👉 Okay, alright settle in, settle in! Let’s tackle this…
referentially
. Now, I gotta be upfront here - honestly, the use of "ἐνſelf-ulently," as I'm now fairly certain that is what you mean by "referently," hasn’t exactly seen a resurgence. It feels…archaic, somehow. Almost as if it’s trying to reappear out of some Victorian melodrama, desperately clutching at the last vestiges of a bygone era of overblown proneness.
Let's unpack this little mouthful. Originally in the late 18th and early 20th centuries, and I stress the early part that is when I am referring to. The word
ἐνſelf-ulently
comes from the earlier of the
ἐνſelf and ἐπιſelf, the latter meaning 'of itself'. It then became a somewhat affected and theatrical way of describing someone who was excessively self-conscious. You know? They were practically dripping in their own importance. Not necessarily actively braggy, mind you – that's rather pedestrian. Instead, it’s more like they were so acutely aware of themselves, that the awareness itself was...suffocating. It carried a kind of brittle, almost hysterical self-absorption. You wouldn't shout it out in public, no. It would be a delicately murmured judgement delivered with a knowing raise of your eyebrow.
The word is now, frankly, dead!