This week’s theme
Insults

This week’s words
nithing
barbermonger
varlet
applejohn
trifler

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(BAR-buhr-mong-uhr)

MEANING:

noun: One excessively concerned about appearance; a fop, a dandy.

ETYMOLOGY:

From barber, from Old French barbour, from Latin barba (beard) + monger, from Old English mangere (merchant), from Latin mango, (dealer), Earliest documented use: 1608.

NOTES:

A barbermonger is the sort who doesn’t just visit the barber, but holds court there. By extension, a barbermonger is one preoccupied with their looks: the type who irons their socks to the last crease, plucks their eyebrows with Pythagorean precision, and could survive a week with nothing but hair gel and self-admiration. Also see: haircut.

USAGE:

“‘Think you I had forgotten you, barber-monger?’ He thrust his face at mine, and his hand clutched at my collar.”
Walter Jon Williams; Quillifer the Knight; Saga Press; 2019.

“The Native Americans endured much persecution. By the late 19th to early 20th centuries they were deemed long-haired savages by many of a so-called civilized bent, the barbermongers.”
Roger Sigler; Our Long Hairitage; WestBow Press; 2011.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: