Home » Dictionary » tacular

tacular

–tacular suffix in the forming of nouns, ‘an exciting or extravagant event’ associated with the root; in the forming of adjectives, an intensifier of the root, ‘a lot, great, large, extravagant, excessive.’ Editorial Note: Terms created with –tacular tend to be jocular one-offs, though some, like spooktacular and craptacular, appear to have more endurance. Etymological Note: From a resegmenting of spectacular, in which the syllable tacular splinters off of spec and becomes a combining form. This true segmenting of the word would ordinarily be spectacul, from the Latin spectacul-um ‘a show, spectacle, something worth observing’ and the Latin suffix –ar ‘of a kind; belonging to.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

1 comment
  • Cf. the suffix <-tastic>, which often attaches to the same roots as <-tacular> for forming adjectives.  (“Craptastic” and “craptacular” each return more than 50,000 Google-hits.)

Further reading

What’s the Correct Pronunciation of “Labret”?

A tattoo artist in Wilmington, North Carolina, is debating the correct pronunciation of labret, a piercing just below the lip. The best choice is to put the stress on the first syllable, which should make it have assonance more or less with tablet...

Had the Radish (episode #1527)

Your first name is very personal, but what if you don’t like it? For some people, changing their name works out great but for others it may create more problems than it solves. And: at least three towns in the U.S. were christened with names...