This week’s theme
Words to describe people

This week’s words
timeserver
sandboy
musicaster
grumbletonian
logodaedalist

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(MYOO-zi-kas-tuhr)

MEANING:

noun: A mediocre musician.

ETYMOLOGY:

From music + -aster (a pejorative suffix). Earliest documented use: 1838.

NOTES:

The pejorative suffix -aster (meaning something that is inferior, small, or shallow) gives us some delightful words when it comes to name-calling. A reviewer brands a poet a poetaster (an inferior poet) and the poet might call the reviewer a criticaster. There are also the terms mathematicaster and philosophaster, but let’s remember that a grandmaster is not an inferior grandma.

USAGE:

“It was no longer a sanctuary, but a howling place. ... indigent musicasters ... chanted unfortunately.”
J.K. Huysmans (Translation: C. Kegan Paul); En Route; Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; 1918.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: