Pronounced: TRUCH-muhn, noun
Notes: This word is new to me, and it has an interesting etymology
Yesterday’s word
The word Babbit refers to “a person and especially a business or professional man who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle-class standards”
First usage
Our word came into English in the 1920s
Background / Comments
As you might guess from the word being capitalized, this word came from a person’s name: George F Babbitt, a character in the 1922 novel Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. Mr. Babbitt was a prosperous real-estate broker, a pillar of his Midwestern community, and a believer in success for its own sake. His name was further popularized by the Gershwin brothers song “The Babbitt and the Bromide” (featured in the musical “Funny Face” (1927) and the movie “Ziegfield Follies” (1945). The name of the character became used to refer to anyone who follows a conformist, materialistic, unimaginative lifestyle.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 