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.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
Nonsense, malarkey
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: nonce-word, obsolete, rare, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Coined 1935, by Damon Runyon. Phonology pseudo-Greek – note the ph. The term may be analyzed as *phe- + dinkus (“contrivance (slang)”), where the prefix is an optional consonant /f/, with the stressless vowel added in the same way as other mutually apophonic prefixes (when the consonant changes, the vowel changes accordingly) such as pi- (pizazz), she- (shebang), etc.
