!Saturday, March 25, 2006
doggerel • \DOG-uh-rul\
• adjective : loosely styled and irregular in measure especially for burlesque or comic effect; also : marked by triviality or inferiority
Example sentence:Murray disparaged the new poetry anthology by saying that it contained little more than doggerel verse.
Did you know?"Doggerel" comes from the Middle English word "dogerel" of the same meaning. Beyond that, etymologists aren't certain of the word's history. They think "dogerel" is probably the diminutive of the Middle English word "dogge" (meaning "dog"), though the connection between man's best friend and bad poetry is unclear. "Doggerel" is often used as a noun, too, meaning "doggerel verse." Stephen Crane uses the noun form in this excerpt from The Red Badge of Courage: "As he marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice: 'Sing a song 'a vic'try, / A pocketful 'a bullets, / Five an' twenty dead men / Baked in a -- pie.'"
DOGGEREL WAS THE WORD OF THE DAY MAR 25 AT
MERRIAM WEBSTER ONLINE DICTIONARY!
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