Meanings
- nonce wordobsoleterareuncountableNonsense, malarkey
Like yur Uncle Shen, or whatsis phedinkus name. Yur fightin a big street lummox who kicks.
1994, Gus Lee, China boy: a novel1 more example
If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much.
1935, Damon Runyon, “Tobias the Terrible”, collected in Money from home, Frederick A. Stokes company
Origin
Coined 1935, by Damon Runyon. Phonology pseudo-Greek – note the ph. The term may be analyzed as *phe- + dinkus (“contrivance (slang)”), where the prefix is an optional consonant /f/, with the stressless vowel added in the same way as other mutually apophonic prefixes (when the consonant changes, the vowel changes accordingly) such as pi- (pizazz), she- (shebang), etc.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
phedinkus. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/phedinkus
“phedinkus.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/phedinkus. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “phedinkus,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/phedinkus.
Source: phedinkus on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.