mournival

English

Alternative forms

• murnival

Etymology

Perhaps from French mornifle (“a card game”).

Noun

mournival (plural mournivals)

1. (card games, obsolete) In the game of gleek, and other card games, a set of four cards of the same face value.
   • 1677, John Dryden, The Kind Keeper; or, Mr. Limberham: A Comedy: […], London: […] R. Bentley, and M. Magnes, […], published 1680, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 37:

     Before George, there's not enough to rig out a Mournival of VVhores: they'l think me grown a meer Curmudgeon. Mercy on me, how will this glorious Trade be carri'd on, with ſuch a miſerable Stock!

2. (by extension, archaic, rare) A set of four things or persons.
   • 1964 [1938], Montague Summers, “The Romantic Feeling” (chapter I), in The Gothic Quest, Russell & Russell, page 56:

     It was, as we shall have occasion to emphasize, not an accidental circumstance that the terror-novel was in the fullest flush of popularity during the seventeen-nineties, and it was also in this decade that Mrs. Radcliffe wrote and published her most characteristic works, A Sicilian Romance, 1790; The Romance of the Forest, 1791; The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794; and The Italian, or, The Confessional of the Black Penitents, 1797, a mournival of Gothic masterpieces.

   • 1958, Phyllis Bentley, “Isabella, Isabella”, in Love and Money: Seven Tales of the West Riding, New York: MacMillan Company, section 10, page 81:

     “ […] And there are those two girls to provide for. Isabella, Isabella—I always think of them as half a mournival of Isabellas—but what the deuce are their other names?”
     “Isabella Lees and Isabella Brownwood,” said Thomas.

   • 2005 May 27, Penelope Periwinkle, “Obsolete”, in soc.singles.moderated‎^[1] (Usenet):

     Four plumbers came by a little while ago, looked at the leaks, and left to go to lunch. I guess, lacking a penis, that I'm not qualified to note that, yes indeedy, there is a leak from the ceiling in the lab. Or, perhaps, they it^[sic] would take a mournival of manly men to keep lil' ole' me from panicking. They milled around in the hall for a minute, told me they's be back, and left.

   • 2010, Aurelius Rex, “The History and Legacy of Dorn’s Betrayal”, in Aurelius Rex, editor, The Dornian Heresy, number 1, page 6, column 2:

     The Emperor, flanked by his Custodes, and Horus along with his Mournival of captains teleported onto the ship, but were scattered across the vast command decks by sinister magicks.

References

• “mournival”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.