etymology - Is "scurryfunge" a new word?


Recently I found the following definition for the word "scurryfunge":



(Verb) Old English; to rush around cleaning when company is on their way over.


Usage: I scurryfunge when I see my mother in law coming over. –definition-of.com



I was wondering if this word was recently invented by someone (recently as in, on the internet), or if the word actually has some real historical usage as suggested.



Answer



The OED does have an entry for the word as 'scurrifunge' (cross-referencing the form 'scurryfunge'). The rather amusing etymology given is



A word of jocular formation, used in various senses with little or no discoverable connection.



The sense you give is, approximately, shown as "to scrub, scour" (transitive), without source quotes. Another sense ("to wriggle about") appears as early as 1777-8 in a book called Spare Hours (Horae Subsecivae), by R. Wright.


Searching for 'scurrifunge' on the web reveals an appearance in a 2012 edition of A dictionary of archaic & provincial words, obsolete phrases, proverbs & ancient customs, form the fourteenth century Volume 2. There the sense given is a fragment from the senses found in R. Wright's book: 'to lash tightly'.


Another source on the web, "Words and Phrases from the Past", has found the sense of 'to search for marine curiosities' in The Gentleman's Magazine, July to December 1889. That site also gives a more complete context for one of the quotes in the OED.


The word makes an appearance in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English (1982), where the additional senses of 'to do anything briskly ... to work or walk hurriedly', 'to scrounge, cadge or wheedle', 'to clean thoroughly, scour', and 'to scold, reprove' are given.


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