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Jun 4, 2026
This week’s themeBook titles that became words This week’s words brave new world deipnosophist Lord of the Flies Hudibrastic Alice in Wonderland
Title page of the 1674 collected edition of parts I & II of Hudibras
Image: Wikimedia Wordsmith Games
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargHudibrastic
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
adjective: Mock-heroic; playfully burlesque or satirical. noun: A piece of verse or writing in this style. ETYMOLOGY:
After Hudibras (published in three parts in 1663, 1664, and 1678), a
mock-heroic satirical poem by Samuel Butler. Earliest documented use: 1712.
NOTES:
Butler’s Hudibras follows a pompous knight and his squire through
comic misadventures, satirizing the religious and political quarrels of his
time. Its rollicking style gave us the word Hudibrastic to describe a
mock-heroic verse, often in rhyming eight-syllable couplets.
USAGE:
“But so far from writing a panegyric, he would scourge the Province
with the lash of a Hudibrastic as a harlot is scourged at the public post.” John Barth; Sot-Weed Factor; Doubleday; 1960. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and
sing and dance and play and work every day some. -Robert Fulghum, author
(b. 4 Jun 1937)
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