"Owlglass, n." - Word of the Day from the OED

[Dave Monroe]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
.
>> http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/135502
>
> Rachel Owlglass
>
> http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Rachel_Owlglass

On Monday, Nige devoted a post to the 101st birthday of Gypsy Rose Lee
and used another word new to me – espieglerie. As he puts it: “What
charm, what finesse, what espieglerie - what a dame!”

The OED gives us “Frolicsomeness, roguishness,” and cites an 1816
usage by Sir Walter Scott: “A pretty young woman with an air of
espieglerie which became her very well.” The other usage dates from
1852, when Francis Edward Smedley writes: “Which act of
un-English-woman-like espiéglerie must be set down to the score of a
foreign education.” Both refer to women, the first with approval, the
second with xenophobic distaste.

The root is French, espiéglerie: “mischievousness, impishness,
roguishness; piece of mischief, prank.” But the French is borrowed
from the name of the trickster figure in German folklore, Till
Eulenspiegel, the source of Strauss’ tone poem. In Ben Jonson’s The
Alchemist (1610), Till makes his first appearance in English
literature as “Howelglas” – that is, owl glass or, roughly,
Eulenspiegel.

http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/2012/01/etymological-opaqueness.html