Monday, January 24, 2011

Word of the Day: pasquinade

pasquinade: A lampoon or satire, especially one posted in public.

Although pasquinade is normally a noun, Poe verbed it up in "The Murders at the Rue Morgue":

Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming stage-mad, had attempted the rôle of Xerxes, in Crébillon's tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.

Quodam,a great Scrabble word, means "former or sometime."