Abderian

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /æbˈdɪɹ.i.ən/

Definitions

  1. A word that refers to a person who behaves in a foolishly playful manner, often indulging in lighthearted jokes or whimsical antics
  2. A descriptor for individuals who exhibit playful silliness, frequently using humor and jest in their interactions
  3. Someone who behaves with carefree folly and lighthearted nonsense

Etymology: The people of Abdera, the story goes, grew so worried by their most famous citizen's laughter that they sent for Hippocrates to cure him. The great physician found Democritus in his garden among dissected animals, searching for the seat of madness, and left convinced that the laughing man was the only sane person in town. The tale comes from letters falsely attributed to Hippocrates and written centuries later, but it fixed two reputations at once. Democritus was born in Abdera, a Greek city on the coast of Thrace, around 460 BC. He is remembered for the theory that the world is made of atoms, but antiquity remembered him just as much as the Laughing Philosopher. Roman writers such as Seneca and Juvenal paired him with Heraclitus, who wept at the same human follies that Democritus found ridiculous. The town fared worse than its philosopher. Abderites were a byword for dullness. Cicero, exasperated by the goings-on in Rome, wrote to his friend Atticus, "hic Abdera", meaning "this place is Abdera." Juvenal marveled that so great a mind could be born "in the land of muttonheads," under thick, heavy air. English took the place name and added "-ian" to describe laughter or a temperament that is silly, playful and faintly mindless, blending the philosopher's mirth with his neighbors' foolishness. Its survival owes much to the learned tradition that kept Democritus close. Robert Burton published The Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621 under the name "Democritus Junior" and retold the Hippocrates episode at length. In 1774 the German writer Christoph Martin Wieland began his satirical novel "Die Abderiten," in which Abdera stands for every self-important provincial town.

Synonyms: laughing, joking, facetious, mirthful, jocular

Antonyms: serious, solemn, grave, stern, somber