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Word of the Week: Flibbertigibbet

03.18.2007

flib?ber?ti?gib?bet [flib-er-tee-jib-it]

–noun
1. a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

2. Archaic. a gossip.

[Origin: 1425–75; late ME flepergebet, flipergebet; reduplicative compound of obscure orig.]

In A Sentence
"'I want to go on living even after my death!' Anne Frank wrote in her diary, and with 25 million copies of her book in print, in 55 languages, her memory endures.

But I wonder what Anne would make of what we have made of her in the more than 60 years since she died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at age 15.

She has been portrayed on the screen as a flibbertigibbet, an American-style teenager who faints into her heartthrob's arms at the sight of the Dutch Green Police."

- Ellen Feldman, "Ellen Feldman: We've made a poor tribute to Anne Frank", Opinion Viewpoint, Dallas Morning News, March 7, 2007

 

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, ? Random House, Inc. 2006.

Shawn Denny, Information Services Librarian