C — Crude Forms to Cucking-stool (Part 3 of 3)

Crystalline (3 syl.). The Crystalline sphere. According to Ptolemy, between the “primum mobile” and the firmament or sphere of the fixed stars comes the crystalline sphere, which oscillates or has a shimmering motion that interferes with the regular motion of the stars.

“They pass the planets seven, and pass the `fixed'
And that crystalline sphere, whose balance weighs
The trepidation talked (of).”
Milton: Paradise Lost, iii.

Cub An ill-mannered lout. The cub of a bear is said to have no shape until its dam has licked it into form.

“A bear's a savage beast, of all
Most ugly and unnatural;
Whelped without form until the dam
Has licked it into shape and frame.”
Butler: Hudibras, i. 3.

Cuba The Roman deity who kept guard over infants in their cribs and sent them to sleep. Verb cubo, to lie down in bed.

Cube A faultless cube. A truly good man; a regular brick. (See Brick.)

O g wz alhqwz agaqoz kai teragwuoz aueu yogou     - Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, i. 11, sec. 11.

Cucking-stool (The) or Choking-stool, for ducking scolds, is not connected with choke (to stifle), but the French choquer; hence the archaic verb cuck (to throw), and one still in use, chuck (chuck-farthing). The cucking-stool is the stool which is chucked or thrown into the water.

“Now, if one cucking-stool was for each scold,
Some towns, I fear, would not their numbers
hold." Poor Robin (1746).