kakistocracy

Pronounced: kak-ih-STOCK-ruh-see (alt: kah-kih-STOCK-ruh-see), noun

Notes: This is a rare exception to my only posting words I don’t know; I was able to correctly guess the meaning of this word, but I think it is rare enough to post

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Yesterday’s word

The word clowder is “a group or cluster of cats”

First usage

Our word came into English around 1800 (very late 1700s or very early 1800s)

Background / Comments

Did you know this was the group word for cats? (I didn’t). A cat-oriented web site says that this word is used if the cats appears to know each other. A group of cats that don’t know one another is called a “glaring”, which seems somehow appropriate. A group of kittens is a “litter”, but also sometimes called a “kindle”. Our word has a purely English origin; it was a variant of the noun clodder (clotted mass), which came from the verb clodder (to clot; to coagulate), which came from Middle English clothered, a variant of clotered. There is also an obsolete word clotter (to huddle together).