This week’s theme
Whose what?

This week’s words
Chekhov's gun
Parkinson's law
Barney's bull
John Thomson's man
collier's faith

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(bar-neez-BUL)

MEANING:

noun: Someone or something in a very bad condition or situation.

ETYMOLOGY:

Apparently from a popular 19th-century pantomime in which an escaped bull is chased by various characters until the exhausted animal is captured by a farmhand. Earliest documented use: 1834.

USAGE:

“Barney’s bull of a pain in my innards.”
Charles Boardman Hawes; The Mutineers; Atlantic Monthly Press; 1920.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: