Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Fanfaronade

Fanfaronade \fan-fair-uh-NAYD\ or \fan-fair-uh-NOD\ , noun;
1. Swaggering; empty boasting; blustering manner or behavior; ostentatious display
2. Fanfare

This word dates to the mid-1600's and comes from French fanfaronnade, which derives from fanfaron ("a bully, a hector, a swaggerer, and empty boaster")*. There is a similar word in Spanish: fanfarronada.

A similar word, fanfare, comes from the same roots as fanfaronade**:
Fanfare dates to the 1600's and comes from French fanfare, which derives from fanfarer ("blow a fanfare").

Both words are probably borrowed from Arabic farfar, which means "chatter" and is a near-onomatopoeic imitation of what chatter sounds like.

*From TheFreeDictionary.com
**From www.cnrtl.fr
Today's word and the first definition were both taken from Dictionary.com's 'Word of the Day' for Wednesday, March 9
Etymologies come from the Oxford English Dictionary and/or Etymonline.com

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