Ignoramus (noun | ig-nuh-RAY-mus) An ignoramus is an utterly ignorant or stupid person.
// I can't believe they let an ignoramus like that run the company.
Did You Know?
Ignoramus is the title of a farce by George Ruggle (1575-1622) that was first produced in 1615. The title character, whose name in Latin literally means "we are ignorant of," is a lawyer who fancies himself to be quite clever but is actually foolish and ignorant. Ruggle may have been inspired in his choice of the name by a proceeding in the English judicial system: the term ignoramus was written on bills of indictment when the evidence presented seemed insufficient to justify prosecution. In these cases ignoramus indicated "we take no notice of (i.e., we do not recognize) this indictment." Such a reference would have been most appropriate for Ruggle's satire of the judiciary.
I don't know what M-W is but if you like words of the day .... may I commend very highly to you Susie Dent. She is on X and possibly other places. She is a lexicographer and television presenter here in the UK and is universally respected.
Her words of the day frequently may be interpreted to be a commentary on ... something. Athough for all anybody knows they are picked a year in advance and don't have anything to do with anything.
She has an MBE and is a Fellow and vice president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. From her reactions on the late night comedy version of her regular show it is abundantly clear that she likes nothing more than a filthy joke.
NSFW amusing video clip from that show:
Start at 2.48 for the most relevant bit but the earlier part is funny. She has been doing this show, with this host, for years.
Everyone Loses It After Jimmy Carr's Unnecessary Joke | 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown Channel 4
Too funny!!!! Thanks for sharing, that was awesome
M-W is Merriam - Webster
Doff (verb | DAHF) To doff a hat or other piece of clothing is to take it off.
// They doffed their coats when they came inside the house.
Time was, people talked about doffing and donning articles of clothing with about the same frequency. But in the mid-19th century the verb don became significantly more popular and left doff to flounder a bit in linguistic semi-obscurity. Doff and don have been a pair from the start: both date to the 14th century, with doff arising as a Middle English contraction of the phrase “to do off” and don as a contraction of “to do on.” Shakespeare was among the first, as far as we know, to use the word as it’s defined in the more general sense of “to rid oneself of” or “put aside.” He has Juliet give voice to this sense when she says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. / … Romeo, doff thy name; / And for that name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself.”
I'm familiar with both doff and don. But I never put them together in an off/on context before.
Mind not necessarily blown, but certainly a bit singed.
@Adragayle I've read far too many books to not know "doff", but "ignoramus" just sounds like a made-up insult from a smart schoolboy, pwahaha. 😆
~ Sunset Snuggles
🫂 Enthusiast 🌄 Travel Junkie 📸 Shutter Bug
@IronLemon I'm familiar with doff from reading, but tend to forget about it as a word whereas don seems to be more common to me. It was definitely interested to read about them put together in that context.
@SunsetSnuggles If memory serves me correctly, I'm pretty sure I first heard ignoramus used by Bugs Bunny when I was kid, which fits your scenario of an insult from a smart schoolboy, lol
@Adragayle Pardon me, but I noticed you have a lovely brain, which I appreciate and admire in a human.
@CharlesGrove I have never received such a compliment, thank you for noticing me and seeing past my outward appearance! 🥰🤗
Cryptic (adjective | KRIP-tik) Something described as cryptic has or seems to have a hidden meaning, or is difficult to understand.
// The singer posted a cryptic message on her social media accounts, and fans raced to decipher it.
The history of cryptic starts with krýptein, a Greek word meaning "to hide or conceal." Can you uncover other krýptein relatives in English? Not surprisingly, crypt, meaning "underground chamber," is one, as is the name of the element krypton. Krýptein also gave us several words having to do with secret codes, such as cryptogram ("a communication in cipher or code") and cryptography ("the coding and decoding of secret messages"). And cryptocurrency is currency that exists digitally and that relies on computer encryption (secret code) to prevent counterfeiting and fraud.
That's a wonderful descryption of today's word.
Love all the related words to "cryptic".
I collect model horses, and while I'm not big on Halloween, this one designed like a tombstone with "RIP" carved into his haunch has always been on my list. His name is Cryptic. 🪦
Another example with higher detail but less aging...
@IronLemon 😜
Etymology is fascinating. While working on a manuscript, I learned comet comes from the Greek, kometes, which means "hairy;" long hair was a sign of mourning; the long tail of a comet associated with something bad, an omen.
@TxTom Oh man, that reminds me of my friend from Sweden finding hair (full swatches of them from peoples' entire head) and old shoes from the late 1800's or early 1900's, in the walls of her house. Apparently when people died there, it was common to cut their hair off and put that stuff in the walls as protection against ghosts, if memory serves me right. Sooooo creepy. 🫨
Also, we get cryptids, which are basically mysterious and/or mythical creatures, such as Sasquatch, Gryphons, Sphinx, etc…
Hilariously, the platypus would ABSOLUTELY be a cryptid… except it happens to be real.
