This week’s theme
Words coined in comic strips and cartoons

This week’s words
skunkworks
sad sack
embiggen
Lower Slobbovia
cromulent

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KROM-yuh-luhnt)

MEANING:

adjective: Valid; acceptable; satisfactory.

ETYMOLOGY:

Coined by the television writer David X. Cohen in the animated television series The Simpsons. Earliest documented use: 1996.

NOTES:

In the episode “Lisa the Iconoclast” two schoolteachers discuss the word embiggen they have just heard:
Mrs. Krabappel: Embiggens? Hmm, I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield.
Ms. Hoover: I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly cromulent word.

USAGE:

“What sets the Impreza apart from equally cromulent competitors?”
Dan Neil; Gear & Gadgets; The Wall Street Journal (New York); May 27, 2017.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: