This week’s theme
When etymology meets entomology

This week’s words
earwig
gadfly
puce
paparazzo
ecdysis

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(pah-puh-RAHT-so)

MEANING:

noun: A photographer who follows famous people to take their pictures for publication.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Paparazzo, the name of a photographer in Federico Fellini’s 1959 film La Dolce Vita. Fellini got the name via scriptwriter Ennio Flaiano who picked it from the 1901 travel book By the Ionian Sea. The book mentions a hotel owner named Coriolano Paparazzo. Fellini claimed at another time that the name Paparazzo suggested to him “a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging”. Earliest documented use: 1961.

USAGE:

“The paparazzo in question -- Karl Larsen -- has admitted in the past purposely-berating celebrities to get a reaction from them.”
Kelly Pegg; Would You Help Stop Someone Being Attacked?; Yorkshire Evening Post (Leeds, UK) Mar 8, 2017.

See more usage examples of paparazzo in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: