new words
- Gabriel Harvey - Wikipedia
- Elizabethan Authors - The Harvey-Nashe quarrel
The Unfortunate Traveller
- Wikipedia
- Project Gutenberg (from the 1892 Gosse edition)
- Facsimile of original edition, 1920 Edited HFB Brett-Smith, Blackwell, Oxford 1920
- At Google Books
- London 1920 Facsimile of the original edition published by Percy Reprints
- London 1885, ed.Grossart Included in the Complete Works
- London 1892, ed.Grosse C. Whittington, Together with with Pierce Pennyless,
- London 1904, ed. McKerrow With Christ's Tears, The Tragedy of Dido, 1904
Christ's Tears
- Christ's Tears - Google Books (London 1815 - reprinted from 1613 edition)
- Ebooksread - from an edition published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, which suggests that it was published between 1811 and 1824 (see Wikipedia).
- Archive.org
- Christ's Tears PDF 1 (Oxford-Shakespeare)
- Christ's Tears PDF 2 (Oxford-Shakespeare)
Pierse Penniless
- Piers Penniless - Luminarium
- Pierce Penilesse - London , Google Books
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