- splendiferous (adj.)
- considered a playful elaboration since its re-birth in 1843, but in 15c. it was good English, from Medieval Latin splendorifer, from splendor (see splendor) + ferre "to bear" (see infer). Compare 15c. splendidious, also splendacious (1843). Bartlett (1859) offers this, allegedly from "An itinerant gospeller ... holding forth to a Kentuckian audience on the kingdom of heaven":
"Heaven, my beloved hearers," said he, "is a glorious, a beautiful, a splendiferous, an angeliferous place. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, it has not entered into the imagination of any Cracker in these here diggings what carryings on the just made perfect have up thar."
