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Feb 6, 2017
This week’s themeEponyms This week’s words gnathonic bovarism Mrs. Grundy struwwelpeter gargantua 
Alleged portrait of Terrence
Image: Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868/Wikimedia
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargOnce in a while you read a book, the book is finished, the story has ended, but a character from the story stays with you. Have you come across such a character? While you're thinking about it, I want you to meet five characters from fiction who have become words in the English language. Such words, coined after someone, are known as eponyms, from Greek ep- (after) + -onym (name). gnathonic
PRONUNCIATION:
(na-THON-ik)
MEANING:
adjective: Sycophantic.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Gnatho, a sycophant in the comedy Eunuchus (The Eunuch) by the Roman
playwright Terence, written in 161 BCE. The name is coined from the Greek
word gnathos (jaw). The subject of Gnatho’s flattery, Thraso, has also given
a word to the English language: thrasonical.
Earliest documented use: 1637.
USAGE:
“‘Both your parties’ candidates are gnathonic toward big business,’ he said.” John Worsley Simpson; Election Enhances Word Power of All Political Parties; National Post (Canada); Jul 3, 2004. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking
down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same economic
situation, the same national background and education and religious
outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and
untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives. -Florence Luscomb,
architect and suffragist (6 Feb 1887-1985)
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