Obs. [a. F. calepin, ad. It. calepino dictionary, polyglot, from the cognomen of the Augustine friar, Ambrosio Calepino, of Calepio in Italy, the author of a famous Latin Dictionary, first published in 1502, which in its many editions was the Latin Dictionary of the 16th century, and the foundation of the later work of Forcellini. There was an octoglot edition by Passerat in 1609.]
A dictionary (sometimes ‘a polyglot’); fig. one’s book of authority or reference; one’s note-book or memorandum-book.
Hence the French phrases ‘je consulterai là-dessus mon calepin,’ ‘cela n’est pas dans son calepin,’ ‘mettez cela sur votre calepin’ (make a note of that to serve as a lesson), and the English (obs.) ‘to bring any one to his Calepin,’ i.e., to the utmost limits of his information.
1568. Lanc. Wills (1860), II. 226. I wyll that Henry Marrecrofte shall have my calapyne and my parafrasies.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’ Parl., 56. Let him turne ouer all his vocabularies, Calepines, and dictionaries,… and he shall not finde this Verbe conficio.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, III. xiii. (1632), 602. A stone is a body: but he that should insist and urge: And what is a body?… And so goe-on: Should at last bring the respondent to his Calepine or wit’s end.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Magic Mirr., Wks. (1711), 174. Taxations, Monopolies, Tolls,… and such Impositions as would trouble many Calepines to give Names unto?
1662. Evelyn, Chalcogr. (1769), 22. We have weeded the calepines and lexicons.
[1772. Nugent, trans. Hist. Friar Gerund, II. 53. Calepino is not … the title of a work, but a patronymic of the country of the author … a native of Calepio in Italy.]
