Monday's word - Gimcrack

Gimcrack, orginal painting by George Stubbs

 I have Michael Quinion* to thank again for today's 'Monday's Word.'

"This word was in the news this month because a 1765 painting by George Stubbs, entitled Gimcrack on New Market Heath, featuring a famous racehorse, was sold for $35.79 million. Gimcrack was very successful: he won 27 of his 36 races in a career that spanned 7 seasons and the Gimcrack Stakes at York was named after him.

His success and the immense price for the painting are at odds with the usual meaning of "gimcrack", a useless ornament or something showy of little real worth....
...'Gimcrack' started life to describe some kind of inlaid work in wood but later changed to mean a fanciful notion or mechanical contrivance. It became popular in the eighteenth century in the modern sense. It may seem a strange name to give a horse, but as its sire was called Cripple and Gimcrack was small, it may have been a witticism or an attempt at defensive magic by seeming to disparage something you wanted to succeed. If so, it worked."


*
*World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2011. All rights reserved The  original post can be found at:  http://www.worldwidewords.org

Have a great week folks - and if you missed Smashwords' half price offer on Dancing With Fate, drop me a line a Lyn at hywelalyn dot co dot UK and I'll send you a discount coupon.

You can now also purchase a digitally signed copy of Starquest or Children Of The Mist at Kindle.  (You'll need to sign in with 'Twitter')

http://kindlegraph.com/books?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=Starquest
http://kindlegraph.com/books?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=Children+of+the+mist

 



'STARQUEST'    'CHILDREN OF THE MIST'  (The sequel to Starquest)  Dancing With Fate   
    'Freeread' :'A BARGAIN WITH DEATH