Shashi Tharoor drops a fancy word; takes a dig on PM Modi’s beard
- 'Pogonthropy' is the new word that Tharoor says he learnt from his friend and economist Rathin Roy
- It means act of cultivating, or growing and grooming, a mustache, beard, sideburns, or other facial hair
Known for dropping new words every now and then, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor claims to have learnt a new one. He further takes a witty dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's beard by using it as a reference for the word.
'Pogonthropy' is the new word that Tharoor says he has learnt from his friend and economist Rathin Roy. It means act of cultivating, or growing and grooming, a mustache, beard, sideburns, or other facial hair.
Taking a subtle dig at the prime minister, who was seen growing beard during the pandemic, Tharoor says, 'as in, the PM's pogonotrophy has been a pandemic preoccupation.'
The witty response came as a Twitter user asked him to share a new "out of the box" word to learn.
Tharoor said on Twitter My friend Rathin Roy, the economist, taught me a new word today: pogonotrophy, which means "the cultivation of a beard". As in, the PM's pogonotrophy has been a pandemic preoccupation...
Greek in origin, Pogonthropy earliest usage was found in The Westminster Review, as per Lexico dictionary.
Why can't there be a Tharoor dictionary?
Tharoor's tweet left many bemused. Till Friday evening, the post managed to grab 2.2K likes and over 120 comments. It was retweeted over 400 times.
A Twitter user said, "If the world has Oxford dictionary Why not India has Tharur Dictionary (sic)?"
"Thanks for sharing this one from Tharoorictionary," said another user.
'Floccinaucinihilipilification', 'farrago', 'troglodyte'...
In May, Tharoor engaged in a friendly banter with TRS working president K T Rama Rao over COVID-19 medicine names and threw in another head scratcher -- floccinaucinihilipilification.
Oxford dictionary describes floccinaucinihilipilification as the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.
In the past, he has stumped people with rarely used English words such as "farrago" and "troglodyte". While farrago means a confused mixture, a troglodyte means a person regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.
Earlier in the day, the Congress leader also noted that he had started a new column on words for a Dubai-based weekly magazine. The column 'Words and me' would be published weekly.
(With inputs from agencies)
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First Published:2 Jul 2021, 08:24 PM IST
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