Fw: Wordsmith (4/15/2025): A.Word.A.Day -- Barbermonger
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The world's toughest language game gets even tougher.
Apr 15, 2025
This week¡¯s theme
Insults
This week¡¯s words
¡°I want one of those haircuts that¡¯s super popular now, but ten years ago would¡¯ve been the stupidest thing anyone had ever seen.¡±
Cartoon:
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
barbermonger or barber-monger
PRONUNCIATION:
(BAR-buhr-mong-uhr)
MEANING:
noun: One excessively concerned about appearance; a fop, a dandy.
ETYMOLOGY:
From barber, from Old French barbour, from Latin barba (beard) + monger,
from Old English mangere (merchant), from Latin mango, (dealer), Earliest
documented use: 1608.
NOTES:
A barbermonger is the sort who doesn¡¯t just visit the barber,
but holds court there. By extension, a barbermonger is one preoccupied
with their looks: the type who irons their socks to the last crease,
plucks their eyebrows with Pythagorean precision, and could survive
a week with nothing but hair gel and self-admiration.
Also see: .
USAGE:
¡°¡®Think you I had forgotten you, barber-monger?¡¯ He thrust his face
at mine, and his hand clutched at my collar.¡±
Walter Jon Williams; Quillifer the Knight; Saga Press; 2019.
¡°The Native Americans endured much persecution. By the late 19th to
early 20th centuries they were deemed long-haired savages by many
of a so-called civilized bent, the barbermongers.¡±
Roger Sigler; Our Long Hairitage; WestBow Press; 2011.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. -Thomas Szasz,
author, professor of psychiatry (15 Apr 1920-2012)
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