

Oct 31, 2012 This week's theme

Words that appear to have been coined after the 2012 US presidential candidates



This week's words

obambulate

bidentate

mitty

pauldron

barrack

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RSS/XML Words that appear to have been coined after the 2012 US presidential candidates A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg



Mitty PRONUNCIATION: (MIT-ee)

MEANING: noun: An ordinary, timid person who indulges in daydreams involving great adventures and triumphs.

ETYMOLOGY: After the title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a short story (1939) by James Thurber, later made into a movie (1947) of the same name.

NOTES: James Thurber's story appeared in the March 18, 1939 issue of the New Yorker. In the story, Walter Mitty is a meek husband, rather uxorious, who fantasizes of great exploits to escape the humdrum of daily life. One minute he is dreaming of being a heroic pilot ("Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500!"), next minute he becomes a daring naval commander. In his next thought he transforms into a master surgeon, and even a cool killer.

USAGE: "It was not a Mitty dream. It was no fantasy at all."

Richard Bach; A Gift of Wings; Dell; 1974.

See more usage examples of mitty in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.



A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: You can't do anything with anybody's body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person -- you can do only one thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty. -Lenny Bruce, comedian and social critic (1925-1966)





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