Word of the Day
More about smackeroo
Smackeroo is originally (and still usually) an American slang term with three meanings: “something very good or excellent; cash, folding money; a sharp slap or hard blow (accidental or deliberate).” The etymology of smackeroo isn’t very clear: it may come from smacker “a dollar; a loud kiss,” or from the verb smack “to strike sharply; kiss loudly.” The suffix -eroo is an Americanism of uncertain origin, used for forming jocular, gaudy variants of neutral or colorless nouns, e.g., switcheroo for switch. Smackeroo entered English in the mid-20th century.
how is smackeroo used?
Do you grab the first person to cross your path and plant a big wet smackeroo, or leave the party before midnight to avoid the whole issue?
I can’t possibly discuss all that action, so let me focus on a few key kisses. First, Mary and Matthew’s very cinematic smackeroo …
memorist
noun
a person who has a remarkably retentive memory.
More about memorist
Memorist is a rare word. When it entered English in the late 17th century, it meant “one who prompts the memory or conscience.” Memorist was revived in the late 19th century as an Americanism meaning “one who has a retentive or prodigious memory.”
how is memorist used?
As a memorist he is phenomenally endowed, his retentiveness so acute that he recites readily without reference or prompting, declamations committed in his schoolboys days more than seventy years ago.
… a memorist appeared on a Sunday morning TV show. He was introduced to the 100 or so youngsters in the audience and repeated all of their names back to them at the end of the show.
mulligrubs
noun
Southern U.S. ill temper; grumpiness.
More about mulligrubs
The extravagant spelling variants of mulligrubs, e.g., mulligrums, mouldy-grubs, merlygrubs, muddigrubs, mullygrumps, murdiegrups,… at least show very plainly that mulligrubs has no sound etymology. Mulligrums “low spirits, bad temper, bad mood” first appears at the end of the 16th century. (Some scholars suggest a relationship between mulligrums and the slightly earlier noun megrims “melancholy, low spirits.”) A quarter of a century later, about 1625, mulligrubs meant “stomachache, diarrhea” and a few years later “ill-tempered or surly person.”
how is mulligrubs used?
Ma has a case of the mulligrubs here lately and some of the kinfolks figure it might be caused by reading the papers too much.
I think when it comes I will enjoy it. It is just the coming that fills me with the mulligrubs.