Word of the Day

: May 28, 2015

fictioneer

noun fik-shuh-NEER

What It Means

: someone who writes fiction especially in quantity and without high standards

fictioneer in Context

Dwight was a fictioneer who specialized in pulp novels, producing over 300 of them in his long career.

"Is it right for such irresponsiblefictioneersto be playing around unconscionably with such tragic subject matter?" - Jeff Simon, Buffalo (New York) News, November 18, 2014

Did You Know?

In Latin, the verb fingere means "to shape, fashion, or feign." Fictioneers surely do shape stories and feign the truth, so you could say that the noun fictioneer is etymologically true to its ancestor. The word fiction had been around for more than 500 years by the time fictioneer appeared in English in 1923, bearing a suffix that harks back to such words as engineer and pamphleteer. The word is used generally to refer to any writer of fiction but often specifically to one who writes with little concern for literary quality. Fictioneer and fiction aren't the only English feigners and shapers born of fingere. The words effigy, feign, and figment are among others that trace back to that Latin verb.