December 29, 2017

Bedizen – Friday’s Word of the Day

Today’s word of the day at Dictionary.com is Bedizen, which means ‘to dress or adorn in a showy, gaudy, or tasteless manner’.

According to Dictionary.com:

Bedizen is not a common verb in English. It is a derivative of the even more uncommon verb dizen, which occurs only from the 16th century and becomes obsolescent by the end of the 19th century. The element diz- is probably the same as in distaff “a staff for holding flax or wool for spinning” and is probably related to Middle Low German dise “bunch of flax on a staff for spinning.” Bedizen entered English in the 17th century.

I also learned that while the word bedizen is rarely used in conversation these days, it can be found in print. It has a flashy ring to it, don’t you think? Almost sounds like “bedazzled”. One site suggested that because it is an obscure word you can easily insult a highfalutin somebody! Being unfamiliar with its meaning they might even thank you for it!

To be clear, this is not a word meant to compliment someone. I don’t know about you, but I’m keeping this one in my tool chest for those special people in my life whose narcissistic, attention-seeking, haughty behavior gets under my skin…and I’m going to practice saying it with a wink and a smile…you’re welcome! 😀

Speaking of…

accustomed to glitz
they bedizened the White House
calling it a dump

~kat

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2017 at 10:21 pm and tagged with bedizen, dictionary.com, essay, Haiku, Humor, Poetry, word of the day and posted in Essays, Haiku, Humor, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Word of the Day Haiku. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.