Pronounced: PYOO-tuh-tihv, adj
Notes: I confused this word with punitive
Yesterday’s word
The word crackjaw means, as an adjective, “hard to pronounce”. As a noun, it refers to “a word or phrase that is hard to pronounce”
First Usage
This word has been around since the mid-1800s
Background / Notes
There are many ways to indicate a long word or a rare word. There are inkhorn words; difficult words; stately language; a sesquipedalian; and here we have crackjaw… The idea being that to pronounce such difficult or long words, one would crack one’s jaw. Our word comes from (as you might expect) “crack” together with “jaw”.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 