This week’s theme
Dickensian eponyms

This week’s words
Podsnap
Turveydrop
Stiggins

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(STI-ginz)

MEANING:

noun: A pious impostor.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Reverend Stiggins in Charles Dickens’ novel The Pickwick Papers (serialized 1833-36). Earliest documented use: 1916.

NOTES:

Reverend Stiggins is a hypocritical deputy shepherd of a Temperance Association. His red nose betrays his true feelings about temperance. As Dickens puts it:
“He was a prim-faced, red-nosed man, with a long, thin countenance, and a semi-rattlesnake sort of eye -- rather sharp, but decidedly bad.”
Translation: His face says “Let us pray”, but his nose says “IPA”. Someone who talks the talk but whose actions are clearly on the rocks.

USAGE:

“He told this paper’s reporter: ‘There go the Stigginses and busybodies, who want to interfere with other people’s pleasures.’”
Sean Ingle; Losing My Religion; The Guardian (London, UK); Apr 1, 2024.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: