Doryphoreとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

A modification of doriphore, borrowed from French doryphore (“Colorado beetle”) by Harold Nicolson in 1952, presumably under the influence of the various senses of pest. The French term was a translation of the New Latin genus Doryphora, itself from Ancient Greek δορυφόρος (doruphóros, “lance-bearing; lance-bearer”).^[1]

名詞

doryphore (複数形 doryphores)

1. (rare, humorous) A petty pedant, a person who complains about minor mistakes.
   • 1952 August 22, Harold Nicolson, Spectator, p. 238:

     Often have I tried to supplement my vocabulary by inventing words, such as ‘couth’, or ‘doriphore’, or ‘hypoulic’, feeling that it is the duty as well as the pastime of a professional writer to make two words bloom where only one bloomed before.

   • 1960 December 9, Daily Telegraph, p. 19:

     The idiomatic implications of such a word as doryphore in his own text is left for the ignorant to guess. (It means a Colorado beetle かつ, hence, a pest.)

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