humorous. [f. L. floccī, naucī, nihilī, pilī words signifying ‘at a small price’ or ‘at nothing’ enumerated in a well-known rule of the Eton Latin Grammar + -FICATION.] The action or habit of estimating as worthless.
1741. Shenstone, Let., xxii. Wks. 1777, III. 49. I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money.
1816. Southey in Quarterly Review, XIV. Jan., 334. Alfieri had the advantage of writing in a language known as universally among lettered men as the French, and respected among those by whom, to borrow Shenstone’s word, the floccinaucipilification of French poetry was properly estimated.
1829. Scott, Jrnl., 18 March. Cigars in loads, whisky in lashings; but they must be taken with an air of contempt, a floccipaucinihilipilification [sic, here and in two other places] of all that can gratify the outward man.
Also Floccinaucical a., inconsiderable, trifling. Floccinaucity, a matter of small consequence.
1826. Southey, Vind. Eccl. Angl., 38. The Poet used them significantly, and never intended them to bear a floccinaucical signification. Ibid. (1829), in Quarterly Review, XXXIX. Jan., 108. The flocci-naucities to which so much importance is attached in that elaborate superstition.
