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
A fictional unit of length defined as the thickness of issue #26 (November 1955) of Mad Magazine, or approximately 2.26 millimetres.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: humorous
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From a case form of Polish potrzeba, adopted as a catchphrase by Mad magazine in the 1950s, and applied to a system of measurement by American computer scientist Donald Knuth (then a high-schooler).
