Struldbrug

English

Etymology

From "Struldbrug", the name given to a fictional race of senile immortals inhabiting the island of Luggnagg who are legally declared dead at the age of 80 and continue to age, coined by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels.

Noun

Struldbrug (plural Struldbrugs)

1. (literature) Someone or something that is immortal or extremely ancient, but which may have persisted past the point where it should be dead.
   • 1887 April 9, Sabine Baring-Gould, “Richard Cable, the Lightshipman”, in Chambers's Journal, volume 4, number 171, page 229:

     It might be thought a precedent, and he would not like it; he who is to inherit the place when that old Struldbrug, Gotham, is withered and cast away, when that old log is so barnacle-bored as to be worthless.

   • 1892, Donizetti Muller, Links from Broken Chains, page 64:

     Antique memorial, exiled to Egypt's shame, Forlorn Struldbrug! why should we covet thee?

   • 1908, Samuel Butler, Essays on Life, Art, and Science, page 32:

     To me he is, like the greater number of classics in all ages and countries, a literary Struldbrug, rather than a true ambrosia-fed immortal.

Alternative forms

• Struldbrugg

Derived terms

• struldbruggian