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The word has both positive and negative meanings, so context is key. Fulsome is a troublesome word. And it's also a word that represents the rare case in which dictionaries have made the word’s meaning more confusing rather than more clear. Fulsome seems like an emphatic way of saying “full” or “complete,” and indeed in its oldest use ...
The adjective fulsome can be defined as "unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech." Historically, it has also meant "disgusting or offensive," or "copious or abundant." Fulsome dates to the 1200s, when its components (ful + som) gave it the meaning "abundant, full," says the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Nov 3, 2014 · A: We discussed “fulsome” on the blog in 2007, but it’s probably time to take another look at this troublesome adjective. To begin at the beginning, the word “fulsome” meant simply “abundant” when it first appeared in writing back in 1250, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Over the centuries, it came to mean overdone ...
Fulsome. Two of the traditional senses of fulsome are (1) offensively, excessively flattering, and (2) excessive in a distasteful way. In both these senses, the adjective is usually negative. A fulsome piece of music, for instance, might be one that is overloud and too busy-sounding. In modern usage, however, the word often means copious or ...
Dec 10, 2020 · Fulsome. A ccording to The American Heritage Dictionary, the adjective fulsome means “excessively flattering or insincerely earnest,” “disgusting or offensive,” or “copious or abundant.”. Fulsome dates to the 1200s, when its components (ful + som) gave it the meaning “abundant, full,” says the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Mar 20, 2018 · Fulsome – Richmond Writing. Word of the Week! Fulsome. This word has bothered me for many years. It provides a good example of Edward Sapir’s theory of Linguistic Drift, and I warn writers to take care when using this intellectual-sounding adjective. It has drifted from a positive sense to a negative one and back to positive again!
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abbreviation. A contraction is a word that has been squeezed in the middle, so to speak, but has retained one or more of its opening and closing letters, as with Mr. for Mister and can’t for cannot. An acronym is a word formed from the initial letter or letters of a group of words, as with radar for radio detecting and
