Apricity
- “is apricity a real word”
- “warmth of the sun in winter word”
- “beautiful forgotten english words”
- “apricity meaning”
:: COMPARE ::
ApricityvsPsithurism
The short answer
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.
Side by side
| 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 |
Which one you meant
Readers who land here meaning Apricity rather than Psithurism are usually searching for phrases like “is apricity a real word”, “warmth of the sun in winter word”, “beautiful forgotten english words”.
Psithurism
- “word for wind in the trees”
- “is psithurism a real word”
- “sound of leaves rustling word”
- “psithurism meaning”
Which came first
Apricity. 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'.
- 1623ApricityHenry 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'.
- 1848PsithurismEarliest OED evidence, in the writing of Leigh Hunt.
Read either one in full