panjandrum

noun

pan·​jan·​drum pan-ˈjan-drəm 

plural panjandrums also panjandra pan-ˈjan-drə 

: a powerful personage or pretentious official

Did you know?

Panjandrum looks like it might be a combination of Latin and Greek roots, but in fact it is a nonsense word coined by British actor and playwright Samuel Foote around 1755. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Foote made up a line of gibberish to "test the memory of his fellow actor Charles Macklin, who had asserted that he could repeat anything after hearing it once." Foote's made-up line was, "And there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at the top." Some 75 years after this, Foote's passage appeared in a book of stories for children by the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. It took another quarter century before English speakers actually incorporated panjandrum into their general vocabulary.

Examples of panjandrum in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The president’s bellowing recitation of his accomplishments served as a vivid reminder of the bullet so recently deflected by Nancy Pelosi and her ruthless fellow Democratic Party panjandrums by hustling the would-be nominee into political oblivion. —Andrew Cockburn, Harper's Magazine, 5 Sep. 2024

Bamford, while cutting in and out of the lives of Hollywood’s panjandrums, takes us to Pyongyang, where Kim’s minions are stealing money and cryptocurrency while wreaking havoc on computer systems around the world. —Tim Weiner, The New Republic, 27 Mar. 2023

Calvin Klein, the panjandrum of pants, sold his beach house there for $84.4m. —The Economist, 13 Mar. 2021

The industry’s panjandrums insist that a new culture of compliance will make FDA site closures a thing of the past. —The Economist, 22 Mar. 2018

The forum, for its part, will drum up support for the venture among the world’s panjandrums—and with luck some dosh as well. —The Economist, 23 Jan. 2018

Word History

Etymology

Grand Panjandrum, burlesque title of an imaginary personage in some nonsense lines by Samuel Foote

First Known Use

1825, in the meaning defined above

Podcast

Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!