1804: -ard (positive) Nov 22, 2019

Following from yesterday, '-ard', like in 'sluggard', 'drunkard', 'niggard' and 'coward', may seem to attach to words only pejoratively, but this is not exclusively so. Although English has more of these than positive ones, 'wizard', and also 'bollard' exist. The former has already been discussed, but a 'bollard' is fairly neutral as far as a post to divert traffic.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

833: Structure and Inflection Mar 20, 2017

1048: No Subjects in Ergative Languages Oct 22, 2017

850: cygnet Apr 6, 2017