Pronounced: buh-THEH-tick, adj
Notes: Sounds like, and is spelled like, “pathetic”, but with an initial “b” instead of “p”
Yesterday’s word
The word scrooch means
- to crouch or huddle
- to squeeze
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Background / Comments
I was surprised when our word turned up; I have memories of it from a Rocky and Bullwinkle show, where it was describing the effects of a Moon Man’s ray gun. Because it was clearly invented for that use, I had no idea that scrooch was a real verb. Our word is a variant of the word scrouge (to squeeze or crowd) — it could be that the word “crouch” influenced the variation.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 