"oojah-cum-spiff" meaning in English

See oojah-cum-spiff in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923; see quotations below. From the noun oojah-cum-pivvy (“an unknown thing; a whatsit”) and adjective spiffy (“dapper, fine”). Etymology templates: {{coinage|en|P. G. Wodehouse|in=1923|nat=British|occ=novelist}} Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923 Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} oojah-cum-spiff (not comparable)
  1. (uncommon) In good condition, fine, excellent. Tags: not-comparable, uncommon
    Sense id: en-oojah-cum-spiff-en-adj-dBQ9-vAA Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for oojah-cum-spiff meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "P. G. Wodehouse",
        "in": "1923",
        "nat": "British",
        "occ": "novelist"
      },
      "expansion": "Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923",
      "name": "coinage"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923; see quotations below. From the noun oojah-cum-pivvy (“an unknown thing; a whatsit”) and adjective spiffy (“dapper, fine”).",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "oojah-cum-spiff (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1923, P.G. Wodehouse, Leave it to Psmith, page 95",
          "text": "“[…]the first thing tomorrow, my dear fellow, I must take you round and show you my gardens.”\n“I shall look forward to it keenly,” said Psmith. “They are, I can readily imagine, distinctly oojah-cum-spiff.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1926, P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the impending doom”, in The Strand, volume 72, page 605",
          "text": "“All you have to do,” I said, “is to carry on here for a few weeks more, and everything will be oojah-cum-spiff.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 [1987 June 6], R. W. F. Poole, “’Nuff said”, in The Buried Treasures, newspaper column of Daily Telegraph Weekend, archived from the original on 2023-07-10",
          "text": "He thought for a long time and said, “You don’t spell it, you just say it.” The word in question was “croos”: it is a word for “lively”, “fit”, “oojah-cum-spiff” – I have no idea whether I have spelt it correctly; it is possibly the first time it has ever been committed to paper.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Roger DeBeers, Sr., Murder is Forever, page 21",
          "text": "“It’s done,” Morgan said.\n“Excellent. Things are looking oojah-cum-spiff.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In good condition, fine, excellent."
      ],
      "id": "en-oojah-cum-spiff-en-adj-dBQ9-vAA",
      "links": [
        [
          "good",
          "good"
        ],
        [
          "fine",
          "fine"
        ],
        [
          "excellent",
          "excellent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(uncommon) In good condition, fine, excellent."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable",
        "uncommon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "oojah-cum-spiff"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "P. G. Wodehouse",
        "in": "1923",
        "nat": "British",
        "occ": "novelist"
      },
      "expansion": "Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923",
      "name": "coinage"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923; see quotations below. From the noun oojah-cum-pivvy (“an unknown thing; a whatsit”) and adjective spiffy (“dapper, fine”).",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "oojah-cum-spiff (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English coinages",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms coined by P. G. Wodehouse",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with uncommon senses",
        "English uncomparable adjectives"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1923, P.G. Wodehouse, Leave it to Psmith, page 95",
          "text": "“[…]the first thing tomorrow, my dear fellow, I must take you round and show you my gardens.”\n“I shall look forward to it keenly,” said Psmith. “They are, I can readily imagine, distinctly oojah-cum-spiff.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1926, P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the impending doom”, in The Strand, volume 72, page 605",
          "text": "“All you have to do,” I said, “is to carry on here for a few weeks more, and everything will be oojah-cum-spiff.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 [1987 June 6], R. W. F. Poole, “’Nuff said”, in The Buried Treasures, newspaper column of Daily Telegraph Weekend, archived from the original on 2023-07-10",
          "text": "He thought for a long time and said, “You don’t spell it, you just say it.” The word in question was “croos”: it is a word for “lively”, “fit”, “oojah-cum-spiff” – I have no idea whether I have spelt it correctly; it is possibly the first time it has ever been committed to paper.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Roger DeBeers, Sr., Murder is Forever, page 21",
          "text": "“It’s done,” Morgan said.\n“Excellent. Things are looking oojah-cum-spiff.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "In good condition, fine, excellent."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "good",
          "good"
        ],
        [
          "fine",
          "fine"
        ],
        [
          "excellent",
          "excellent"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(uncommon) In good condition, fine, excellent."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable",
        "uncommon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "oojah-cum-spiff"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-04 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (e9e0a99 and db5a844). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.