toxophilite

English

Etymology

From Toxophilus, the title of a 1545 book by Roger Ascham intended to mean ‘lover of the bow’, from Ancient Greek τόξον (tóxon, “bow”) + φίλος (phílos, “love”) +‎ -ite.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɒkˈsɒfɪlʌɪt/

Adjective

toxophilite

1. Pertaining to archery.
   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 3, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some "desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs?

Noun

toxophilite (plural toxophilites)

1. Someone keen on or an expert at archery; a lover or practitioner of archery.
   • 1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, Volume the Second, →ISBN, page 100:

     Here the gardens of the place encroached with a somewhat wide sweep upon the paddock, and gave ample room for the doings of the toxophilites. Miss Thorne got together such daughters of Diana as could bend a bow, and marshalled them to the targets.

Related terms

Related terms

• toxophiliac
• toxophily
• toxophilous