Yay! Rah! Dictionary!

August 28th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

Webster’s considers “pompom” the correct spelling for “an ornamental ball or tuft of silk, wool, feathers, etc., as used on clothing or draperies or waved in pairs by cheerleaders.”

It’s an altered form of the French “pompon,” which is now reserved for references to flowers, such as chrysanthemums and dahlias, with heads that resemble pompoms.

In between is”pom-pom,” with a hyphen, an echoic term for certain types of rapid-firing automatic weapons. It also can be written without the hyphen. But for me the hyphen underscores its origin, representing the sound made by such guns — and distinguishes it from the ornamental kind.

If all of this seems a bit pompous, maybe it’s because that’s where “pompon” comes from — the Old French “pomper,” “to exhibit pomp.”

Entry Filed under: spelling, definitions, word origins