Is this a real word? Can’t find it in dictionaries, but commonly used as found by web search.
affectatious
March 7th, 2005 by Eric Guyer
7 Responses to “affectatious”
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Teaching English to Preschoolers with iPhones
We (i.e. the creators of Pain in The English) developed a series of iPhone apps to teach preschool kids how to recognize letters and words. (My wife developed the characters and I did the coding.) Our own 4-year old daughter has been enjoying them. They are now available on Apple's App Store. You can search for "bitskis" on your iPhone, or visit the official website at bitskis.com.
If you have kids and own an iPhone, please check it out. It's $2.
It’s in the Oxford English Dictionary as an adjective: "Of the nature of affectation. (In the quotation read instead of affectations in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives I. i. 152.)" Also noted as obsolete and rare. In addition, one quotation is listed: "1687 M. CLIFFORD Notes on Dryden iii. 12 For to me, as Parson Hugh says in Shakespear, they seemed Lunacies, it is mad as a mad Dog, it is affectatious."
Hope that helps.
You can also use "affected" to mean the same thing, ie "an affected accent".
I have never _heard_ <affectatious> in modern use where it was not a corruption of <efficacious>. I notice people in speaking are quite confused between using <affect> and <effect> and <affectatious> can be a passive-aggresive reflection of the confusion. I had no idea the word could actually mean <affectation> and <affected>, but I believe this is a long obsolete usage and peoples’ intended meaning is probably <efficacious> . . . If I was to use the word and expect to be understodd, I would have to define the word by a context, i.e.. "Spelling on line, you may have noticed, is affectatious- utterly atrocious."
Hi,
<painintheenglish.com> was top of a google search for ‘affectatious’.
I’ve decided on ‘affectatious’ as the best word to use in the following sentence, but I wanted to check up on the word because my Websters doesn’t have it. I like it. Here’s the sentence:
"In my novel, should I use the word ‘dahling’ for ‘darling’ when spoken by an affectatious woman?"
i.e. A woman with affectations, a lá Betty Davis in some of her movies.
I like this site and will put it in my list of dictionaries.
In my opinion, this word sounds more affected/affectatious than it is possible to swallow nowadays. Some long dormant words, like sleeping dogs, should be left to lie and fade away.
I must hie me hence, my postillion has been struck by lightning…
If affectatious truly means ""of the nature of affectation" then I think that "In my novel, should I use the word 'dahling' for 'darling' when spoken by an affectatious woman?" would be incorrect. Only the action can be affectatious, not the person carrying out the action. An affected person does something affectatious. Affectious is also a word, but seems to mean something completely different.
My son has decided to call his newly born son Theodore. I think this is affectatious – middle class elitist twaddle.