Pronounced: MISS-truhl (alt: mih-STRAHL), noun
Notes: I remember reading a short story that used this word, but the definition doesn’t exactly line up with the definition
Yesterday’s word
The word pundit means
- a learned person
- a person who offers commentary or judgments as an expert on a certain topic
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
Background / Comments
The alternate spelling pandit was unknown to me. I have heard the “talk circuit” referred to (sarcastically, I thought) as “the pundit circuit”. So, I thought the word referred to a person who seemed to be an expert, or pretended to be one. This idea is pretty close to the second definition; the first one was unknown to me. Our word comes from the Hindi word pandit, which came from the Sanskrit word pandita (learned).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 