multo-scribbling

English

Etymology

From Latin multus (much) + English -o- +‎ scribbling. The earliest recorded usage appears in the writings of poet Lord Byron in the 1820s.[1]

Adjective

multo-scribbling (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete, rare, chiefly derogatory) That writes a great deal.
    Hyponym: much-scribbling
    • 1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: [] John Hunt, [], published 1823, →OCLC, stanza LXV, page 25:
      Thus spoke the Demon (late call'd "multifaced" / By multo-scribbling Southey).
      Lord Byron referred to the poet Robert Southey as a "multo-scribbling" poet in the preface to his satirical epic poem Don Juan. Byron was criticizing Southey for his prolific and, in Byron's view, uninspired writing, particularly his longer works.
    • 1848, Notes and Queries[1], Oxford University Press, page 288:
      Joseph Wolff (1795-1862): One of his letters. — Anything that relates to this eccentric and "multo-scribbling" man is interesting. I have a letter addressed by him to Mr. Hackman from Isle Brewers, Somerset, June 25, 1857 ..."
    • 1889, Moore, A. Percival, B.A., “Characters and Character Drawing”, in Transactions of the Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society, Vol II, Part 1[2], page 7:
      Indeed, few more wholesome exercises could be desired for the multo-scribbling novelist of to-day than the study of the Characters of Overbury and Earle, who use the labour of the file on every line and make every sentence an apothegm.

References

  1. ^ multo-scribbling, adj.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.