Word of the Day!

forsooth [fawr-sooth]

adverb:
(archaic) in truth, indeed (now used in derision or to express disbelief

Examples:

Forsooth, the winter of our discontent has been made glorious summer by the Salzburg Festival. (A J Goldmann, After a Winter of Discontent, a Glorious Summer in Salzburg, The New York Times, July 2021)

And the lowly scribes say, forsooth
you are talking bunkum and hocus pocus. (An Ode for - and from - Sandra Goudie , newsroom, October 2021)

'Moral duty to chase' forsooth! 'Won’t someone think of the kiddies who came to watch' indeed! (Said no one, ever.) ( Tim de Lisle and Rob Smyth, England draw first Test with New Zealand: day five - as it happened, The Guardian, June 2021)

I am not to see, forsooth, that no man does me an injury, or breaks into my home--I am not to take care that all shall go well with me, or that I have clothes to wear, or that my shoes do not require mending, or that I be given work to do, or that I possess sufficient meat and drink? (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Poor Folk)

Origin:

Old English forsoð 'indeed, in truth, verily,' from for-, perhaps here with intensive force (or else the whole might be 'for a truth'), + soð 'truth' (see sooth). Regarded as affected in speech by c 1600. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Although it is still a part of the English language, forsooth is now primarily used in humorous or ironic contexts, or in a manner intended to play off the word's archaic vibe. Forsooth is formed from the combination of the preposition for and the noun sooth. Sooth survives as both a noun (meaning 'truth' or 'reality') and an adjective (meaning 'true', 'sweet', or 'soft'), though it is rarely used by contemporary speakers. It primarily lives on in English in the verb soothe (which originally meant 'to show, assert, or confirm the truth of') and in the noun soothsayer (that is, 'truthsayer'), a name for someone who can predict the future. (Merriam-Webster)

flibbertigibbet [flib-er-tee-jib-it]

noun:
1 a silly, scatterbrained, or garrulous person
2 (archaic) a gossip

Examples:

This is how we will stay strong through this crisis. Why, just last night I entered my bathroom a mild-mannered person sliding quickly into madness and emerged a self-proclaimed flibbertigibbet with red hair and a weird husky voice modeled after Angelica, the second of Ryan's characters in the film. Is this what the public (my houseplants) wants? No. Is it what the public (my houseplants) needs? Absolutely. I am an altruistic flibbertigibbet and you're welcome. (R Eric Thomas, Finding Solace in Life's Absurdity and Terror in Joe Versus the Volcano, yahoonews, April 2020)

A flibbertigibbet in a Little Red Riding Hood raincoat, with a reckless habit of stepping out on to life’s busiest roads? (Kiran Sidhu, How my farmer friend Wilf gave me a new perspective, The Guardian, August 2021)

As blue chips turn into penny stocks, Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America's macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs. Bennet, a flibbertigibbet always anxious about getting richer and her 'poor nerves'. (Kiran Sidhu, Well-toned first lady brings style to her job, South Florida SunSentinel, March 2009)

All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet. (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five)

Origin:

1540s, 'chattering gossip, flighty woman,' probably a nonsense word meant to sound like fast talking; as the name of a devil or fiend it dates from c. 1600 (together with Frateretto, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto). OED lists 15 spellings and thinks flibbergib is the original. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

It's a fine word to throw out, in the appropriate circumstances, though there's a risk of tripping over all those syllables. That's no doubt why it has had so many spellings.

The original seems to have been recorded about 1450 as fleper-gebet, which may have been just an imitation of the sound of meaningless speech (babble and yadda-yadda-yadda have similar origins). It started out to mean a gossip or chattering person, but quickly seems to have taken on the idea of a flighty or frivolous woman. A century later it had become respectable enough for Bishop Latimer to use it in a sermon before King Edward VI, though he wrote it as flybbergybe.

The modern spelling is due to Shakespeare, who borrowed it from one of the 40 fiends listed in a book by Samuel Harsnet in 1603. In King Lear Edgar uses it for a demon or imp: "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet... He gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth".

There has been yet a third sense, taken from a character of Sir Walter Scott's in Kenilworth, for a mischievous and flighty small child. But despite Shakespeare and Scott, the most usual sense is still the original one. (World Wide Words)

flummoxed[fluhm-uhks-d]

adjective:
completely unable to understand; utterly confused or perplexed

Examples:

As we move into 2021, investors are understandably flummoxed about the way forward. (Nehchal Sandhu, Investing In 2021 - Keep It Simple, Businessworld, January 2021)

The thrill of a cryptic clue is in how you are utterly flummoxed at first, and then after staring at it for a few minutes, you see the answer and realise how cunningly it was camouflaged the whole time and how cunning you were to have finally cracked it! (Mihir Balantrapu, Clued In #119 - Enter the charming world of cryptic clues, The Hindu, August 2020)

Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car. (Bill Bryson, Neither Here, Nor There: Travels in Europe)

Werner was flummoxed. He might have a way with words, but understanding a woman was way beyond his capabilities. Shaking his head, he returned to his desk, wondering what he’d done wrong. (Marion Kummerow, From the Ashes)

Origin:

The word first appears in mainstream English in the middle of the nineteenth century. Charles Dickens is the first writer known to have used it, in his Pickwick Papers: “And my 'pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don't prove a alleybi, he'll be what the Italians call reg'larly flummoxed, and that's all about it.”

Don't be misled by that reference to Italians, that's just a fancy of old Mr Weller. But there's evidence that the word is older in Scots and English dialects, in the same sense that we use it now, to be bewildered, perplexed, or puzzled, or to defeat or overcome somebody in argument (“That fair flummoxed 'im!”). At one time, Americans sometimes used it in the sense of failing or being defeated and so being exhausted or beaten, but that sense seems to have died out.

There's also the English dialect flummock, at one time known from Yorkshire down to Gloucestershire, to go about in a slovenly or untidy manner, or to make things untidy, or to confuse, which may be a slightly older version of the same word. It might also be linked to lommock or lummox, a clumsy or stupid person, known from the same area.

That's where the trail runs cold. The suggestion is that all these words are in some degree imitative of the noise of throwing things down noisily or untidily, so it may be associated with another dialect word flump, a heavy or noisy fall. (World Wide Words)

from flummox; 1837, cant word, also flummux, of uncertain origin, probably risen out of a British dialect (OED finds candidate words in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, southern Cheshire, and Sheffield). 'The formation seems to be onomatopœic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily.' [OED]. (Online Etymology Dictionary)