bandersnatch

American  

[ban-der-snach] / ˈbæn dərˌsnætʃ /

noun

1. an imaginary wild animal of fierce disposition.

2. a person of uncouth or unconventional habits, attitudes, etc., especially one considered a menace, nuisance, or the like.

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Etymology

Origin of bandersnatch

Coined by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass (1871)

Explanation

A bandersnatch is an imaginary, strange, and fearsome creature. The noun bandersnatch is also used as a descriptive way to refer to a person who seems wild and threatening. Bandersnatch comes from the poem "Jabberwocky," by Lewis Carroll. The poem is full of words that Carroll invented. The part with bandersnatch reads like this:

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Bandersnatch is now sometimes used to refer to any imaginary, fierce creature, or to any person who should be avoided — like the really grouchy neighbor who complains about everything and everyone.

Example Sentences

First mentioned by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel “Through the Looking Glass,” a bandersnatch is a speedy fictional creature with powerful jaws, but lacking more definitive description.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 28, 2018

There’s a reported total of 312 minutes of filmed material contained in “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” over five hours of piping hot bandersnatch content.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 28, 2018

Inside OCD's brier patch Fiorello LaGuardia was bounding around like a snarled-up bandersnatch, uttering encouraging yells, while the briers made rips in his reputation.

From Time Magazine Archive

For 28 years, the U.S. has had a high old time sneering at George Babbitt�the bumptious bandersnatch businessman cartooned into being by Sinclair Lewis.

From Time Magazine Archive

Perhaps the philologists of the future may theorise as sapiently as to the origin of jabberwock and bandersnatch.

From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Weekley, Ernest