Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
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noun
The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant, of having no value or being worthless.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, humorous, often, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From Latin floccus (“a wisp”) + naucum (“a trifle”) + nihilum (“nothing”) + pilus (“a hair”) + -fication. A jocular coinage, apparently by pupils at Eton College, combining a number of Latin word stems. The word was inspired by a line present in various editions of William Lily's (c. 1468–1522) Latin grammars published around the 17th–19th centuries (including the Eton Latin Grammar), in which some nouns commonly used in the genitive case with some verbs like pendo and facio are listed, which express evaluating something as worthless or as previously mentioned; see the reference.
Across languages
9 source translations are retained for this English entry.
