Lost Word Of The Day (83)

Gambling and gamblers have been with us for millennia. A term for a gambler with pejorative connotations was cinquanter which owed its origins to the French numeral, cinque, one of the six to appear on the face of a dice. It first made its appearance, in print at least, in 1596 in Nashe’s Saffron Walden in which he wrote of “some tall old cinquanter or stigmatical-bearded Master of Arts”. In 1617 Collins in his Defence of Bishop Ely referred to “a sawcy Sinckanter” while in about 1640 Jackson in his Creed linked the term specifically to gaming when he wrote a description of Volanerius who was “an old sinkanter, or gamester and scurrilous companion by profession”.

However, almost contemporaneously cinquanter had assumed a second and perhaps more literal meaning, that of an old man or someone aged fifty, using the French word cinquante as its point of origin. Again, there is a sense of the pejorative in its use, Cotgrave, in 1611, describing someone as “a hoarse mouldichops, an over-worne sicaunter, one that can neither whinnie nor wag the taile.” Around 1624 Bishop Smith used it in a sermon declaring that something was “a very pleasing speech to some old Cinque-Caters” while Charles Cotton in Burlesque upon Burlesque (1675) wrote “take pity, prithee, upon a poor old Cinque and Quarter, he paid for playing the Creator”.

Whether used to denote a gambler or an old man, cinquanter was soon lost in the mists of time.