• hurdy-gurdy •
Printable Version Pronunciation: hêr-di-gêr-di • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. An ancient stringed instrument played by cranking a wheel that rotates beneath a row of strings, then depressing keys to bring the strings in contact with the wheel. 2. A barrel organ, which is also played by turning a crank.
Notes: The nitty gritty of the hurdy-gurdy is that it is a rhyme compound with a plural, hurdy-gurdies, and not much else in terms of derivative relations. An adjective hurdy-gurdyish has been used a few times to refer to music and to someone who looks like the stereotypical hurdy-gurdy player.
In Play: 
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the crank on the hurdy-gurdy lowers it in the esteem of music lovers: "Yes, I consider hip-hop to be music—not as good as hurdy-gurdy music—but music." Its reputation was not enhanced by the barrel organ, often referred to as a hurdy-gurdy in the first half of the 20th century. The "organ grinders" who operated them usually had a monkey that would collect coins from passers-by with nothing better to do that to listen to the repetitious music and watch a monkey take their money.
Word History: Today's Good Word is another rhyming compound, like willy-nilly, shilly-shally, and Humpty-Dumpty. It probably was influenced by an older word, no longer used, hirdy-girdy "uproar, disorder", a variant of hiddy-giddy "whirling, confusion", itself a corruption of an earlier heady + giddy. (Let us not dilly-dally in conveying our gratitude to the person known only as Grogie in the Agora, for suggesting today's word.)
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