Fossil word

English-language examples

• ado, as in "without further ado" or "with no further ado" or "much ado about nothing", although the homologous form "to-do" remains attested ("make a to-do", "a big to-do", etc.)
• asunder, as in "torn asunder"
• bandy, as in "bandy about" or "bandy-legged"
• bated, as in "wait with bated breath", although the derived term "abate" remains in non-idiom-specific use
• beck, as in "at one's beck and call", although the verb form "beckon" is still used in non-idiom-specific use
• betide, as in "woe betide you/us/them"
• bide, as in "bide one's time"
• champing, as in "champing at the bit", where "champ" is an obsolete precursor to "chomp", in current use
• coign, as in "coign of vantage"
• deserts, as in "just deserts", although singular "desert" in the sense of "state of deserving" occurs in nonidiom-specific contexts including law and philosophy. "Dessert" is a French loanword, meaning "removing what has been served," and has only a distant etymological connection.
• dint, as in "by dint of"
• dudgeon, as in "in high dudgeon"
• eke, as in "eke out"
• fettle, as in "in fine fettle", although the verb, 'to fettle', remains in specialized use in metal casting.
• fro, as in "to and fro"
• goodly, as in "goodly number"
• helter skelter, as in "scattered helter-skelter about the office", Middle English skelten to hasten
• inclement, as in "inclement weather"
• jetsam, as in "flotsam and jetsam", except in legal contexts (especially admiralty, property, and international law)
• kith, as in "kith and kin"
• lam, as in “on the lam”
• lo, as in "lo and behold"
• loggerheads as in "at loggerheads", loggerhead turtle, or loggerhead shrike
• madding as in "far from the madding crowd"
• math, as in "aftermath"
• muchness as in "much of a muchness"
• ne'er, as in "ne'er-do-well"
• scot, as in "scot free"
• sleight, as in "sleight of hand" is contested. Despite often appearing on list of fossil words, it is often used elsewhere.
• shebang, as in "the whole shebang", although the word is now used as an unrelated common noun in programmers' jargon.
• shrive, preserved only in inflected forms occurring only as part of fixed phrases: 'shrift' in "short shrift" and 'shrove' in "Shrove Tuesday"
• span and spick, as in "spick and span"
• turpitude, as in "moral turpitude"
• vim, as in "vim and vigor", though preserved as the name of a scouring powder
• wedlock, as in "out of wedlock"
• wend, as in "wend your way", although its former past tense "went" is still in use as the past tense of "to go"
• yore, as in "of yore", usually "days of yore"

"Born fossils"

These words were formed from other languages, by elision, or by mincing of other fixed phrases.

• caboodle, as in "kit and caboodle" (evolved from "kit and boodle", itself a fixed phrase borrowed as a unit from Dutch kitte en boedel)
• druthers, as in "if I had my druthers..." (formed by elision from "would rather" and never occurring outside this phrase to begin with)
• tarnation, as in "what in tarnation...?" (evolved in the context of fixed phrases formed by mincing of previously fixed phrases that include the term "damnation")
• nother, as in "a whole nother..." (fixed phrase formed by rebracketing another as a nother, then inserting whole for emphasis; almost never occurs outside this phrase)