Talk:doddard

Dotard, doddard

@Ioaxxere: You added the “archaic” label to dotard. Apparently dotard is archaic and this form is current? J3133 (talk) 16:35, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@J3133 I'm not convinced that dotard and doddard are equivalent, since doddard could easily be dodder (“to shake or tremble as one moves, especially as of old age”) +‎ -ard. Thus, a doddard would just be a "frail old man" without any implication of senility, which appears to be borne out by some of the quotations (e.g. "sage old doddards"). Also, Ngrams data (using the plural to avoid overlap with etymology 2) shows that doddard is much newer and much rarer than dotard. Ioaxxere (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ioaxxere: The Scottish National Dictionary has an entry (1952), defined as “A foolish old man, a dotard” with a quotation from 1823, etymology given as either a variant of, or influenced by, dotard. J3133 (talk) 19:18, 25 December 2023 (UTC)