A.Word.A.Day--Eeyore

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Oct 11, 2019

This week’s theme
Pessimists and optimists from fiction who became words

This week’s words
Gummidge
Tigger
Debbie Downer
Tapleyism
Eeyore

Eeyore with Christopher Robin and friends in What Christopher Robin does in the Mornings

Illustration: E.H. Shepard, 1928

For more optimists and pessimists who have become words, see this week from 2012.

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Eeyore

PRONUNCIATION:

(EE-ohr)

MEANING:

noun: A gloomy, pessimistic person.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Eeyore, a donkey in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). Earliest documented use: 1932.

NOTES:

Eeyore is named onomatopoeically, after the braying call of a donkey. He’s the most depressing character in the Pooh universe -- the antithesis of Tigger. He keeps losing his tail. His house keeps getting knocked down. How can you blame him for being gloomy and pessimistic? Still, he’s a hopelessly lovable character.

USAGE:

“’My husband was Mr. Positivity with his cancer. I am an Eeyore by nature -- gloom and doom and grump. He died. I didn’t. So go figure,’ posted another.”
Brian Blum; Playing the Cancer Card; Jerusalem Post (Israel); Jul 20, 2018.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Most men resemble great deserted palaces: the owner occupies only a few rooms and has closed off wings where he never ventures. -Fran Mauriac, writer, Nobel laureate (11 Oct 1885-1970)

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