Where it sits
Which doesn't stop it being useful. It just makes the 'forgotten' framing wrong.
Tell it apart
| Aspect | Apricity | Psithurism |
|---|---|---|
| OED usage citation | None | 1848, Leigh Hunt |
| In other dictionaries | Bailey 1749, Century, Wiktionary | Collins, Cambridge |
| Status | Dictionary artefact | Archaic but real |
| Ever used? | Barely — one 1856 instance | Yes |
Both get filed as 'beautiful lost words', and only one deserves the suspicion. Psithurism has an OED citation from an actual writer — Leigh Hunt, 1848. Apricity has no OED usage citation at all — one stray 1856 sentence is the whole of its life outside the dictionaries. One lapsed from use; the other may never have entered it.
What it doesn't mean
Barely anyone did. One running use is on record — 'An apricity seemed to illume her countenance', 1856 — and the OED records no citation for it at all except Cockeram's dictionary entry — so the word's documented history rests almost entirely on a lexicographer's entry rather than on usage.
It's categorically different. Wiktionary marks it obsolete, and it travelled from one dictionary to the next — Cockeram in 1623, Bailey's etymological dictionary in 1749, the Century Dictionary in the 1890s — on almost no running use in between. It survived as an entry more than as a word.
What it really means
Apricity appears on every list of beautiful forgotten English words, always with the same framing: a lovely thing we used to have a name for and carelessly lost.
Almost nobody ever used it. The OED records no citation except Cockeram's dictionary itself, and only one running instance has surfaced anywhere — George Raymond, in Drafts for Acceptance (1856): 'In the midst of this suspense the lady's maid entered. An apricity seemed to illume her countenance.' It is missing from Johnson's 1755 dictionary, though it did keep travelling from one lexicon to the next: Bailey in 1749, the Century Dictionary in the 1890s, and on into Wiktionary today.
Which makes it something more interesting than a lost word. Henry Cockeram published The English Dictionarie in 1623 — the first English dictionary to use dictionary in its title — and part of what he was doing was supplying hard words rather than recording them, for readers who wanted to sound learned. Apricity may never have lapsed from use, because it may never have been in use. It might simply be a word a lexicographer made, from Latin aprīcitās, sunniness.
And it's worth separating it from its usual companion. Psithurism gets the same suspicion and doesn't deserve it — that one has a real OED citation, from Leigh Hunt in 1848. Apricity is the genuine one-dictionary word.
Small etymological note, since almost every blog gets it wrong: this has nothing to do with apricots. The resemblance isn't pure accident either, though: apricot reached English as apricock, its shape pulled toward Latin aprīcus on the way. The root is aprīcus, warmed by the sun — which also gives us the wonderfully underused verb apricate: to bask.
Where it comes from
Latin — sunniness
Latin — warmed by the sun, sunny
Not descended from 'apricot', despite the resemblance — though the likeness is not pure accident either: apricot's English form was itself influenced by Latin apricus. Related survivals: apricate (to bask), aprication.
- 1623
Henry Cockeram publishes The English Dictionarie, the first English dictionary to use the word 'dictionary' in its title. It appears there as 'Apricitie', glossed 'the warmeness of the Sunne in Winter'.
- 1626
A later edition gives the entry as 'Apricity, the warmenes of the Sunne in Winter' — the 1623/1626 discrepancy reflects different editions, not different words.
In real life
- A January lunchtime, frost still on the grass, and you sit on a bench with your eyes closed, warmed right through by the low sun — the feeling the old dictionary entry names.
- Cockeram's gloss, as printed in the 1626 edition of his dictionary: 'Apricity, the warmenes of the Sunne in Winter'.
- Its sibling verb is just as rare: on a bright February afternoon, the cat apricates on the windowsill.
Questions
Q01Is apricity a real word?
It's a real dictionary entry, first in Cockeram's English Dictionarie of 1623. Whether it's a real word is arguable — the OED records no independent usage citation for it, meaning it is almost entirely a lexicographer's word — one running use is on record, in 1856, and little else.
Q02Is it in Merriam-Webster?
No. It has an OED entry, and Dictionary.com carries it too, marked obsolete, as does the older Century Dictionary — but it's absent from Johnson's 1755 dictionary.
Q03What's the verb form?
To apricate — to bask in the sun. The noun of that action is aprication. Both are as rare as the parent word.