spiflicate

English

Alternative forms

• smifligate
• spefflicate (Cornish dialect)
• spifflicate

Etymology

Apparently made up to resemble a word of Latin origin.

Verb

spiflicate (third-person singular simple present spiflicates, present participle spiflicating, simple past and past participle spiflicated)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To confound, silence or dumbfound.
2. (transitive, Provincial, obsolete) To beat severely.
3. (transitive, slang, obsolete) To stifle, suffocate, kill.
   • 1837, Richard Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends:

     So out with your whinger at once, and scrag Jane while I spiflicate Johnny

4. (transitive, obsolete) To ruin, destroy.
   • 1932, Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase:

     It completely busts up and spifflicates the medical evidence

Related terms

• spiflicating
• spiflication

References

• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “spiflicate”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volume V, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• Eric Partridge (1984) Paul Beale, editor, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English […], 8th edition, New York: Macmillan