Make Your Point: MAGPIE

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pronounce MAGPIE:

MAG pie

connect this word to others:

As we check out the rich little word magpie, see if you can recall a closely related word:

Something pied, or pie____, is spotty or patchy with different colors, especially both dark and light colors; or, in a figurative sense, it has different parts or sections that contrast with each other, often in a messy, inconsistent, or unappealing way.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

Take "Mag" (a nickname for "Margaret"), and add "pie" (a word that traces back to the Latin picus, "woodpecker," possibly literally meaning "pointy"), and you get "magpie," the name we've used for hundreds of years for the kind of bird seen here.

(Source)

Magpies are known for being chatty, so you might talk about people chattering like magpies.

They're also known for stealing shiny little objects and keeping collections of them. (Even though research suggests that magpies don't prefer shiny objects, their reputation persists.) So, if you call someone a magpie, you might mean they're a person who steals and/or hoards lots of odd little interesting objects.

And if you describe something as magpie, you could mean it's black and white like the bird, or you could mean it's made up of little random pieces of things taken from various places.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Often a noun, the countable kind: "They sat and chatted like magpies." "He's a magpie with a secret collection of stolen coins."

Also an adjective: "Each garage sale is a magpie collection of this and that;" "It's a magpie poem, with lines lifted from Poe, Eliot, and Pound."

Other forms:

The plural noun is "magpies."

For an adjective, although "magpie" itself works just fine, you can also use "magpie-like."

There's also "magpie-minded," a delightfully alliterative adjective. Check this out, from a 1955 magazine: "Satisfying his curiosity... with unrelated snippets of knowledge which may lead to his becoming magpie-minded."

Finally, there's the hilarious-sounding noun "magpiety." Most writers have used it to mean "talkativeness" or "a showy sense of piety," but there's nothing to stop us from using it to mean "the quality of collecting or stealing various things." Let's do it.

how to use it:

We can't help but compare people to birds—with words like "quail," "bevy," "fledgling," "callow," "chapfallen," "skylark," and "rara avis." So I suspect you'll enjoy using "magpie" as a surprising, colorful descriptor for people's collections of things that have been lifted, pilfered, or straight-up stolen, often indiscriminately. When you do, you're comparing the person who did the collecting (or the stealing) to a cute little bird that can't resist scooping up a shiny shard of anything.

You might talk about magpie collections, assortments, anthologies, channels, traditions, tendencies, methods, etc.

examples:

"As Smiley retraced path after path into his own past... there was nothing in that room, no object among that whole magpie collection of tattered hotel junk, that separated him from the rooms of his recollection."
— John le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, 1974

"Folk preachers freely borrowed from one another... 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice': That’s the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s pithier version of something Theodore Parker said more than a century earlier. The language and structure of King's sermons, tapping into this magpie tradition of oral performance, had many sources."
— Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 22 March 2024

has this page helped you understand "magpie"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "magpie" without saying "hoarder" or "stolen."

try it out:

As many writers and scholars have pointed out, we live in a "remix culture:" a society that encourages writers, artists, musicians, influencers, and others to freely borrow, edit, and combine materials that already exist to create new works. And so we're all glutted with fan fiction, remixes, mash-ups, parodies, homages, and more.

In other words, we're all a bunch of magpies.

In your opinion, is this a good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed bag? Why? Are we affectionate creators, or just lazy? Are there any magpie creations that you particularly like or dislike?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for April is "Interpret the Titles: Tim Curry Edition!"

Are you a fan of Tim Curry? (How could anyone not be?) Did you know his birthday is in April? I didn't until I looked it up, but it’s the perfect excuse to base this month's game on his filmography.

I'll give you the title of some show, movie, or video game that Tim Curry has starred in, along with a summary, and I'll challenge you to interpret the title in three different ways.

To see some examples, and some tips if you get stuck, head here!

Try this one today: "It" was an Emmy-award-winning 1990 TV miniseries starring Tim Curry as the villain Pennywise, based on the work of Stephen King. IMDb sums it up: "In 1960, a group of social outcasts... are tormented by an evil demon who can shape-shift into a clown [among other forms] and feed on children's fears and kill them. After defeating the demonic clown as kids, it resurfaces thirty years later and they must finish it off as adults once again." In the show, Pennywise taunts his victims: "I'm every nightmare you've ever had. I'm your worst dream come true. I'm everything you ever were afraid of."

1. It's titled "It" because... ?

2. It's titled "It" because... ?

3. It's titled "It" because... ?

To see some possible answers, scroll all the way down!

review this word:

1. Opposites of the adjective MAGPIE include

A. SHARP, WITTY, and POINTED.
B. MULTICOLORED, HOMOGENEOUS, and ORIGINAL.
C. ROUGH, HYPERMASCULINE, and OVERCOMPENSATORY.

2. In Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline wrote, "I notice what they wear and what they eat, what music they listen to, the cars they dream about, and the movie stars they follow. And like a magpie I _____."

A. watch them, avidly and silently
B. bring these scraps and twigs back to the store
C. dress [the store mannequins] in the latest styles and colors

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
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From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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