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.”
Very interesting, thank you. These words seem particularly suited to the kitchen, where panurgy might be an eggcorn for “pan orgy”, and panurgic suggests the urge to get busy with pans. This would perhaps restrict the words’ true meanings, though, so I’ll try not to abuse them…