[f. L. quid what + nunc now.] One who is constantly asking: ‘What now?’ ‘What’s the news?’; hence, an inquisitive person; a gossip; a newsmonger.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 10, ¶ 2. The Insignificancy of my Manners … makes the Laughers called me a Quid Nunc.
1782. Cowper, Wks. (1837), XV. 126. Acknowledge, now … that I should make no small figure among the quidnuncs of Olney.
1832. W. Irving, Alhambra, II. 95. He was a sort of scandalous chronicle for the quid-nuncs of Granada.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), I. x. 352. Some wretched intrigue which had puzzled two generations of quidnuncs.
attrib. 1880. A. Forbes, in 19th Cent., VII. 191. Not for the mere gratification of quidnunc curiosity.
Hence Quid-nunc-ism, Quidnunckery, curiosity, love of news or gossip. nonce-wds.
1804. in Spirit Pub. Jrnls., VIII. 93. His attachment to quidnunckery is as constant as ever.
1847. J. Cairns, Lett., in Life, xi. (1895), 281. The ne plus ultra of disappointed religious quid-nunc-ism.
