- Today's Word
Demagogue
DEM-uh-gawg
Definition
- (noun) A leader who gains power by appealing to emotions, prejudices, or popular desires rather than reason or logic.
Example
The politician’s speeches, filled with fear-mongering and empty promises, revealed him as a demagogue.
Fun Fact
“Demagogue” comes from the Greek dēmagōgos, meaning “leader of the people.” While it once referred to positive leaders, the word now carries a negative connotation, describing figures who manipulate public emotions for personal gain. History is full of such figures, making “demagogue” a powerful term in political discourse.
(adjective) Lacking substance, interest, or mature thought; naive and simplistic in a way that reveals inexperience.
The critic dismissed the debut novel as jejune — competently written, technically adequate, and utterly devoid of anything worth remembering.
Jejune derives from the Latin jejunus, meaning “fasting” or “empty” — literally describing a stomach that has not been fed. The same root gives us jejunum, the section of the small intestine named for its tendency to be found empty after death. It entered English in the 17th century carrying its literal sense of emptiness before acquiring its figurative meaning of something intellectually or creatively hollow — content that has the form of nourishment without any of the substance.