Delectus Definition

1871-2, George Eliot, Middlemarch, book 37If she spoke with any keenness of interest to Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of patience as if she had given a quotation from the delectus familiar to him from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient sects or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform her that she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.

1872, Matthew Arnold, General Report for the Year 1872; in Reports on Elementary Schools 1852-1882, edited by Sir Francis SanfordI am convinced that for [t]his purpose the best way would be to disregard classical Latin entirely, to use neither Cornelius Nepos, nor Eutropius, nor Cæsar, nor any delectus from them, but to use the Latin Bible, the Vulgate.