Wednesday word: nebbish

[trellia-chan.livejournal.com]

Hi!  After a ridiculously long sabbatical, I'm resuming the Wednesday word. It's nice to be back!

I'll ease back in with a short, simple one this week.

nebbish:

Noun, slang: A pitiful, timid, meek, luckless, ineffectual person

Origin: English use started around the turn of the 20th century. Yiddish nebekh meaning poor, unfortunate. From Czech nebohý.  

Thursday word: quisquilian

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

quisquilian (kwiz-KWIL-ee-an) - adj., worthless, trivial, consisting of rubbish.


That last being the root sense -- for this is from Latin quisquiliae, trash/rubbish. Another 17th century Latinate borrowing, and I have to wonder whether it was by Sir Thomas Urquhart -- I mean, he would, if someone didn't grab it first. As one blog post helpfully points out, this is potentially useful for covert insults:

"My, what a quisquilian prom dress you have, dear."

---L.