wordmaster
nounEtymology From word + master.
1
One who is highly skilled as a speaker and/or writer.
- My feelings are particularly strong about that piece of thinking the anti-union wordmasters have labeled “right to work” legislation.1957 May, George M[ichael] Leader, “Unions Must Be Secure”, in George Meany, editor, American Federationist, volume 64, number 5, Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, page 9, column 2:
- Old Guitaron is a characteristically attractive Laurindo Almeida melody, for which lyrics were provided by the high potentate of the wordmasters, Johnny Mercer.1963, Leonard Feather, Softly, The Brazilian Sound, Warner Bros. Records Inc.:
4 more examples
- Perfect memories of Christmas 1948, and complex cross-country rendezvous of that season—& lovely prose echoes & homages to wordmasters Whitman & Melville, Yea Thoreau with “The Moon on the Pine Cone Glaze.”1974, The Visions of the Great Rememberer, Mulch Press, →ISBN, page 30:
- Holding his ardor in check, he asked for her hand; she, still palindromically, amended: “Now, Ned, I am a maiden won.” Perhaps there is an admonition to office workers in the palindrome: “Sex at noon taxes.” There are many such sentences; wordmasters try to concoct the cleverest or the longest.1977, Joseph Twadell Shipley, In Praise of English: The Growth & Use of Language, Times Books, →ISBN, page 101:
- If language-arts needs are jeopardizing the job success of your alumni, then the spelling, punctuation, and English usage “drills and exercises” books get top billing. Office workers have to be wordmasters—it’s as simple as that.1978, Business Education World, page 11:
- They appear to be written by the same people who produce the interminable repartee between radio disc jockeys and helicopter traffic observers with, I suspect, an energetic assist from those wordmasters who are responsible for the Shane Diamond Co. commercials.1983, Robert L. Steed, Lucid Intervals, Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, →ISBN, page 82:
2
One who knows a lot of words or a lot about words.
- As the students read the assembled articles on islands, have them note unfamiliar words and transcribe the sentences in which they appear. These are to be submitted to a pre-selected team of “wordmasters,” who will look up the words in the dictionary, select the appropriate meaning for each, then compose four sentences: two that provide different contexts for the word, one that uses a synonym, and one that uses an antonym.1981, Starting Points in Reading: Level C/First Book, Teacher’s Guide, Ginn and Company, →ISBN, pages 68–69:
- Entitled Perplexx, this Scrabble look and play alike also pits wordmasters against a computer foe named Lexx.1986 October, Ted Salamone, “A Play on Words”, in MacUser, page 102:
3 more examples
- From inside the stronghold of the Wordsmiths there came sounds of confusion. There was some banging and crashing and shouting, then three wordmasters sprinted through the open gate, running for their lives.1987, Hugh Cook, The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (Chronicles of an Age of Darkness; 2), Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, →ISBN, page 28:
- “[…] What is a standing minister? The wordmasters on our committee checked their lexicons and have attempted to define the term as follows.”1990, Richard James Marshall, Home Teaching with Purpose and Power, Salt Lake City, Ut.: Deseret Book Company, →ISBN, page 117:
- A vivid, multi-colored entertaining look at the world of words can be found on this Webby Award–winning site from the wordmasters at Merriam-Webster.2000, Best of the Best Sites.com: Companion Guide to the Best of the Web, Abbiss, →ISBN, page 57: