Boy, was I wrong about this one. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Apparently, “petard” is not a kind of leotard. And to “hoist by one’s own petard” is not to be given some sort of atomic wedgie.

hoist.jpg

Nope.

In fact, according to the American Heritage Dictionary:

pe-tard n.
1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.
2. A loud firecracker.

And according to Random House:

4. hoist by or with one’s own petard, hurt, ruined, or destroyed by the very device or plot one had intended for another.

Well, now I know! You may all carry on with the rest of your day.

Ned Lannamann is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. He writes about film, music, TV, books, travel, tech, food, drink, outdoors, and other things.

3 replies on “Vocabulary Lesson of the Day”

  1. This reminds me of how in high school my friends and I should to call each other motards (a portmanteau of moron and retard) and then we discovered that that motard is a French term for a police officer on a motorbike.

  3. @1:

    motard is simply french for motorcyclist. a motorcycle cop is a motard, but a motard isn’t nesc a cop.

    i really just need to change my log-in name to “blogtown’s pedantic douchebag”.

Comments are closed.