Sunday, April 12, 2009

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Oxford English Dictionary lists the definition as "The action or habit of estimating as worthless." According to the OED, floccinaucinihilipilification derives from four Latin words: flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili combined with the suffix -fication, which is from fic, meaning make. As found in The Eton Latin Grammar, the four Latin stems of floccinaucinihilipilifi- cation all mean "worthless," in various forms of figurative speech. Flocci means "of a lock of wool;" nauci "of a nutshell;" nihili "of nothing;" and pili "of a hair." The word came to existance as an "in" joke among Latin elitists. The creator combined flocci+nauci+nihili+pili from The Eton Latin Grammar together and stuck -fication on the end. The word is therefore highly redundant. The OED credited the first recorded use of floccinaucinihilipilification in a letter by William Shenstone. Shenstone wrote, "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money." The word's most noticeably been in the spotlight when used by Senator Jesse Helms in debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999. He said, “I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT" (World Wide Words.org).

sources: Eton Latin Grammar, OED.com, & worldwidewords.org

1 comment:

  1. Be careful: you don't mean that the most recent time the word was used was 1999.... Surely someone has used it since then--and if no one else has, you have!

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