This week’s theme
Nouns that became verbs

This week’s words
showboat
gaslight
degauss
Shakespeare
prodnose



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Next week’s theme
Words borrowed from Persian

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PROD-nohz)

MEANING:

verb intr.: To pry.
noun: A prying person.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Prodnose, a pedantic and nosy character, who appeared in the columns of J B Morton in the Daily Express. Earliest documented use: 1954.

NOTES:

J B Morton wrote under the pen name Beachcomber. Twenty years before the word appeared in his column, the poet Dylan Thomas wrote in a letter to someone in 1934:
“I want you to think of me today ... singing as loudly as Beachcomber in a world rid of Prodnose.”

USAGE:

“The lines between government prodnosing and charitable work become ever more blurred.”
Libby Purves; Charities Must Get Back to Doing Good Works; The Times (London, UK); Dec 23, 2008.

“Now Wallace wants to take this gang of Minnesota prodnoses to the national level.”
Alexander Cockburn; Leave the Press to the Court of Public Opinion; Los Angeles Times; Dec 27, 1996.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: