multo-scribbling

English

The first recorded instance of the word multo-scribbling is Lord Byron's usage to deride Robert Southey (pictured with book) for the flaws he perceived in Southey's writing.

Etymology

From Latin multus (“much”) + English -o- +‎ scribbling. The earliest recorded usage appears in the writings of poet Lord Byron in the 1820s.

Adjective

multo-scribbling (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, rare, chiefly derogatory) That writes a great deal.

   Hyponym: much scribbling

   • 1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: […] John Hunt, […], published 1823, →OCLC, stanza LXV, page 25:

     Thus spoke the Demon (late call'd "multifaced" / By multo-scribbling Southey).

     Lord Byron referred to the poet Robert Southey as a "multo-scribbling" poet in the preface to his satirical epic poem Don Juan. Byron was criticizing Southey for his prolific and, in Byron's view, uninspired writing, particularly his longer works.

   • 1848, Notes and Queries‎^[1], Oxford University Press, page 288:

     Joseph Wolff (1795-1862): One of his letters. — Anything that relates to this eccentric and "multo-scribbling" man is interesting. I have a letter addressed by him to Mr. Hackman from Isle Brewers, Somerset, June 25, 1857 ..."

   • 1889, Moore, A. Percival, B.A., “Characters and Character Drawing”, in Transactions of the Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society, Vol II, Part 1‎^[2], page 7:

     Indeed, few more wholesome exercises could be desired for the multo-scribbling novelist of to-day than the study of the Characters of Overbury and Earle, who use the labour of the file on every line and make every sentence an apothegm.