different between superscribe vs vividities

English

Etymology

From Latin superscr?bo (“write over”)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /su?p??sk???b/

Verb

superscribe (third-person singular simple present superscribes, present participle superscribing, simple past and past participle superscribed)

1. (transitive) to write on the exterior of, the surface of, or above.

   He superscribed each character with its Latin-alphabet equivalent.

2. (transitive) to write (something) on the exterior of an object, such as a document or an envelope.

   His wife superscribed her own notes on each of his letters before sending them in packets to the editor.

3. (transitive) To address (an envelope etc.).
   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 121:

     That Friday, which began like any other, when my fate was brought up from the kitchen, superscribed to me, and put into my ignorant hand.

Latin

Verb

superscr?be

1. second-person singular present active imperative of superscr?b?

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: v?v??d?t?z, IPA^(key): /v??v?d?ti?z/

Noun

vividities

1. plural of vividity
   • 1823: AUTHOR UNKNOWN, The Lady’s magazine (and museum). Improved ser., enlarged, p266

     …and the vividities of passion, the writer may not have known how to procure the morrow’s sustenance.

   • 1925: Joseph Conrad, The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad, p255 (Nota bene: this citation and every one of those marked with a superscribed obelus (†) are identical copies of Joseph Conrad’s unfinished last novel “Suspense” (published posthumously in 1925))

     At every momentary pause in his long and fantastic adventure it returned with its splendid charm and glorious serenity, resembling the power of a great and unfathomable love whose tenderness like a sacred spell lays to rest all the vividities and all the violences of passionate desire.

   • 1977: Angus Wilson & John Holloway, Writers of East Anglia, p120

     We are the echoes from the planets,
     

     ??the blackbody vividities,
     

     ??and the high-energy tailing
     

     ??that flows from the springs of time. [?…]

   • 1995: Joseph Conrad, The Collected Works of Joseph Conrad, p255?^†

     At every momentary pause in his long and fantastic adventure it returned with its splendid charm and glorious serenity, resembling the power of a great and unfathomable love whose tenderness like a sacred spell lays to rest all the vividities and all the violences of passionate desire.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:vividities.