Word a Day
gadfly
What does gadfly mean?
gadfly (noun): a person who upsets the status quo by posing novel or upsetting questions, or attempts to stimulate innovation by being an irritant.
Definition: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
How do you pronounce gadfly?
/ˈɡædˌflaɪ/ (IPA, American English). The app reads every word aloud.
Test yourself: do you know “gadfly”?
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What does “gadfly” mean?
a person who upsets the status quo by posing novel or upsetting questions, or attempts to stimulate innovation by being an irritant
Right! That's what “gadfly” means.
a statement of a belief or a summary statement of a whole belief system; also (metonymically) the belief or belief system itself
Not quite: that's what credo means.
a familiar name for a person or thing; a nickname (sometimes assumed by the person, but often given by others) that is descriptive
Not quite: that's what sobriquet means.
that which is introduced or inserted; in contexts of content analysis of centuries-old texts, especially something foreign or spurious
Not quite: that's what interpolation means.
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