@IronLemon 😂 you are sew clever!
@SunsetSnuggles that reminds me of a friend years ago who dissected a cat for school. When the project was complete, she kept the paw and put it in a hole in the wall of the house 😮 eww
@TxTom agreed, Etymology and words in general are fascinating
@CharlesGrove I had to look up cryptids. I love learning new words, thanks for sharing.
@Adragayle I'm darn clever.
And can never resist a pun.
Factoid (noun | FAK-toyd) A factoid is a brief and usually unimportant or trivial fact. Factoid may also refer to an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print.
// The book is really just a collection of interesting factoids.
In his 1973 book Marilyn (about Marilyn Monroe), Normal Mailer describes factoids as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority." Mailer's use of the -oid suffix (which traces back to the ancient Greek word eidos, meaning "appearance" or "form") follows in the pattern of humanoid: just as a humanoid appears to be human but is not, a factoid appears to be factual but is not. The word has since evolved so that now it most often refers to things that decidedly are facts, just not ones that are significant.
@IronLemon I seed what you did. You are sow good with puns! I am knot as quick with them. (I remember a time when darning socks was a thing, lol)
Transpire (verb | tran-SPYRE) Transpire is a formal verb that means “to happen,” or in other words “to take place or occur.” It can also mean “to come to light” or “to become known,” as in “It transpired that they had met previously.” In botany, to transpire is to give off or exude watery vapor especially from the surfaces of leaves.
// The monument will ensure that posterity will not soon forget the historic events that transpired on that day.
If you’re someone who gets in a sweat over the now-common use of transpire meaning “to occur,” we hope this explainer helps you cool down and breathe easier—it just so happens that the word’s expansion from its technical origins transpired in a logical, or at least understandable, progression over the centuries. Transpire comes from the Latin verb spirare (“to breathe”), which also breathed life into perspire, aspire, and inspire, among other words. Wafting up into English in the late 16th century, transpire was originally used (as it still is) for the action of vapor passing out of the pores of a living membrane such as the skin. From this use followed the related senses of “to become known” and “to be revealed; to come to light” (think of information “leaking” or “slipping out”). Although some usage commentators maintain that these are the only proper figurative uses of transpire, none other than Abigail Adams used it to mean “to happen” in a 1775 letter to her husband (“there is nothing new transpired since I wrote you last”) and Noah Webster recognized the new sense in his dictionary of 1828. Today it is firmly established as standard, occurring widely in published prose.
Draconian (adjective | dray-KOH-nee-un)
Draconian describes something (often a law, policy, restriction, etc.) that is very severe or cruel.
// The editorial criticizes the draconian measures being taken by city hall to rein in spending.
Draconian comes from Drakōn, the name (later Latinized as Draco) of a 7th-century B.C. Athenian legislator who created a written code of law. Drakōn’s code was intended to clarify existing laws, but its severity is what made it really memorable. According to the code, even minor offenses were punishable by death, and failure to pay one's debts could result in slavery. Draconian, as a result, is used especially for authoritative actions that are viewed as cruel or harsh.
@Adragayle These are all fun. I especially enjoyed this last one. There are a few rpg games that make use of some Draconian army. I always assumed that it was associated with dragons; the definition you have given colors those groups in a different (and maybe more meaningful) light. Thank you 😄
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@Adragayle My Mother would call my father an ignoramus every time they argued-which was pretty much every day for over 20 years until she left him! Hadn't seen or heard the word since! 😆
@Ssbbwcuddlecake that's too funny, though I'm sure it must have been hard to see your parents argue so often. Hugs
Schadenfreude (noun | SHAH-dun-froy-duh)
Schadenfreude refers to a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people.
// Schadenfreude was felt by many viewers when the arrogant contestant was voted off the show.
Ever a popular lookup on our site, schadenfreude refers to the joy you might feel at another person’s pain. It’s a compound of the German nouns Schaden, meaning “damage,” and Freude, meaning “joy.” Schadenfreude was a favored subject in Germany by the time it was introduced to English in the mid-1800s; discussed by the likes of Schopenhauer, Kant, and Nietzsche, schadenfreude was showing up in psychology books, literature for children, and critical theory. In English, the word was used mostly by academics until the early 1990s, when it was introduced to more general audiences via pop culture. In a 1991 episode of The Simpsons, for example, Lisa explains schadenfreude to Homer, who is gloating at his neighbor’s failure; she also tells him that the opposite of schadenfreude is sour grapes. “Boy,” he marvels, “those Germans have a word for everything.”