"For a farewell to our jurisprudent, I wish unto him the gladsome light of jurisprudence…." With this valedictory to English jurist Sir Thomas Littleton, another jurist, Sir Edward Coke, welcomed two new words into English. In 1628, his jurisprudence meant "knowledge of or skill in law," a now archaic sense that reflects the meaning of the word's root. Jurisprudence goes back to Latin prudentia juris (literally "skill in law"), from which was derived the Late Latin formation jurisprudentia, and subsequently the English word. The noun jurisprudent means "one skilled in law"—in other words, a jurist. There's also jurisprude, a somewhat rare 20th-century back-formation created from jurisprudence with influence from prude. It means "one who makes ostentatious show of jurisprudential learning."