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lulu

[ loo-loo ]

noun

any remarkable or outstanding person or thing.

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More about lulu

Lulu was originally a piece of American slang. Slang terms have notoriously difficult origins, and lulu, also spelled loulou and looly, has no reliable etymology. Lulu first entered English in the mid-1850s.

how is lulu used?

… Marty loved to point out any big or little step and say to her, “Watch out. It’s a lulu.”

Bill Gaston, "A Work-in-Progress," Gargoyles, 2006

I started to work at the knot, which was a lulu.

Rex Stout, The League of Frightened Men, 1935
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Word of the day

hangdog

[ hang-dawg, -dog ]

adjective

browbeaten; defeated; intimidated; abject: He always went about with a hangdog look.

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More about hangdog

Hangdog is a compound of hang and dog, originally an expression for a person deemed so low and despicable they were considered fit only to hang a bad dog or be hanged like one, as was once the custom; hence, by extension, “browbeaten, defeated, intimidated abject.” In the American South the adjectival form doghanged also occurs, like Southern peckerwood for woodpecker. Hangdog entered English in the second half of the 17th century.

how is hangdog used?

For more than a year now, the desolation Lyndon Johnson felt about his position had shown in his posture … and in his face, on which all the lines ran downward, his jowls sagging, so that reporters mocked in print his “hangdog” look.

Robert A. Caro, "The Transition," The New Yorker, March 26, 2012

After his opening remarks, Cohen, with his weary, hangdog look, affected a penitent air.

Peter Marks, "The Michael Cohen hearing wasn't a hearing at all. It was cheap theatrics." Washington Post, February 27, 2019
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Word of the day

esprit de l'escalier

[ es-pree duh le-skahl-yey ]

noun

French.

a perfect comeback or witty remark that one frustratingly comes up with only when the moment for doing so has passed: Writers, by nature, tend to be people in whom l' esprit de l'escalier is a recurrent experience.

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More about esprit de l'escalier

The still very foreign phrase esprit de l’escalier first appears in English in one of the remarkable, not to say idiosyncratic, let alone cranky books by the Fowler brothers, F.W. (Francis George) and H.W. (Henry George), The King’s English (1906): “No one will know what spirit of the staircase is who is not already familiar with esprit d’escalier.” The French phrase was coined by the French philosopher and encyclopedist Denis Diderot in his Paradoxe sur le comédien (1773–77), a dramatic essay or dialogue between two actors: “l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier” (a sensitive man like me, entirely overcome by the objection made against him, loses his head and can only recover his wits at the bottom of the staircase), that is, after he has left the gathering.

how is esprit de l'escalier used?

Your esprit de l’escalier doesn’t kick in until you’re well out the door.

Lauren Collins, "Sally Rooney Gets in Your Head," The New Yorker, December 31, 2018

Later, l’esprit de l’escalier provided Mercia with: Glad you’re in agreement/I haven’t yet spoken/Is that a greeting/Yes indeed—but at the time, affronted, she grabbed at a couple of garments and announced, I’ll try these.

Zoë Wicomb, October, 2014
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