This week’s theme
Insults

This week’s words
nithing
barbermonger
varlet
applejohn
trifler

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(AP-uhl-jon)

MEANING:

noun: One with a shriveled body and/or mind.

ETYMOLOGY:

After apple-john, a kind of apple that was said to keep for two years and then reached a shriveled state. It was apparently named after St. John’s Day (Jun 24) around the time it ripened. Earliest documented use: 1572.

NOTES:

Not every apple ages into wisdom -- some just prune. The apple-john was prized for its long shelf life... until it overstayed its welcome and looked like it had been through several centuries of soliloquies. In Henry IV, Shakespeare has Falstaff recite:
“Why my skin hangs about me like an like an old lady’s loose gown;
I am withered like an old apple-john.”

USAGE:

“Washington Irving called James Madison, ‘a little withered applejohn’.”
Gary Knepp; 2016 Election Could Be One of the Dirtiest in History; Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio); Sep 15, 2016.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: