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Apr 21, 2025
This week’s themeDickensian eponyms This week’s words Podsnap Turveydrop Stiggins pecksniff Artful Dodger 
“I don’t want to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t admit it.”
Podsnap in Dickens’ Gallery, included with Cope’s Cιgarettes Image: eBay Previous week’s theme Insults 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargImagine the world about 200 years ago. No Friends on television, no Squid Game on Netflix, not even instant downloads of the latest novels on your Kindle. This was the world in which Charles Dickens published his stories, often one chapter at a time. Cliffhangers weren’t just a plot device, they were a publishing strategy. Dickens had a knack for creating unforgettable characters. Readers didn’t just love the characters, they started using their names in everyday speech. Thus were born Dickensian eponyms -- words born from names. Now it’s your turn: Do you have a favorite character from fiction? If this character became a word, what would it mean? Would Gatsby be a noun for someone who throws parties they don’t enjoy? Would Sherlocking mean excessive Googling before a first date? Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org. Include your location (city, state). Podsnap
PRONUNCIATION:
(POD-snap)
MEANING:
noun: A smug, self-satisfied person.
ETYMOLOGY:
After John Podsnap, a character in Charles Dickens’ novel Our Mutual
Friend (1865). Earliest documented use: 1865.
NOTES:
Podsnap is a pompous, jingoistic character, proudly immune to nuance.
As Dickens describes him, “Mr Podsnap was well-to-do, and stood very high in
Mr Podsnap’s opinion. ... Mr Podsnap’s world was not a very large world,
morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business was
sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries,
with that important reservation, a mistake.” As Podsnap himself adds, “No Other Country is so Favoured as This Country. ... This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of such Other Countries as -- as there may happen to be.” Podsnap, the walking embodiment of moral myopia in a world so tight no unpleasant facts gets through. USAGE:
“Podsnaps are delighted that England is breaking away from the continent,
with its meddling bureaucrats and Napoleonic legal code (Podsnaps may
say ‘Britain’ but they really mean ‘England’).” Podsnappery and its Reverse; The Economist (London, UK); Jun 23, 2018. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason. -Henry Fielding,
author (21 Apr 1707-1754)
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