subs. and adv. (old).—1. See quots. [Garden Latin: super naculum = on the nail.] Whence (2) right liquor; and (3) see quot. 1823.
1592. NASHE, Pierce Penilesse, His Supplication to the Divell, G. 2 v. a. Drinking SUPER NAGULUM, a devise of drinking new come out of Fraunce; which is, after a man hath turnd vp the bottom of the cup, to drop it on hys naile, and make a pearle with that is left; which if it slide, and he cannot mak stand on, by reason thers too much, he must drinke againe for his penance.
1598. JONSON, The Case is Altered, iii. 3. I confess Cupid’s carouse, he plays SUPER NEGULUM with my liquor of life.
c. 1600. Timon, ii. 5 [DYCE, 1842], 38. I drinke this to thee SUPER NACULUM.
1617. BRATHWAITE, Law of Drinking, 17. They without any difficulty at all can soake and sucke it ἐν του νῦν, to a nayle [margin, SUPER-NACULUM].
1622. MASSINGER, The Virgin Martyr, ii. 1. Spun. Bacchus, the god of brew’d wine and sugar, grand patron of rob-pots, upsy-freesy tipplers, and SUPER-NACULUM takers; this Bacchus, who is head warden of Vintners’-hall, ale-conner.
1630. TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes, 2, Aaa, 3, ro 1.
| As when he drinkes out all the totall summe, | |
| Gave it the stile of SUPERNAGULLUM. |
1678. COTTON, Scarronides, or, Virgil Travestie (1770), 61. Says, Look, here’s SUPERNACULUM.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. SUPERNACULUM, not so much as a Drop left to be poured upon the Thumb-nail, so cleaverly was the Liquor tipt off.
1704. KING, Orpheus and Eurydice.
| Their jests were SUPERNACULUM, | |
| I snatch’d the rubies from each thumb. |
1719. SWIFT, To Dr. Sheridan, Dec. 14. But I doubt the oraculum is a poor SUPERNACULUM.
1746. De SUPERNACULO Anglorum. ‘Est vox hybrida, ex Latina prepositione super et Germano nagel (a nail) composita’ [NARES: which agrees with the account in Pierce Penilesse, and accounts for the nagulum, and negulum].
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. SUPERNACULUM. Good liquor, of which there is not even a drop left sufficient to wet one’s nail.
1822. BYRON, Werner, i. 1. The SUPERNACULUM! twenty years of age, if ’tis a day.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. SUPERNACULUM. Any article of consumption unusually good—as a superior pinch of snuff, a ‘drop of brandy like a nosegay,’ or port vintage 1816.
1835. Edinburgh Review, lxii. 41. Drinking SUPERNACULUM.
d. 1891. J. R. LOWELL, Eurydice.
| And empty to each radiant comer | |
| A SUPERNACULUM of summer. |
