[a. F. vocable (16th c., = Pr. vocable, Sp. vocablo, Pg. vocabulo, It. vocabolo, -ulo), or directly ad. L. vocābul-um, f. vocāre to call, name.]
1. A word or term.
App. reintroduced in the 18th century; mentioned as a Scotticism by Beattie in 1787.
1530. Palsgr., Introd., p. xxii. The great nombre of theyr vocables be evidently deryved forth of latin.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 9. This sillable, εὐ, in composicion of greke vocables betokeneth a certain facilitee.
1577. Grange, Golden Aphrod., I j. N.O. perceyuing this deuision of vocables, thought good to note the sense thereof.
1600–9. Rowlands, Knaue of Clubbes, 19. He to coniure goes, With characters, and vocables, and diuers antique shewes.
1638. A. Read, Chirurg., ix. 60. It is not amisse sometimes to coine vocables of art to expresse the matter which is in hand.
1786. Geddes, Prospectus New Transl. Bible, 61. There is no language so compleatly copious and distinctive as to have a different vocable for every different idea. Ibid. (1787), Lett. to Bp. of London, 82. I had ventured to use the word vocable. Some have approved of it, as a term we wanted; others have objected to it, as an innovation.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XIV. 527/1. Even some of the American jargon dialects contain vocables which indicate an Asiatic or European original.
1807. Boucher, Suppl. Johnson’s Dict., s.v. Ay, The simple annals, or history, of this vocable in our own language … would probably be not less curious than its general history is.
1852. Blackie, Study Lang., 30. If you love the book … you will master the vocables it contains in a speedy and agreeable way.
1875. E. White, Life in Christ, IV. xxiv. (1878), 348. Dreamers, for whom … every vocable is surrounded with an aureola or many-tinted halo of mysteries and ‘inner senses.’
† 2. A name or designation. Obs. rare.
c. 1550. Disc. Common Weal Eng. (1893), 76. Therof to this daie remaineth these vocables of coine, as libra, pondo, dipondium,… vocables of weight; that afterward weare gyven to coines pretending the same weight.
a. 1623. Buck, Rich. III., V. (1646), 133. We will next endeavour to understand that Vocable, or term, Tyrannus (that is, a Tyrant, or an evil King) cast upon King Richard.
