Words of the Day

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Updated August 23:

Etiolated and Pecksniffian.

Both used in the comments section by avant-garde artist whodareswings.

Etiolated refers to what happens to a plant when it is deprived of sunlight. The stems grow tall and wiry and chlorophyll seems to leave the plant, giving it a ghostly, green-white look. Whoredare attempted to use it describe people, and said it meant "effete", but I could not find any good definitions.

Pecksniffian is a wonderful word. It refers to a character, or three characters, in the 1844 Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit. I've never read the book, but the Wikipedia synopsis was pretty delightful. That man could write a story!

The online dictionary defines it as:

Unctuously hypocritical, sanctimonious.

And offers the following example:

"His book suffers from excessively long harangues against Pecksniffian prigs and temperance types who, he claims, are still trying to ruin our fun." (Mark D. Fefer, Seattle Weekly, January 22, 2003).

It describes the main character as:

Seth Pecksniff, a character with a holier-than-thou attitude in Charles Dickens's 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit, was no angel, though he certainly tried to pass himself off as one. Pecksniff liked to preach morality and brag about his own virtue, but in reality he was a deceptive rascal who would use any means to advance his own selfish interests.

It didn't take long for Pecksniff's reputation for canting sanctimoniousness to leave its mark on English; "Pecksniffian" has been used as a synonym of "hypocritical" since 1849.

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