This week’s theme
Words with surprising etymological journeys

This week’s words
pummel
balladmonger
paregoric
jocund
furbelow


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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(FUHR-buh-loh)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A strip of fabric, tightly gathered or pleated, applied to an object such as a skirt, scarf, hat, or bedding.
2. Something showy or superfluous.

ETYMOLOGY:

Probably an alteration of French falbala, from Italian falda (fold, flap, pleat), perhaps via a diminutive form. Earliest documented use: 1680.

NOTES:

A furbelow has nothing to do with fur and need not be below anything. The word was earlier falbala, but English speakers reshaped it into the more familiar-looking furbelow. The result sounds perfectly sensible while meaning something delightfully frilly. It often appears in the phrase “frills and furbelows”, where it has come to suggest not just fabric trim, but any showy or unnecessary embellishment.

USAGE:

“Detractors, and even some of her fans, wonder why [the author Anne Carson] needs to junk up her crystalline narratives with so much formal detritus. And the question is a reasonable one: her lesser work can seem mired in the frills and furbelows of its own presentation.”
Meghan O’Rourke; The Unfolding; The New Yorker; Jul 12, 2010.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: