Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be “satanic.” However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.
FULSOME
buttery, fulsome, oily, oleaginous, smarmy, soapy, unctuous
(adjective) unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; “buttery praise”; “gave him a fulsome introduction”; “an oily sycophantic press agent”; “oleaginous hypocrisy”; “smarmy self-importance”; “the unctuous Uriah Heep”; “soapy compliments”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adjective
fulsome (comparative fulsomer, superlative fulsomest)
Offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.
Excessively flattering (connoting insincerity).
Marked by fullness; abundant, copious.
Fully developed; mature.
Usage notes
• Common usage tends toward the negative connotation, and using fulsome in the sense of abundant, copious, or mature may lead to confusion without contextual prompts.
Synonyms
• (offensive): gross
• (abundant, copious): profuse
• (excessively flattering): effusive, unctuous
Source: Wiktionary
Ful"some, a. Etym: [Full, a. + -some.]
1. Full; abundant; plenteous; not shriveled. [Obs.] His lean, pale, hoar, and withered corpse grew fulsome, fair, and fresh. Golding.
2. Offending or disgusting by overfullness, excess, or grossness; cloying; gross; nauseous; esp., offensive from excess of praise; as, fulsome flattery. And lest the fulsome artifice should fail Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil. Cowper.
3. Lustful; wanton; obscene; also, tending to obscenity. [Obs.] "Fulsome ewes." Shak.
– Ful"some*ly, adv.
– Ful"some*ness, n. Dryden.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
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Word of the Day
19 June 2025
ROOTS
(noun) the condition of belonging to a particular place or group by virtue of social or ethnic or cultural lineage; “his roots in Texas go back a long way”; “he went back to Sweden to search for his roots”; “his music has African roots”
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