This week’s theme
Eponyms

This week’s words
Copernican
ritzy
bacchanalize
Overton window
Barmecide


This week’s comments
AWADmail 1059

Next week’s theme
Portmanteaux

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(BAHR-muh-syd)

MEANING:

noun: One giving only the illusion of abundance or some benefits.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Barmecide, a nobleman in the story “Barber’s Sixth Brother” from the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights). In the story, Barmecide pretends to host a lavish feast for a beggar. The beggar plays along, pretending to enjoy the food and wine. He then pretends to get drunk and knocks Barmecide down in the process. In the end, Barmecide is pleased with the beggar for going with the joke and offers him a real feast. Earliest documented use: 1713.

USAGE:

“We can recreate in a factional moment whole years gone past ... overdrawing upon a Barmecide deposit of minutes, staking fresh claims upon a mirage?”
Abraham Merritt; The Metal Monster; Musaicum Books; 2018.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: