Lardass

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈlɑɹd.æs/

Definitions

1. A person exhibiting considerable weight gain and a lifestyle marked by inactivity may be derogatorily referred to as such
2. An individual perceived as being both overweight and apathetic towards physical effort might be labeled with this term
3. A derogatory term for someone who is significantly overweight and often disengaged from regular physical activity is commonly recognized

Etymology: "Lardass" is a bahuvrihi compound, a type of word named after a Sanskrit term meaning "much rice," in which the whole describes a thing that has the qualities of its parts. Here, "lard" (the rendered fat of pigs, and by extension body fat) and "ass" (the buttocks, and by extension a fool or a person) combine to form a noun for someone who is, in effect, a person with a lot of fat in the rear. The construction is the same as in "redneck" or "bigmouth," where the compound names a person by a salient bodily feature. Neither element is a learned borrowing. Both are native English words with long Germanic histories, so the term is a plain piece of colloquial English word-building rather than something that passed through Latin or French. Its force comes from the blunt pairing of two ordinary nouns, each already carrying connotations of excess and crudeness.