Pl. terræ filii. [L. terræ fīlius, a son of the earth, a man of unknown origin.]
1. A person of obscure parentage.
[c. 1590. Greene, Fr. Bacon, ix. 51. Those geomantic spirits, That Hermes calleth terræ filii.]
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. iii. II. (1676), 199/2. Let no terræ filius, or upstart, insult at this which I have said, no worthy Gentleman take offence.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., I. III. i. 186. As if my father had beene terræ filius.
1679. C. Nesse, Antichrist, 7. This is the Terræfilius, the base-born beast that springs out of the earth.
1883. Sat. Rev., 2 June, 688/2. Abd-el-Kader himself was very far from being terræ filius.
2. Formerly, at the University of Oxford: An orator privileged to make humorous and satirical strictures in a speech at the public ‘act.’ (In quot. 1882, applied to a similar orator at Dublin University.) Cf. PREVARICATOR 4.
1651–93. Wood, Life [passim: see ed. Clark (1900), V. 151/2].
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Terræ-filius … the foole in the Acts at Oxford. Ibid. (1674), (ed. 4), Terræ-filius,… we may call him the bon drol in the Acts at Oxford, who must be a Master of Arts, to qualifie him for this Office, and is commonly chosen out of the best Wits of the University.
1669. Evelyn, Diary, 10 July. The Terræ filius (the Universitie Buffoone) entertain’d the auditorie with a … sarcastical rhapsodie.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 37. Wits … who never … were at all inspir’d from a Tripus’s Terræ-filius’s, or Prævarecator’s speech.
1713. Steele, Guard., No. 72, ¶ 2. In my time … the Terræ-filius contented himself with being bitter upon the Pope, or chastising the Turk.
1721. Amherst, Terræ Fil., Ded. It is very uncertain when Terræ-Filius will be able to regain his antient privileges in the Sheldonian theatre. Ibid., No. 5. 23. All men are not Terræ-Filius’s.
1882. Q. Rev., April, 389. A scurrilous harangue … for the delivery of which, in the character of Terræ Filius, one of his [Swift’s] College acquaintances narrowly escaped expulsion.
