Word ‘dotard’ gets revival

In the latest war of words between the United States and North Korea, Kim Jong Un did not pull any punches.

But he may have pulled out an old dictionary.

“I will surely and definitely tame the deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” he declared in an unusually direct and angry statement published Thursday by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The North Korean leader’s warning about “fire,” which echoed President Donald Trump’s August statement threatening “fire and fury,” was par for the course in their increasingly tense relationship.

But Kim’s use of “dotard” was what raised eyebrows, prompting people around the world to Google the old-time insult.

Merriam-Webster defines the noun as “a person in his or her dotage,” which is “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.”

The word trended on Twitter, and searches for the term were “high as a kite” following the release of Kim’s statement, Merriam-Webster noted.

The word meant “imbecile” when it was first used in the 14th century and comes from the Middle English world “doten,” meaning “to dote,” according to Merriam-Webster.

The word was used by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, and it appeared numerous times in William Shakespeare’s work, including The Merchant of Venice and King Lear.

In the book, Shakespeare’s Insults: A Pragmatic Dictionary, dotard is “linked to French radoter, which means to repeat things several times because one forgets.”

The world itself has become largely forgotten.

It was once a popular pejorative, in literature and beyond. It was used to insult Martin Van Buren, who preceded Trump in the White House by about 175 years, and by Union Army Gen. George McClellan to describe his Civil War predecessor, Gen. Winfield Scott, whom he did not like.

Now, thanks to Kim, “dotard” is back.

Kim used the insult not once but twice in his statement, which was a response Trump’s address Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly, in which the U.S. president called Kim “Rocket Man” and threatened to “totally destroy North Korea.”

Here is the first time Kim uses the term: “Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.”

And the second: “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.”

While the English version of Kim’s statement calls Trump a “dotard,” the Korean version actually calls him a “lunatic old man,” according to Anna Fifield, The Washington Post’s Tokyo bureau chief who covers North Korea.

An Associated Press reporter who was once based in Pyongyang noted on Twitter that she’d been inside the Korean Central News Agency newsroom, where “they’re using very old KoreanEnglish dictionaries,” which might explain how the arcane word wound up back in the news.

According to the AP, “dotard is a translation of a Korean word, ‘neukdari,’ which is a derogatory reference to an old person.”