This week’s theme
Tosspot words

This week’s words
pinchfist
makeweight
rakeshame
chawbacon
tear-throat


Wordsmith Games

🧩	Jigsaw Riddle A Pirate’s Echo
🌍	Langitude Trace paladin home

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(TAYR-throht)

MEANING:

noun: An actor who overacts, especially through loud, exaggerated speech.
adjective: Marked by loud, exaggerated delivery.

ETYMOLOGY:

From tear, from Old English teran (to tear) + throat, from Old English throte (throat). Earliest documented use: 1617.

NOTES:

Some actors bring the house down. A tear-throat tries to do it with sheer volume. Hamlet knew the type: he complained of players who “tear a passion to tatters” and “split the ears of the groundlings” (groundlings being the audience members at ground level, where admission was cheap as they all had to stand -- only the balcony had seats). The idiom “chew the scenery” is ripe for a tosspot coinage: chew-scene.

USAGE:

“Is somebody pirating plays? Or was he just going to expose the tear-throat acting in the Rose?”
Robert M. Gorrell; Murder at the Rose; Black Rock Press; 2000.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: