aste(r)perious

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>astorperious: arrogant, haughty.

I think this must be the right connection. Presumably the figure painted on
the WW II bomber had white gloves to show upper-crust social position.
Presumably the "Astor" etymology had been forgotten already (assuming it
was valid in the first place), given the spelling with "aster-".

Besides the bomber, there was a race horse with the name "Asterperious"
around 1945. Otherwise there's not much of anything in the newspapers.

I find only one instance of "astorperious" in the newspapers, in a 1978
article about Hurston. This article states that Hurston coined the word.
[By comparison I find three examples of "abstreperous" apparently meaning
"obstreperous".]

Of the non-Hurston examples given by Arnold, one looks right for "haughty"
(the Greeks and Romans) while the other one (by Neely) seems right for
"obstreperous" although "uppity" could fit too.

Is it known whether this word has/had any known existence independent of
Hurston? Did the more recent authors take the word from Hurston's "Harlem
Slang" or other work, or does the word have currency today? Is it known
whether/where/when the word was current before Hurston recorded it?

-- Doug Wilson