Flibbertigibbet (Word of the week)

This week's word has a literary history and can be traced back to Shakespeare's King Lear when it first appeared with its current spelling - flibbertigibbet. (In King Lear Flibbertigibbet is the name of the five fiends that the character Edgar claimed were possessing him). A character named Flibbertigibbet can also be found in Sir Walter Scott's novel, Kenilworth (written in 1821)

The word has been around longer than that however, with flepergebet and flypyrgebet dating back before 1450.

So what does it mean? Originally it meant a person who was a gossip or a chatterer, the word possibly imitating the sound of meaningless chatter. In the early 17th Century a flibbertigibbet was a type of fiend or devil (as in - or possibly because of Shakespeare) and after Kenilworth it came to mean a impish or mischevious child. Now flibbertygibbet is generally taken to mean a person who is irresponsible or flighty.


King Lear (Act IV, Scene 1)
Edgar
"Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So, bless thee, master!"

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2010
Shorter Oxford Dictionary (2 volumes) 6th edition, 2007
King Lear

Von