Happy Friday to you! Today’s Word of the Day from Dictionary.com is “Factotum.” The expanded definition is:
- any employee or official having many different responsibilities.
- a person, as a handyman or servant, employed to do all kinds of work around the house.
Origin of factotumFactotum has roots in the Latin facere meaning “to make; do” and tōtus meaning “all.” It entered English in the mid-1500s.
Vocabulary.com offers a more expanded description:
“If you’re running late and still need to iron your clothes and make breakfast, but can’t find your shoes, you may wish you had a factotum, or a servant who does a variety of odd job for their employer.
Factotum sounds like the two words “fact” and “totem” spliced together, but this curious noun originally come from the Latin words that mean “do” and “everything.” In current times, since servants aren’t typical anymore, we might call someone who has a paid job like this a jack-of-all-trades or possibly a personal assistant.”
Having been a stay-at-home mom for a number of years as well as performing my current day job as an Executive Administrative Assistant, this is a word that really resonates with me. How have I not heard it before?
Well, it could have something to do with the fact that this is just another one of those historical words that doesn’t really apply in our modern culture…or does it? I can think of at least one application of this word that is true to it’s original meaning. I give you the modern “housewife”, “homemaker”, stay-at-home mom (or dad) who provides a variety of services, often for free. Though some will say that their rewards are intangible things like love, fulfillment and joy. But having lived the life, I can tell you that it is a paycheck that validates what we consider to be “work.” At any rate, I will leave you with a trio of Haiku that hopefully make good use of this “new” old word.
And…it’s the weekend you know. Don’t work too hard!
They cook, clean, parent
unsung, unpaid factotums
also called “Mothers”!
Admins do-it-all!
They are office factotums
“Duties as assigned.”
When something breaks down
call a handy factotum
a hero with tools!
kat ~ 4 March 2016
Have a great weekend! And don’t forget, you too can join the Dictionary Word of the Day Haiku Challenge. Click HERE to learn more and play along. Some of the words this week were real doozies. I’m interested to see if anyone took the challenge!
March 4th, 2016 at 4:46 pm
Wow…thank you for this
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March 4th, 2016 at 4:48 pm
Thanks Ronald. Who knew there was a word for this! 🙂
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March 4th, 2016 at 4:56 pm
Cool word!!!!
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March 4th, 2016 at 5:11 pm
I know! Who knew?!
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March 4th, 2016 at 5:28 pm
I love learning new words!!!
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March 4th, 2016 at 6:58 pm
Me too! 😊
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March 4th, 2016 at 5:00 pm
oh boy my man is the handyman for his self employment now he is factotum? man I mean “When something breaks down
call a handy factotum
a hero with tools! ” this is so cool!
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March 4th, 2016 at 5:11 pm
Oh yes’ he is a true hero! 😊
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March 4th, 2016 at 8:25 pm
I have heard the word before. Sounds like it fits my job description now. Yes, I’m a business analyst, but on a daily basis I get asked “hey can you test out this program?” (tester’s job) or “hey, can you troubleshoot this SQL somebody wrote that isn’t working?” (developer’s job) or “hey, I can’t get this pivot table to work in Excel, can you help fix it?” (who the heck’s job is that???) LOL. But really, I think now with all the downsizing going on in my company, I can only be grateful I still have a factotum job. 😀 So, here is my haiku contribution:
If you’re not busy
Can you help me out on this?
I am Factotum
Not the best but I tried!
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March 4th, 2016 at 9:50 pm
Awesome! Haha! Yes…I think a lot of us are multitasking with the advent of downsizing. I hear ya’. Feel lucky to have a job!
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March 4th, 2016 at 10:00 pm
Here I have been factotum to my family all this time, and I thought I was just a mom. If they understood, would I be more highly valued? Perhaps we could continue Mother’s Day in May and have Factotum’s Day in September. Double the pleasure.
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March 5th, 2016 at 6:52 am
There ya go! I like the idea of a Factotum Day! September is good too…when summer break is over! 😊
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March 4th, 2016 at 11:51 pm
Strong work, friend Kat. 😉
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March 5th, 2016 at 6:53 am
Thank you Catherine. This was an interesting word!
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March 5th, 2016 at 8:18 am
Love this kat
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March 5th, 2016 at 10:51 am
Thanks Lynn. I’m sure you can relate to this word! Much love ❤️
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March 5th, 2016 at 10:56 am
Yes
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March 6th, 2016 at 8:15 pm
[…] kat @ likemercurycolliding […]
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