The etymology of ‘sincerus’ being uncertain, it is impossible to say what is the primary notion of our English ‘sincere.’ These words belong now to an ethical sphere exclusively, and even there their meaning is not altogether what once it was; but the absence of foreign admixture which they predicate might be literal once.
The mind of a man, as it is not of that content or receipt to comprehend knowledge without helps and supplies, so again, it is not sincere, but of an ill and corrupt tincture.—Bacon, Of the Interpretation of Nature, c. xvi.
The Germans are a people that more than all the world, I think, may boast sincerity, as being for some thousands of years a pure and unmixed people.—Feltham, A brief Character of the Low Countries, p. 59.
Skeleton. Now the framework of bones as entirely denuded of the flesh; but in early English, and there in stricter agreement with the meaning of the word in Greek, the dried mummy.
Scelet; the dead body of a man artificially dried or tanned for to be kept or seen a long time.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals; An Explanation of certain obscure Words.
Smug. One of many words which have been spoilt for poetic use through being drawn into our serio-comic vocabulary. It still means neat, trim, being connected with the German ‘schmuck,’ trim, spruce; but seeks to present the very neatness which it implies in a ridiculous ignoble point of view. Any such intention was very far from it once.
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly.
Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV., act iii. sc. 1.
Twelve sable steeds, smug as the old raven’s wing,