Word of the Day!

nugatory [noo-guh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee, nyoo-]

adjective:
1 of no real value; trifling; worthless.
2 of no force or effect; ineffective; futile; vain

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The petitioners through lawyer Kibe Mungai argue that the petition will be rendered nugatory by June 2024 unless the Notice of motion is heard as a matter of urgency and the said petition for hearing and determined sooner. (Dzuya Walter, Petitioners seek CJ Koome’s intervention to have cost of living case certified urgent, Citizen Digital, January 2024)

In any event, at this stage, we are of the view that a conservatory order will, not only preserve the status quo but also save Portside Companies themselves from nugatory expenditure should the appeal succeed. (Sam Kiplagat, Court stops Joho family firm Sh5.9bn grain facility at Mombasa port, Business Daily, July 2024)

Yates is like many figures in 20th-century American literature: an early flowering of an intriguing talent rendered nugatory by crowding, tormenting demons - drink, drugs, self-doubt, self-loathing, burn-out and so on. (William Boyd, Tough is the night, The Spectator, December 2004)

I fancy the writer could hardly propose anything more alarming to those immediately interested in that navigation than such a repeal. If he does not mean this, he has got no farther than a nugatory proposition, which nobody can contradict, and for which no man is the wiser. (Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke)

According to these highly respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying,-conscious, also, that the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels,-had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man’s own righteousness. (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter)

Origin:

'trifling, of no value; invalid, futile,' c. 1600, from Latin nugatorius 'worthless, trifling, futile,' from nugator 'jester, trifler, braggart,' from nugatus, past participle of nugari 'to trifle, jest, play the fool,' from nugæ 'jokes, jests, trifles,' a word of unknown origin. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

ninnyhammer [nin-ee-ham-er]

noun:
a fool or simpleton

Examples:

My efforts were feeble because I was a ninnyhammer, but I brought the project in under budget.(Al Batt, At least I wouldn’t have to bother to burn it behind me, Albert Lea Tribune, March 2021)

I already eat as slowly as I can without looking like an affected ninnyhammer, so my alternatives seem to be to stare at him as he eats, or to eat more food myself, though I am already full. (Judith Martin, One Talks, The Other Chews, Washington Post, January 1994)

You’re nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee: that’s what the Gaffer said to me often enough, it being a word of his. (J R R Tolkein, Lord of the Rings)

Before I knew you were the abject ninnyhammer that you have just told me you are I had a good opinion of you, and thought that you were cut out to make a first-class traveller and explorer—the sort of a fellow who could lead a surveying expedition through the wilderness, or work up new countries and find out what they are made of and what’s in them. (Frank Richard Stockton, The Associate Hermits)

"How can I, with a mind full of grey monkeys with blue faces, call myself a Thinker? What am I anyhow?" I pursued the sad inquiry: "A noodle, a pigwidgeon, a ninny-hammer - a bubble on the wave, Madame, a leaf in the wind!" (Logan Pearsall Smith, All Trivia)

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'simpleton,' 1590s, from ninny ('simpleton, fool,' 1590s, perhaps a misdivision of an innocent or from the pet form of the proper name Innocent, with sense influenced by the name's literal meaning) + hammer (Old English hamor 'hammer,' from Proto-Germanic hamaraz, source also of Old Saxon hamur, Middle Dutch, Dutch hamer, Old High German hamar, German Hammer), but the signification of the second element is obscure (Online Etymology Dictionary)

nethermost [neth-er-mohst, -muhst]

adjective:
farthest down, lowest

Examples:

Zheng Ruiyu from China Academy of Art uses her collection to display the mildness and poetic vibe of Jiangnan (lower reaches of south Yangtze River). The crisscrossed lanes and alleys in Huzhou, her hometown in nethermost Zhejiang Province, and Hangzhou inspire her. (Wu Huixin, Hangzhou still China's No 1 fashionistas, Shanghai Daily, November 2018)

All we want for Christmas is... Besides Chelsea FC being cast into the nethermost abysses of the Non Leagues and Stamford Bridge getting ploughed under? (John Ashdown, Championship 2013-14: the fans' half-term report, The Guardian, December 2013)

From the topmost hair of his shocky head to the nethermost sole of his tough little feet, Bootsey Biggs was a Boy. (Lemuel Ely Quigg, Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York)

Looking back, I think that Mrs Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. (W Somerset Maugham, Moon and Sixpence)

The gloom which surrounded that horrible charnel pit, which seemed to go down to the very bowels of the earth, conveyed from far down the sights and sounds of the nethermost hell. (Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm )

Origin:

'lowest, undermost,' early 14c, from nether + -most. Nethermore (late 14c) is now rare or obsolete. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

First recorded in 1250–1300, nethermost is from the Middle English word nethermast. (Dictionary.com)

nefandous [nuh-fan-duhs]

adjective:
Not to be spoken of, unmentionable; abominable, atrocious

Examples:

At the same time, González de Mendoza, a thorough admirer of father Las Casas, the defender of Indians, decided to omit from his sources those elements that could provide the hardliners with arguments, the just title, to confront China, such as the nefandous sin witnessed by Loarca and the death by a thousand cuts described by Dueñas. (Dolors Folch, Crime and Prejudice: Ming Criminal Justice as Seen in 16th Century Spanish Sources (Abstract), Researchgate, March 2018)

Also the Daemon belched forth most horrid and nefandous Blasphemies, exalting himself above the most High. (Increase Mather, Remarkable Providences: An Essay For the Recording of Illustrious Providences, 1684)

The poor fellow was chanting the familiar stations of the Boston-Cambridge tunnel that burrowed through our peaceful native soil thousands of miles away in New England, yet to me the ritual had neither irrelevance nor home-feeling. It had only horror, because I knew unerringly the monstrous, nefandous analogy that had suggested it. (H P Lovecraft, 'At The Mountains of Madness')

Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefandous conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves - they took no moral stances and lived by none. (Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age)

Origin:

'not to be spoken of, abominable, very shocking to the general sense of justice or religion,' 1630s, from Latin nefandus 'unmentionable, impious, heinous,' from ne-, negative particle + fandus 'to be spoken,' gerundive of fari 'to speak,' from PIE root bha- (2) 'to speak, tell, say.' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Mid 17th century; earliest use found in James Howell (?1594–1666), historian and political writer. From classical Latin nefandus wicked, impious, abominable (from ne- not + fandus 'to be spoken', gerundive of fārī to speak) + -ous.