gazetteer
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌɡæzəˈtɪə/
ipa: /ˌɡæzəˈtɪəɹ/
rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: gazetteers
form: gazetteering
form: gazetteered
form: gazetteered
Etymology: The noun is borrowed from French gazettier (archaic), gazetier (“journalist, newspaperman”) + English -eer (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people associated with or engaged in a specified activities). Gazettier, gazetier are derived from gazette (“newspaper”) + -ier (suffix denoting a profession); and gazette from Italian gazzetta, from Venetan gazeta, from gazeta dele novità (literally “a gazeta of news”) (referring to the cost of the newspaper, a gazeta being a Venetian coin of little value, whence English gazet (obsolete)), possibly a diminutive of Latin gaza (“riches, treasure; treasury”), ultimately from Old Median *ganǰam (“treasure; wealth”). The English word is analysable as gazette + -eer.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: [A]s an old friend I've got one favour to beg and to request to be granted. […] Why, when you've been gazetteered as Sir Robert and Lady Smugglefuss, that I shall be the first to be honoured with a visit.
ref: 1864, C[harles] J[ames] Collins, “A Congratulatory Meeting”, in Singed Moths: A City Romance […], volume II, London: John Maxwell and Company […], →OCLC, page 74:
text: But the change was at hand, and two new major-generals and six brigadier-generals were gazetteered to the anxious country.
ref: 1894 July, Charles R. Corning, “General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley”, in The Granite Monthly: A New Hampshire Magazine Devoted to History, Biography, Literature, and State Progress, volume XVII, number I, Concord, N.H.: Granite Monthly Company, →OCLC, page 3, column 2:
text: Gazetteered as Lieutenant-Commander, he [Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh] was now twenty-nine years old, about the age when he might have expected such promotion. No sign there of favouritism or nepotism, though his unrivalled connections had hardly held him back.
ref: 1981, Denis Judd, “A Career of One’s Own?”, in Prince Philip: A Biography, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →ISBN, page 146:
glosses: Synonym of gazette (“to announce the status of (someone) in an official gazette”).
synonyms: word: gazette
extra: (“to announce the status of (someone) in an official gazette”)
examples: text: [O]ur modern canibals of the gazetteering tribe, leſs delicate than they, can divert themſelves in cool blood vvith the pangs of their friends, and exert their more licentious brutality amidſt the miſeries of nations in ſtrict alliance vvith their ovvn;—if ſuch inſects can be deem'd of any nation.
ref: 1756, “a man of business” [pseudonym], A Satirical Review of the Manifold Falshoods and Absurdities hitherto Publish’d Concerning the Earthquake. To which is Annext, an Authentic Account of the Late Catastrophe at Lisbon, and the Present State of that August Capital. […], London: […] A. and C. Corbett, […], →OCLC, page 38:
text: Patience, it will be our turn by and by, we shall have the honour of being Gazetteered in our place, at least I expect a whole paragraph in the 'Evening Post' for my own share.
ref: 1841 October 30, “Memoirs of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Knt., Containing His Speeches and Poems. Edited by J. A. Manning, Esq. Boone. [book review]”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, number 731, London: […] James Holmes [for] John Francis, →OCLC, page 824, column 3:
glosses: To report about (someone) in a gazette or newspaper.