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fantod (FAN-tod) - n., (as the fantods) a state of nervous excitement or uneasiness; (in singular) an emotional outburst, a fit; a crotchety or faddish behavior.
I first knowingly met the word in Edward Gorey's The Unstrung Harp: Or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel, in which Earbrass while trolling an secondhand shop finds a fantod stuffed and placed under a glass bell (illustrated as as sort of bipedal, armless monster). However, I probably first actually met it in Huckleberry Finn, who got the fantods upon meeting a body in the woods. In use since the late 1830s, origin uncertain, though fantastic or fantasy is clearly at the root of it (possibly via the archaic fantique, which is apparently a blend of fantasy and frantic) with what appears to be the Welsh plural ending -od tacked on -- which would mean the fantods is a double plural.
---L.
I first knowingly met the word in Edward Gorey's The Unstrung Harp: Or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel, in which Earbrass while trolling an secondhand shop finds a fantod stuffed and placed under a glass bell (illustrated as as sort of bipedal, armless monster). However, I probably first actually met it in Huckleberry Finn, who got the fantods upon meeting a body in the woods. In use since the late 1830s, origin uncertain, though fantastic or fantasy is clearly at the root of it (possibly via the archaic fantique, which is apparently a blend of fantasy and frantic) with what appears to be the Welsh plural ending -od tacked on -- which would mean the fantods is a double plural.
---L.
