Pronounced: GAL-uh-nip-er, noun
Notes: I’ve not run across this word… it may be a bit of a cheat
Yesterday’s word
The word Mrs. Grundy refers to “an extremely conventional or priggish person”
First usage
This word came into English in the early 1800s
Background / Comments
As I said, I think I’ve run across the word, but I didn’t know the meaning. It comes from a character (Mrs Grundy) in the play Speed the Plough, written in 1798 by Thomas Morton. Oddly, Mrs Grundy never appears on stage, but a character who does is constantly worrying about what Mrs Grundy would say. It must have been pretty popular to find its way into the language within 15 years.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 