unclubbable

Unclubbable Comes From a Well-Known Wordsmith

The word unclubbable dates to the 1760s, a time when lexicographer Samuel Johnson was still riding a wave of fame in the wake of the publication of his 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language. Johnson himself likely coined unclubbable. Earliest evidence of the word in use is from a 1764 (or thereabouts) entry in author Fanny Burney's diary, in which she quotes Johnson as using the word to describe a friend. Johnson likely also coined the unflattering descriptor's antonym, though years later: his biographer, James Boswell, reported that Johnson applied the word to Boswell himself. It was, however, Johnson to whom the term clubbable stuck. For Johnson, a person's clubbability was likely determined by how well the person might do in a very particular club: "The Club"—later known as "The Literary Club"—established by Johnson and the artist Joshua Reynolds in 1764.