This week's theme
Words that have changed with time

This week's words
harbinger
obsequious
restive
garble
pabulum


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Interesting usage examples

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PAB-yuh-luhm)

MEANING:

noun: Bland intellectual fare: insipid or simplistic ideas, entertainment, writing, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin pabulum (food, fuel, fodder), from pascere (to feed). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pa- (to protect or feed), which also gave us food, foster, fodder, forage, pasture, pantry, and companion. Earliest documented use: 1661.

NOTES:

Originally pabulum was something that nourished. During the 1920s, three Canadian pediatricians developed a bland, soft infant formula that was later marketed under the brand name Pablum and eventually the words pabulum/pablum came to refer to things simplistic or banal.

USAGE:

"'This is not art,' I said. 'This is casual diversion, pabulum for the merchant class.'"
Haim Watzman; Interzmezzo; The Jerusalem Report (Israel); Dec 19, 2011.

See more usage examples of pabulum in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

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