MENTAL

Memorándum. n.s. [Latin.] A note to help the memory.

I resolved to new pave every street within the liberties, and entered a memorandum in my pocket-book accordingly. Guardian, № 166.

Nature's fair table-book, our tender souls,
We scrawl all o'er with old and empty rules,
Stale memorandums of the schools. Swift's Miscel

Mércurial. adj. [mercurialis, Lat.]

1.   1. Formed under the influence of mercury; active; sprightly.

I know the shape of 's leg: This is his hand,
His foot mercurial, his martial thigh,
The brawns of Hercules. Shakesp. Cymbeline.

This youth was such a mercurial, as could make his own part, if at any time he chanced to be out. Bacon's Hen. VII.

Tully considered the dispositions of a sincere, more ignorant, and less mercurial nation, by dwelling on the pathetick part. Swift's Miscel.

  2.  Consisting of quicksilver.

  

I was looking for a definition of "Mental" in Dr. Johnson's 1755 Dictionary, but he didn't include the word.  Bracketing what would have been its space on the page were "Memorandum" and "Mercurial," both worth sharing at the end of a "mental" week.  ("Old and empty rules, Stale memorandums of the schools" -- that's great senior year back-to-school material.)  

I was surprised to find "skellum," a commonly used term from my Brooklyn DA's Office days (usually abbreviated to "skel" or "skels" ), but used nowhere else, defined.  I was always told that the word derived from old Netherlandish, but I suppose I'll need to dig deeper later.



James Taylor: Knockin' Round The Zoo (Link) 

Definitions:  Samuel Johnson, The Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

ANGER

A´NGER.  n.f. [a word of no certain etymology, but, with most probability, derived by Skinner  from ange, Sax. vexd ; which, however, seems to come originally from the Latin ango.]

1. Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind, upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.  Locke.  Anger.

Anger is like a full hot horse, who being allow’d his way, Self-mettle tires him. 

Shakesp.  Henry VIII.

Was the Lord displeased against the rivers ? was thine anger against the rivers ?  was thy wrath against the sea that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation ?

Habb. iii. 8.

 

2. Anger is, according to some, a transient hatred, or at least very like it. 

South.

Pain, or smart, of a sore or swelling.  In this sense it seems plainly deducible from anger.

       I made the experiment, setting the moxa where the first violence of my pain began and where the greatest anger and soreness still continued, notwithstanding the swelling of my foot.

Temple’s Miscellanies.

 “Anger”:  Samuel Johnson, The Dictionary of the English Language, 1755