WTN: lizardry
James Harbeck
lizardry
Let us say, just to taste the air, that you want a word for the state, quality, or practice of being a lizard. Lizardlikeness? Hmm, no, not like. Lizardsomeness? Well, er, OK, but that’s just to do with the essence, you know, the state of being, rather than, say, the actual practice and so forth. We need a word that covers eating dragonflies, shedding skin, staring into space, occupying prominent appointments in certain political administrations, that manner of thing.
Say… there’s an inspiration. What would be the equivalent for, say, coward? Or, on the other hand, wizard? Well, there’s cowardice, and cowardliness, and, on the other hand, wizardry. Is there wizardice or wizardliness or cowardry? And, to get to the point, is there lizardice, or lizardliness, or lizardry?
There is, in fact, wizardliness, though not, it seems, wizardice (except perhaps in some role-playing game). And there is cowardry. And, to get to the point, there is lizardly and, by extension, lizardliness; there is no lizardice(except in some social media handles and brand names, I guess), although I rather like that; and yes, Iva, there is lizardry, and I must say, I fancy it.
The truth is that -ry nouns have a broad appeal, and a broad range too. Wiktionary lists 308 of them. And among those, there are 12 that have -ardry. The rest are bastardry, blackguardry, drunkardry, dullardry, haphazardry (I like that), hazardry (gambling, apparently), Lollardry, niggardry (note that this refers to miserliness and is not related to a racial epithet that it somewhat resembles, but I’m inclined to avoid it anyway), and stewardry.
I should say that neither Merriam-Webster nor Oxford has lizardry. But Wiktionary does, and it has citations to support it – the first being from 1940, from Esmé Wingfield-Stratford’s Crusade for Civilization: “just as we can imagine that when Tyrannosaurus met Brontosaurus, no consideration of common lizardry prevented them from tearing each other to pieces.” (For those who wonder about the likelihood of this Jurassic picture: Mr. Wingedlizard-Stratocaster was not, I find, a paleontologist.)
Wiktionary’s definition of lizardry is “The state or quality of being a lizard.” But I can’t help but wonder whether there could be also some lizardmongery possible – you know, lizard husbandry: not wedding lizards but wielding them, or anyway enchanting or otherwise impelling them. Or would that technically be suborning lizardry? I mean, if you can suborn perjury and suborn bribery, you can suborn lizardry, right?
Which is not the same as saying you should, mind. If we’re talking figuratively, about being lizardly as a human, it may not be something we want to foster. As long as the lizards are merely lounging, we have little to fret about, but if they are being skinky right from the gecko, they will need strict monitoring, no heel dragon, lest you have a reptile dysfunction.
On the other hand, if we’re talking about literal lizardry, well, that’s lovely; suborn to your heart’s content – perhaps you can be the Dame aux Chameleons.
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