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.

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.”