Word of the Day

Toplofty, “condescending; haughty,” is a back formation of earlier toploftical, of similar meaning. Both adjectives are humorous colloquialisms. The underlying phrase is top loft, “the uppermost story, topmost gallery.” Toploftical appears, sort of, in everyone’s favorite bedtime reading, Finnegans Wake (1939): “…celescalating the himals and all, hierarchitectitiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop…” Toplofty entered English in the first half of the 19th century.

Encomium, “a formal expression of high praise,” comes via Latin encōmium from Greek enkṓmion “a laudatory ode for a conqueror, a eulogy or panegyric for a living person.” Enkṓmion is composed of the preposition and prefix en, en- “in,” the noun kômos “revel making, carousal, company of men participating in a Dionysiac procession and celebration” (the ancient Greeks did nothing to excess unless they were absolutely nuts about it). The further etymology of kômos is disputed; the word appears as the first element of kōmōidoí “revel singers,” from which the noun kōmōidía “a humorous spectacle” derives, becoming comoedia in Latin, and comedy in English. Encomium entered English in the second half of the 16th century.

Flapdoodle, “nonsense; bosh,” is a colloquialism that first appeared in print in 1834 along with a definition: “It’s the stuff they feed fools on.” Flapdoodle has no reliable etymology; the meaning of flap is pure conjecture, but some scholars suggest that doodle has its archaic sense “a fool, silly person.” Mark Twain uses flapdoodle in chapter 25 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884): “…[the King] works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother….”

Insouciant, “free from concern or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant,” comes straight from French insouciant, literally “not caring,” a compound of the French negative prefix in- “not” (from Latin in-, and naturalized in English in- from both Latin and French borrowings), and the present participle souciant “caring,” from the verb soucier “to trouble, care.” Soucier comes from Vulgar Latin sollicītāre “to worry, vex,” from Latin sollicitāre “to disturb, harass.” The French noun souci “care, worry” is part of the phrase sans souci “without worries, carefree,” which, spelled Sanssouci, is the name of the summer palace built by King Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, between 1745 and 1747. Insouciant entered English in the first half of the 19th century.

Gallicism has three related meanings in English: The first one is “a French phrase or idiom used in another language," as when in English one says Je ne sais quoi, meaning "an indefinable, elusive quality" (literally, "I don’t know what”); the second meaning is “a feature characteristic of or peculiar to the French language”; and the third, “a custom or trait considered to be characteristically French.” Gallicism comes via French gallicisme from the Latin adjective Gallicus “pertaining to Gaul (modern France, roughly) or the Gauls.” Gallicism entered English just after the middle of the 17th century.