expiscate

From Latin expiscatus, past participle of expiscari (“to fish out”), from ex (“out”) + piscari (“to fish”), piscis (“fish”).

expiscate (third-person singular simple present expiscates, present participle expiscating, simple past and past participle expiscated)

1. (transitive, formal, archaic) To fish out; to find out by skill or laborious investigation; to search out or rummage (for information)
   • 1860, John Pringle Nichol, A Cyclopaedia of Physical Sciences:

     Mathematics may be separated into two divisions, one of which expiscates principles or methods, and the other rules or applications.

   • 1866, William Lindsay Alexander, Our Lord's Commendation of the study of Holy Scripture:

     as if every man had to expiscate for himself from the beginning a system of religious belief

   • November 1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Letters, Chapter XXXIV

     I am in a fair way to expiscate my family history

• expiscation
• expiscatory

• “expiscate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

expiscāte

1. vocative masculine singular of expiscātus