Discombobulate – History Part Two

Hello,

This week’s word is discombobulate, with thanks to the Academy Books Teen Book Club who suggested it. It’s actually a word I tackled back in October 2011, but I know more about it now, so I felt it merited a brand new entry.

Bobbing along, but not discombobulated

Discombobulate (pronunciation here) means to confuse or bewilder someone. There’s also the totally unrelated, but fun, word discobolus (a discus-thrower).

Discombobulate entered American English around 1830, originally spelled as discombobricate, meaning to upset or embarrass somebody. It was a created word using mock-Latin suffixes and prefixes. Other examples include – confusticate and absquatulate. As Jess Zafarris of Useless Etymology fame says – ‘“Discombobulate” was one in a series of words invented in the early to mid-1800s as part of a fad popular among educated high-society types who made up faux words by compiling Latin prefixes, suffixes, roots and other non-Latin components into silly-sounding combinations.’

Discombobulate probably drew on discomfort and discompose as a basis for its creation. Before you ask – there isn’t a linguistic opposite of discombobulate and combobulate is not a real word.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace