Crackpot definition origin of paddy

If you describe someone or their ideas as crackpot, you disapprove of them because you. In the 1600s, one of the slang meanings of cracked was a person with an impaired mind. If barnett wants reasonable people to respect his 2012 republican party, he needs to pull it back from the crackpot fringe and make it into something more decent than a paranoid cave dweller dragging its basest impulses out of a dark crevice and enacting them into law. Whats the origin of the term crackpot referring to a. The word comes from the phrase paddy, it says, which that same dictionary acknowledges is slang for an irishman chiefly used in a derogatory way. President trumps reference to paddy wagon insults irish. Earlier it was used in a slang sense a smalltime bigshot 1883, and by medical doctors in reference to a metallic chinking sometimes heard when percussion is made over a cavity. Dictionary grammar blog school scrabble thesaurus translator quiz more resources more from collins. Cracked is a shortened form of braincracked meaning faulty or impaired. Crackpot synonyms, crackpot antonyms merriamwebster.

The transition of geezer to meaning an older, eccentric man took place around. The slang for pot goes back even further, all the way to the 1400s. Full text of a dictionary of slang and colloquial english. You might describe your neighbor as a crackpot if he keeps farm animals inside his house and wears a clown costume everywhere he goes. To discover its origins, we need to ignore the vikings and realise that crackpot is a shortened form of crackedpot, which splits into its constituent parts, cracked and pot. Paddy definition and meaning collins english dictionary. Crackpot definition is one given to eccentric or lunatic notions. Information and translations of paddy in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on. Crackpot meaning in the cambridge english dictionary.

As in field, it is from a malay word meaning rice in the straw or husk making rice paddy redundant. Crackpot the meaning and origin of this word the phrase finder. The origin of crackpot goes back to the meaning of its two constituent parts. Crackpot definition and meaning collins english dictionary.

This ma thesis will initially attempt to define the linguistic term slang and describe. Therefore, crackpot was another way to say impaired head. An eccentric person, especially one with bizarre ideas. Crackpot definition, a person who is eccentric, unrealistic, or fanatical. In irish baby names the meaning of the name paddy is. A paddy or a paddy field is a field that is kept flooded with water and is used for. Noun before industrialization, a seaside fishing village or hillside paddy field farm might have sustained a simple, deliberate life of basic subsistence and straightforward agricultural trade, much like the life the player leads in animal crossing. Crackpot definition of crackpot by the free dictionary. President trumps reference to paddy wagon insults irish americans like me james mulvaney, the authors great grandfather, as a brooklyn police patrolman in the 1890s. Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples log in dictionary. In the oxford dictionary, the term paddy wagon is said to have appeared in the 1930s, perhaps because formerly many american police officers were of irish descent.