Olde English

My english teacher, along with being a self-proclaimed grading Nazi, is also a self-proclaimed feminist. This being the case, she had our class read the Declaration of Independence, along with its feminist counterpart, the Declaration of Sentiments. Reading through these, I realized that people back then spoke with extreme complexity. It may have been normal and/or fashionable at the time to speak so superfluously, but looking back at it now it seems overly indulgent and thesaurus-like. I consider myself a pretty damn good writer, but I found I had to look up a lot of the words from the texts. Most of the words looked farmiliar, but I still couldn't define them. Here's a list of the disorderly daedals that confused me and their definitions:

Evince: To show or demonstrate clearly; manifest.
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably over the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism...
Abdicate: To relinquish formally a high office or responsibility.
HE has abdicatged Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War agains us.
Compleat: Of or characterized by a highly developed or wide-ranging skill or proficiency.
HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny...
Perfidy: Deliberate breach of faith; calculated violation of trust; treachery.
...already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages...
Redress: To set right; remedy or rectify.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms...
Magnanimity: Generous in forgiving; eschewing resentment or revenge; unselfish.
We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity...
Consanguinity: A close affinity or connection.
They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.
Acquiesce: To consent or comply passively or without protest.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation...
Rectitude: Moral uprightness; righteousness.
...Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions...

From the Declaration of Sentiments:

Hitherto (farmiliar but I never looked this up): Until this time.
...a position different from that which they haved hitherto occupied...
Impel: To urge to action through moral pressure; drive.
...a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
Hoary: So old as to inspire veneration; ancient.
...whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as self evident falsehood, and at war with mankind.

Thanks to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

You learn something new everyday.

Dictionary Online - Yahoo! Education