Legal Commentary

Defeatures

By Kenneth Anderson

My Beloved and I saw an excellent production today of the ?Comedy of Errors? at the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC.  Late in the play, however, I noticed the usage of a word I had not heard before, and which, had I not been sitting Amidst the Words of the Bard, I would have taken for an ugly neologism.  Albeit an ugly neologism I might well have used; forsooth, such is the corrupting Influence of the Conspiracy upon me so to use Words of Mine Own Invention: O Fie, & Alackaday, &tc., &tc.

The word is ?defeatured.? I note that Wordpress spellcheck rejects it resolutely. It appears at Act 2, Scene 1:

By him not ruin?d? Then is he not the ground of my defeatures?  My decayed fair.  A sunny look of his would soon repair ...

?Defeatures? here, as in marred or decayed features, eg an aged face.  Interesting.  I rather like it.  I?ll be on the lookout for a place to work it into a post.  And conversation!

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on February 27, 2011 (boomark / email).