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
He is the inventor and presiding panjandrum of two Manhattan eating places that establish him as a restaurateur-impresario sans pareil.
From Time Magazine Archive
When Columbia University honored eleven wartime military leaders with honorary doctorates at a special convocation on Feb. 21, 1947,* one of the best known of the names was overseas as military panjandrum of occupied Japan.
From Time Magazine Archive
He watched five disarmament conferences with a skeptical eye, came to be a journalistic panjandrum.
From Time Magazine Archive
The phrase is accurate, for Mr. Pond appeared to be panjandrum here, and people of all degree were presented to him, as to royalty.
From V. V.'s Eyes by Henry Sydnor Harrison
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
