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• stodgy •

Pronunciation: stah-jee • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. (Food) Fattening, unhealthy, rich. 2. Heavy-set, stocky, pudgy. 3. Square, old fashioned, uptight, conventional, unimaginative, resistant to anything new or fresh—in short, boring.

Notes: The D in today's word should be redundant, since DJ and J are generally pronounced the same. However, without the D, today's word becomes stogy, a kind of cigar. The comparative and superlative forms of this adjective are stodgier and stodgiest; the noun is stodginess. Don't forget to replace the Y with I in all these forms.

In Play: Today we use this word to refer to those who are very conventional if not old-fashioned: "Francine decided to keep her new boyfriend with the spiked hair, nose rings, and tattoos a secret rather than risk an encounter with her stodgy parents." Let's not leave the other meanings of this word behind, though: "Hermione has become rather zaftig from the stodgy meals her mother cooked, don't you think?" (Meow.)

Word History: Today's Good Word is the adjective to the verb stodge "to stuff or cram full". Where this verb came from, no one knows. It may be related to stoach "to make impressions (footprints) in the mud", but no one is sure of this either. English speakers once stodged themselves at table as they stuff themselves today. The origin of this verb, however, is a complete mystery.

Makes me think of Harry Potter's Aunt and Uncle.

Right, Luke. Vernon and Petunia Dursley, a stodgy couple if there ever was one. Family portrait here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_su ... characters

Stodge is still with us, a verb as Dr. G says, but also a noun:

stodge [stɒdʒ] Informal
n
1. (Cookery) heavy filling starchy food
2. (Cookery) Dialect chiefly southern English baked or steamed pudding
3. a dull person or subject
vb
(Cookery) to stuff (oneself or another) with food
[perhaps a blend of stuff + podge]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Here's podge, the other half of portmanteau stodge:

podge [pɒdʒ], pudge [pʌdʒ]
n
Informal a short chubby person
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

An unlucky person could be both a stodge and a podge, "stodgy podgy" you might say. (Apocrypha)

Good, though perhaps unconscious choice of words after regale.

Completely unrelated, except in sharing a sound, we also have hodgepodge.

Exactly,
and your signature and Harry Potter discussion reminds
me of the terrific scene with Ron atop the chessman
in one of the movies, each piece huge in its own right,
even if it does not move with its own will.