adjective

1) Characterized by or having refinement, especially in manner; courteous, polite, suave, elegant, refined, polished, opposed to rustic.

“A high-bred man never forgets himself, controls his temper, does nothing in excess, is urbane, dignified, and that even to persons whom he is . . . wishing far away.” - Robertson

“Raising, through just gradation, savage life
To rustic and the rustic to urbane.” - Wordsworth

[Latin urbanus = urban (q.v.).]

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pronoun

1) It was frequently used emphatically in phrases expressive of contempt, reproach, scorn, anger, or the like.

“All that Lord Cobham did was at thy instigation, thou viper, for I thou thee, thou traitor” - Coke

2) The employment of thou by the early Quakers implied that they regarded no man, however exalted his rank, with special reverence. With reference to them Fuller, in the dedication of his Seventh Book, explains the usage of his time in a sentence useful for lexicographical purposes:

“In opposition whereunto we maintain that thou from superiors to inferiors is proper as a sign of command; from equals to equals is passable as a note of familiarity; but from inferiors to superiors, if proceeding from ignorance, hath a smack of clownishness; if from affectation, a tone of contempt.”

verb transitive

To address with the pronoun though; to treat with familiarity.

“Taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou’st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss." - Shakespeare

verb intransitive

To use the words thou and thee in conversation.

[In the objective and dative cases thee, plural (you or ye), Anglo Saxon dhu; cognate with Iceland thu; Goth thu; Danish, Swedish and German du; Irish and Gaelic tu; Welsh ti, Russian tui; Latin tu; Greek su, tu; Persian tu; Sanscript tvam. The Anglo Saxon dhu was thus declined: nom, dhu, genitive dhin, dative eow, accususative eowic, -oew. In the seventeenth century the employment of thou to any one indicated familiarity with him, whether of love or of contempt. The use of the plural you for the singular thou was established as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century.] The second personal pronoun of the singular number; used to denote the person spoken to; thyself.

RUNNING AMUCK (or more properly Amok), the native term for the homicidal mania which attacks Malays. A Malay will suddenly and apparently without reason rush into the street armed with a kris or other weapon, and slash and cut at everybody he meets till he is killed. These frenzies were formerly regarded as due to sudden insanity. It is now, however, certain that the typical amok is the result of circumstances, such as domestic jealousy or gambling losses, which render a Malay desperate and weary of his life. It is, in fact, the Malay equivalent of suicide. “The act of running amuck is probably due to causes over which the culprit has some amount of control, as the custom has now died out in the British possessions in the peninsula, the offenders probably objecting to being caught and tried in cold blood” (W. W. Skeat).

Though so intimately associated with the Malay there is some ground for believing the word to have an Indian origin, and the act is certainly far from unknown in Indian history. Some notable cases have occurred among the Rajputs. Thus, in 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amuck at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the r 8th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twentysix of his suite before they themselves fell.

In Malabar there were certain professional assassins known to old travelers as Amouchi or Amuco. The nearest modern equivalent to these words would seem to be the Malayalim Amarkhan, “ a warrior” (from amar,” fight"). The Malayalim term shaver applied to these ruffians meant literally those “who devote themselves to death.” In Malabar was a custom by which the zamorin or king of Calicut had to cut his throat in public when he had reigned twelve years. In the r7th century a variation in his fate was made. He had to take his seat, after a great feast lasting twelve days, at a national assembly, surrounded by his armed suite, and it was lawful for anyone to attack him, and if he succeeded in killing him the murderer himself became zamorin (see Alex. Hamilton, “A new Account of the East Indies,” in Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, viii. 374). In 1600 thirty would-be assassins were killed in their attempts. These men were called Amar-khan, and it has been suggested that their action was “running amuck” in the true Malay sense. Another proposed derivation for amouchi is Sanskrit amokshya, “ that cannot be loosed,” suggesting that the murderer was bound by a vow, an explanation more than once advanced for the Malay amuck; but amokshya in such a sense is unknown in Malayalim.

noun

[It has no connection with the English word muck; but is from the Malay amuk = engaging furiously in battle, attacking with desperate resolution, rushing in a state of frenzy to the commission of indiscriminate murder. (See the definition ) Applied to an animal or a man in a state of violent rage. (Marsden: Malayan Dictionary 1812)]

In such a sate as that described above. Used only in the expression To run a muck or amuck, which means to rush, under the influence of opium or “bhang” (an intoxicating drug made from hemp), out of one’s house into the street, armed with a sword, a dagger, or other lethal weapon, and kill every one—man, woman, or child—who cannot with sufficient promptitude escape. This maniacal and inhuman method of venting rage is mostly confined to the Malays; or if practiced by other races, it scarcely ever passes beyond the limits of the Mohammedan world.

