quidnunc
Americannoun
-
quidnuncs
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of quidnunc
First recorded in 1700–10, quidnunc is from Latin quid nunc “what now?”
Explanation
If you love to spread the latest gossip, you're a quidnunc. The neighborhood quidnunc is the person who seems to always know everyone's business. Quidnunc is archaic — it's hardly ever used these days. It's too bad, because it's a fun way to describe a busybody or rumormonger. You can call your nosy friend a quidnunc, or tell your dad, "Don't be such a quidnunc!" when he snoops in your room. Quidnunc was coined in the 1700s, combining the Latin words quid, "what," and nunc, "now," and mimicking someone who might constantly ask, "What's happening now?" or "What's the news?"
Vocabulary lists containing quidnunc
O'Reilly's Lexicon of Epithets
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The House of the Seven Gables
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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.
See Examples For:
Editor Upshaw was no longer a quidnunc but a martyr and a St George.
From Time Magazine Archive
Supplementing her syndicated newspaper column, Hedda's program has helped her to move in on the domain of Louella Parsons, Hearst's quidnunc extraordinary, who used to have Hollywood in her pudgy palms.
From Time Magazine Archive
More than one quidnunc murmured: "Easy guess where the two Morrows are going, but where did they come from?"
From Time Magazine Archive
And down went Kramer in Round 24; after negotiating quidnunc, eclectic, and sarcophagus, he missed ratiocination.
From Time Magazine Archive
Alas! capricious fate that governs these things turned my sweet, unconscious Ellen to one forever on the alert for the appearance of this long-legged quidnunc.
From The Heart's Country by Mary Heaton Vorse
In each, however, enough non-Roosevelt votes were cast to set political quidnuncs to arguing on the significance, if any, of the loser's strength.
From Time Magazine Archive
But last week quidnuncs had learned enough details to prove that the Administration has under consideration a vast new program of planned prosperity.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then, as Truman gradually shed six Roosevelt men from the Cabinet, it began to look to Capital quidnuncs as though Ickes were for it.
From Time Magazine Archive
Already Party quidnuncs were speculating about his heirs.
From Time Magazine Archive
He looked neither to right nor left, but simply at his geese, and thus the quidnuncs of the market-place and the supporters of shop-fronts were unable to catch his eye.
From Tales of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett
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.
