mulct

"Monitor to note those who miss Lectures, and give their name to the Humanity Lecturer who shall punish them not by pecuniary mulcts but by tasks of making Verses, Themes, Epistles, or getting anything without book. All pecuniary mulcts of Undergraduates to be abolished, and Exercises, Admonitions, Recantations, and Expulsions (according to the nature of the crime) to succeed in their room."

-- Isaac Newton, "Of Educating Youth in Universities"

Egg-zackly, reesetee.
I have a kind of a soft spot for mulciberian as well.

It is truly a plinthific word. :-)

Ilove the word mulct.

mulct mulct mulct mulct mulct
mulcty mc mulcterson
mulctmeister

"'You must know that in their wisdom the Lords of the Admiralty have laid down that for the first six months of his commission no captain may presume to fire more shot a month than one third the number of his guns under various heavy mulcts and penalties; and after that only half as many.'" --Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 73

"A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye." Joyce, Ulysses, 15

Verb multare with meaning 'to impose a fine' still exists in modern Italian.

Interesting that it means both to defraud and to fine. One could be mulcted for mulcting, I suppose.

mulct and eleemosynary are among my favoritest words ever.

Thanks for these comments! This has to be one of the oldest, and weirdest, words I've ever come across. Learn something every day, I does...

It is not "from" 'The Ring and The Book' -- it is actually a Roman legal concept: multare (to punish) > mulctare > Fr. mulcter > OE mulct.

from the Ring and the Book.

n.: A penalty such as a fine.
tr.v.: To penalize by fining or demanding forfeiture. / To acquire by trickery or deception. / To defraud or swindle.

(From Middle English multen, to fine, from Latin multre, mulctre, from mulcta, fine.)