phatic

Pronounced: FAH-tick, adj

Notes: Not what I thought, and not related to the word I thought it was

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Yesterday’s word

The word poltroon is “an utter coward”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1500s

Background / Comments

I keep thinking I first heard this word during an after-school cartoon (maybe Bugs Bunny? Daffy Duck?). But while I was somewhat familiar to me, I couldn’t define it. Our word came from the French word poltron (coward), which came from the Italian word poltrone (lazy person), which came from the Latin word pullus (young animal). One can imagine the association of ideas — young animals don’t work for their food; they are fed by their parents (thus the ‘lazy’ definition in Italian); also, young animals tend to run away when frightened, and thus the ‘coward’ definition in French. One other note: our word has ‘o’ as the only vowel.