gomerel

[prettygoodword]

gomerel (GOM-er-uhl) - n., (Scot. & N. Eng.) a fool, a stupid or senseless person.


A gawp-faced idjit. Its root is obsolete gome, man, descended from Old English guma (cognate of Latin homo) + -rel, a pejorative suffix. It's not recorded till the early 19th century, though.

---L.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Viz. wastrel and cockerel. The -rel suffix looks Frenchy, though, with an OE stem glued onto it; "minstrel" hints that it's diminutive--or something not necessarily negative---rather than pejorative.

The -rel shows up in a lot of bird names, now that I think of it---cockerel, kestrel, whimbrel, dotterel.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Point. Per at least this (http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=-rel&allowed_in_frame=0) (usually very reliable) etymology dictionary, -rel, usually used with native stems, is "diminutive or depreciatory."

Kestrel, though, is pure French from cresserelle.

---L.