Pygalgia

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7456
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

Pygalgia

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Jan 02, 2016 10:45 pm

• pygalgia •

Pronunciation: pi-gæl-jee-yê • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Pain in the a..—butt, literally and figuratively.

Notes: Here is the word we have all been waiting for: a medical term for a pain in the butt. It is rarely used to refer to a physical pain, but we must rescue it from the medical domain for its figurative usefulness. Not only does it get your sentiment across, it will send the pest scurrying for a dictionary. The adjective for this word is pygalgic and the adverb, of course, pygalgically.

In Play: We might use this rare word literally, in the medical sense: "I sat in front of the computer so long I had an attack of pygalgia." We might otherwise use the word figuratively: "Callie Pidgeon is such a pygalgia, I can't wait until she goes home!"

Word History: This word is a compound comprising pyge "butt" + algos "pain" + -ia, a noun suffix. If pyge were related to any English word, it would be an obscenity in our beloved language beginning with an F. As such, it would not have been printed until recently (since the media corporations made obscenities fashionable), making tracing its history impossible. It does appear in an earlier Good Word, callipygian. Algos is the noun from algein "to feel pain", also of murky origin. Algia shows up in many English words, such as myalgia "muscle pain" and analgesic "pain-killer" from a(n) "no, not, un-" + algia "pain" + -ic, an adjective-noun suffix. Nostalgia comes from Greek nostos "homecoming" + algia. (Lest we become a pygalgia to our contributor, Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, another long-standing editor of the Good Word series, let's thank him now for recommending we serve today's excellent Good Word.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

misterdoe
Senior Lexiterian
Posts: 619
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:21 am
Location: New York City area
Contact:

Re: Pygalgia

Postby misterdoe » Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:06 pm

As soon as I saw this message's subject line in Gmail, I had to laugh because I knew right away what it meant, without even opening the message. I'm kind of fond of its cousins callipygian (having a beautiful butt, meaning the shape I s'pose) and steatopygian (having a big butt; I cannot lie :)). Apparently Google prefers callipygian, because it turned the other word into steel pigeon, which makes no sense at all. :?

Philip Hudson
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 2784
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:41 am
Location: Texas

Re: Pygalgia

Postby Philip Hudson » Sat Jan 09, 2016 2:06 pm

What a delightful romp over the rump :lol: , misterdoe. I was going to say, "I am a gam man myself," but then I saw there are too many definitions of that word :? .
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

Perry Lassiter
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 3333
Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:41 pm
Location: RUSTON, LA
Contact:

Re: Pygalgia

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Jan 10, 2016 6:13 pm

Steatopygian seems prehistoric...
pl


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 0 guests