Prufrock

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The fictional speaker of T. S. Eliot's 1915 poem, an indecisive man paralyzed by self-doubt ; a figure used to describe anyone who is hesitant and overly self-conscious
2. A character created by T. S. Eliot in a famous early modernist poem, a timid man who cannot act ; a shorthand for a person who is anxious, indecisive and painfully self-aware
3. The title figure of Eliot's celebrated 1915 poem, a diffident speaker consumed by hesitation ; a term informally applied to someone who dithers and worries excessively about how they appear

Etymology: "Prufrock" is not a common noun at all. It is the surname of the title character of T. S. Eliot's 1915 poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and it was Eliot who invented it. He drew on a few sources he knew well: the name of a Boston-area furniture shop, a Boston family name, and the sound of the word itself, which he later said he liked for its quiet, slightly comic awkwardness. Eliot was an American living in London when he wrote the poem, and the name fits its speaker, a hesitant, self-conscious man who never quite acts. The word has since escaped the poem. "Prufrockian" is used in literary criticism to describe paralysed, overthinking characters, and "a Prufrock" is sometimes used informally for someone who hesitates too long over a decision. Few coinages from a single poem have travelled so far into everyday criticism.