Saturday, October 21, 2006

Termagant

It turns out that a termagant is a noisy and quarrelsome woman. Fortunately, I didn't come across any such people today. I enjoyed all your contributions and chose the meaning sent in by Clare who gave a wonderfully descriptive picture of a termagant as a small game bird with a plaintive ter-ter ter-ter call. I liked her suggestion about the "invisible p" at the beginning. Thanks for visiting, Clare. I hope you'll join us again.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A person who is obsessed with politics.

Anonymous said...

I think someone who retaliates is a termagant.

Anonymous said...

Someone who falls over in turbulence is a termagant.

Clare said...

A sort of small game bird. It lives only on high moorland and has a plaintive ter-ter ter-ter call. Its feathers are greyish with green tinges and they look purple in certain lights. It can't fly very well, but stands up on its back legs and scuttles very fast. The word is actually pronouced P-termagant (the p is invisible). If you say it wrong, the other people on the shoot laugh at you, and you are never allowed to forget it.

Anonymous said...

A termite embryo, of course!

Anonymous said...

A termagant is actually an operative for the CIA, but they are only employed for brief periods of time due to the unstable nature of actually being a CIA agent in this day and age.