A.Word.A.Day --barmy

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Today's Word

barmy

PRONUNCIATION:

(BAR-mee)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Full of froth.
2. Exciting or excited.
3. Crazy; foolish; eccentric.

ETYMOLOGY:

For 1 & 2: From barm (froth on malt liquors), from Old English beorma.
For 3: An alteration of balmy.
Earliest documented use: 1535.

USAGE:

“Ambrosio is a heck of a teller ... whose fits of emotion and loquacity are delightfully barmy.”
David Kamp; Every Cheese Has a Story; New York Times Book Review; Aug 4, 2013.

“No one denies that the Web is a miracle for writers and a barmy alternative to certain research drudgery.”
Arthur Plotnik; Who Loves You Like the Library?; The Writer (Braintree, Massachusetts); Nov 2003.

“A typically barmy request from a colleague who thinks London has only one postcode: N1.”
Huw Edwards; Diary; The Spectator (London, UK); Apr 17, 2021.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes. -Fred Rogers, television host, songwriter, and author (20 Mar 1928-2003)

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