To run amuck: To fall foul of. (Literally and figuratively)

To lose control of oneself and behave outrageously or violently.

adverb

In a violent or frenzied manner: used only in the phrase below. Amuck formerly was sometimes written as two words, being regarded as noun and article.

[< Malay amoq, “engaging furiously in battle."]

to run amuck

To run about frantically killing or trying to kill everybody one meets, as is done sometimes by frenzied Malays; hence, to make an indiscriminate attack; followed by at, against, of, with; as to run amuck at society.

“While we were there at Penang, a Malay ran amok . . .stabbing and slashing and spattering the bamboos with blood.” - J.W. Palmer

“We wonder . . . that he [Burns] did not grow utterly frantic, and run amuck against them all.” - Carlyle

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Time Magazine December 7, 1931

TROGLODYTES, “cave-dwellers,” a name applied by ancient writers to different tribes in various parts of the world. Strabo speaks of them in Moesia, south of the Danube (vii. 318), in the Caucasus (xi. 506), but especially in various parts of Africa from Libya (xvii. 828) to the Red Sea. The troglodyte Ethiopians of Herodotus (iv. 183) in inner Africa, very swift of foot, living on lizards and creeping things, and with a speech like the screech of an owl, have been identified with the Tibbus of Fezzan. » read more...

noun
I. 1) The name given by the ancient Greeks to various races of low civilization, who either excavated dwellings in the earth or used natural caverns as habitations. According to Strabo, they extended as far west as Mauritania, and as far east as the Caucasus; but the best know were those of southern Egypt and Ethiopia. They were said not to possess the power of speech - a rhetorical method of stating that their language differed from that of them, and their general habits were rude and debased. At that time the mountainous regions of Arabia are filled with caves which have been converted into permanent habitations by half savage tribes of Bedouins, and it is probably that these belong to the same race as the troglodytic population of Ptolemy and other geographers. It was formerly thought that cave dwellers were peculiar to Africa; but recent archaeological discoveries show that they occurred also in Europe and America, and the prehistoric men of Central Europe and Britain were to a great extent troglodytic. At the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago, 1893, an interesting replica of Battle Rock Mountain, Colorado, was exhibited. In it were reproduced exact imitations of the lately discovered caves in that mountain, in which dwelt a race of prehistoric men. Their implements of war and of peace, their ornaments and one mummy discovered on the original site, added surpassing interest to the exhibit.

“Some authors maintain that this custom [cannibalism], and that of human sacrifice, were widely spread among the troglodytes of the Stone Age.” - N. Joly

2) Any individual of the Anthropoid genus Troglodytes.

3) Ornithology: Wren (quod vide); a genus of Troglodytidae or Troglodytinae, from the Neotropical Nearctic, and Palearctic regions. Bill moderate, compressed, slightly curved, without notch, pointed; nostrils basal, oval, partly covered by a membrane; wings very short, concave, rounded; tail generally short; feet strong, middle toe united at base to outer, but not to middle toe; tarsus rather long; claws long, stout, and curved.

4) Zoological: A genus of Simiinae (quod vide). Head not produced vertically; arms not reaching more than half down the shin; ribs thirteen pairs; os intermedium absent from the carpus; no ischiatic callosities; hair black, dun, or gray. The genus is confined to the West African sub region, ranging from the coast about 12 degrees north and south of the equator, from the Gambia to Benguela, and as far inland as the great equatorial forests extend. The number of species is not accurately determined; three, however, are well known, and have been carefully described; Troglodytes gorilla, the Gorilla; T. niger, the Common, and T. calvus, the Bald Chimpanzee. There are probably other species, since Livingstone met with what he supposed to be a new species in the forest region west of the Nile [Soko], and another has been described by Gratiolet an dAlix. [Koolakamba.]

II. Figurative: One who lives in seclusion; one unacquainted with the affairs of the world.

adjective
Of or belonging to the troglodytes; living in caves.

“The invertabrate animals did not attract the attention of the troglodyte artists.” - N. Joly

[French troglodyte, from Greek troglodytes = one who creeps into holes, a cave dweller, from trogle = a cave, and dyo = to enter, to creep into.]