Author Archives: Grant Barrett

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Wordnik word of the day: witticaster

Today’s word of the day is witticaster, “an inferior or pretended wit; a witling.” In other words, someone who thinks they’re funny even though they’re not. The word is formed by a combination of witty + -aster, the latter part a suffix that indicates approximation, rough similarity, or pretended resemblance. You may have seen it in poetaster, “a petty poet: a feeble rimester, or a writer of indifferent verses,” but it also occurs in a number of less common words. A philsophaster is “a pretender to philosophical knowledge; an incompetent philosopher.” A criticaster is “an inferior or incompetent critic; a petty censurer.” A grammaticaster is “a petty or pitiful grammarian; one who insists upon the minutest grammatical niceties.” A politicaster is “a petty politician; a pretender to political knowledge or influence.” A medicaster is “a pretender to medical knowledge or skill; an ignorant doctor.” A theologaster is “a quack in theology; a shallow or pretended theologian.” Of a slightly different nature—referring to something other than a person—are parasitaster, “an insignificant parasite,” oleaster, a type of wild tree that looks like a type of cultivated olive tree but isn’t, and verticillaster, a flowering part of a plant that looks whorl-like but isn’t a true whorl.

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Wordnik word of the day: latration

Today’s word of the day is the noun latration, which is “barking,” usually of a dog. It’s a rare word but one used with distinction in this most apt description of political argument: “porcine squealing, answered always by counter-latration.” The verb, latrate, and its synonyms allatrate and oblatrate, come to us from the Latin latratus, the past participle of latrare, ‘to bark.’ Latrant, of course, is “barking or clamoring noisily” as used in Matthew Green’s The Spleen in 1737: “Whose latrant stomachs oft molest / The deep-laid plans their dreams suggest.”

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Wordnik word of the day: chapfallen

Today’s word of the day is chapfallen, “having the lower chap or jaw depressed; hence, dejected; dispirited; silenced; chagrined.” A less common variant is chopfallen. Both “chap” and “chop” here mean “the upper or lower part of the mouth; the jaw,” also found in the expression “bust someone’s chops,” which is “to tease, taunt, or playfully torment someone,” and mutton chop, “facial hair that has grown down the side of a man’s face in front of the ears (especially when the rest of the beard is shaved off).” Perhaps only pictures can do justice to their glory.

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Wordnik word of the day: billingsgate

Today’s word of the day is billingsgate, a noun meaning “profane or scurrilous language or abuse; blackguardism.” This curious word comes from Billingsgate, a London fish market described by Charles Dickens as “possessing a language of its own far more incisive and graphic than the ordinary vernacular” and “famous for that vivid interchange of vernacular pleasantry which will engraft its name in the English language for ages.” Dickens may yet be right, but usage of the common noun billingsgate grows exceedingly uncommon while the proper noun Billingsgate continues to thrive.

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Wordnik word of the day: panurgic

Today’s word of the day is panurgic, an adjective meaning “skillful in any or every kind of work.” Panurgic comes from a combination of two Greek words: pan-, meaning “all,” and ergos, meaning “work.” It’s a rare word, but rarer still is the noun form panurgy, meaning “skill in all kinds of work or business; craft.” Both are related to a variety of Latin classifications of bees, such as Panurgus, a genus, which connects panurgic to the idiomatic expression “as busy as a bee.” John Morley used panurgic when writing in 1886 about Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s perceptions of other philosophers: “There were giants in this world, like the panurgic Diderot.”