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You are here: Home / Language / Where does the word “Chowderheaded” come from and What does Chowderheaded mean?

Where does the word “Chowderheaded” come from and What does Chowderheaded mean?

March 12, 2020 by Karen Hill

“Chowderheaded” is a curious bit of slang traceable back more than four hundred years, though, like much current slang, the earliest term cannot be explained.

Chowder here does not denote a stew; it’s just a mispronunciation of cholter, for cholter-headed was the form that began to appear in the early nineteenth century.

But that, which made no sense either, was a corruption of jolter-headed, used through the previous century, and, in turn, it was derived from the earliest form, jolthead.

Heaven knows the source of that, but it, too, meant a blockhead, a stupid or clumsy person.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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