panjandrum
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of panjandrum
1745–55; pseudo-Latin word (based on pan- ) coined by Samuel Foote (1720–77), English dramatist and actor
Explanation
You can refer to the bossy, self-important president of your school's French club as a panjandrum, especially when she marches around assigning everyone tasks. Something about the word panjandrum suggests subcontinental origin, but it's actually a made-up word from the eighteenth century, designating an important and often overbearing person. The word was also commandeered in World War II to refer to a failed experimental weapon meant to breach sea walls.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Roberts’ smoldering, high-beam intensity caught the attention of Joe Papp, a panjandrum of New York theater who cast Roberts in a Public Theater production of the Civil War drama “Rebel Women.”
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 17, 2024
Empson became the grand panjandrum of the New Criticism, which claimed that a work of literature could best be understood by a detailed analysis of its language.
From Time Magazine Archive
Once Dr. George Mayhew, general panjandrum of student affairs, picked up the phone and heard a voice ask: "Dr. Mayhew, did you give permission for a 57-foot rocket to be built by Ricketts House?"
From Time Magazine Archive
Moments later, he took the rostrum to deliver a dart-sharp speech calling for a complete overhaul and rejuvenation of the Republican Party, from precinct captain to panjandrum.
From Time Magazine Archive
There were abbots and prelates, knights and squires, and all who delighted to honor the great panjandrum of Rheims.
From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
