panjandrum /pan-JAN-drəm/. noun. A powerful, usually pompous and overbearing, official. Also, rarely, a rocket-propelled cart used during World War II. The word was supposedly created by playwright Samuel Foote as part of a nonsense line to put to the test actor Charles Macklin’s claim to remember anything upon hearing it once (see first example below).
“And there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top.” (Samuel Foote)
“But there is learning—science. Any imbecile that has got an income believes in that. He does not know why, but he believes it matters somehow. It is the sacrosanct fetish. All the damned professors are radicals at heart. Let them know that their great panjandrum has got to go too, to make room for the Future of the Proletariat.” (Joseph Conrad)
…merely being was his valiance,
Panjandrum and central heart and mind of minds—
(Wallace Stevens)
“But the grand panjandrum and greatest inventor of psychological terms was neither Sigmund Freud nor Carl Jung. It was a man who was just as important but is far less known today: Richard von Krafft-Ebing.” (Mark Forsyth)
“…we hadn’t pulled in a big fee in almost three months, and I was beginning to worry, even if the big panjandrum wasn’t.” (Rex Stout)
“Paul Slazinger, the former Writer in Residence, I remember, objected to real institutions of higher learning giving honorary degrees with the word ‘Doctor’ in them anywhere. He wanted them to use ‘Panjandrum’ instead.” (Kurt Vonnegut)
“The idea was that the Panjandrum, a kind of explosion-driven Ferris wheel, would be set rotating and then released into shallow water to roll up onto enemy beaches.” (Neil Downie)