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pronounce MUNCHAUSEN: Say it "MOON chow zen." To hear it, click here. Or, if you like a more relaxed, naturalized pronunciation: "MUN chow zen." connect this word to others: If you were listening to Eminem back in 2002, you'll remember these lines from "Cleanin' Out My Closet:" "Goin' through public housin' systems, victim of Munchausen syndrome. My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't." And if you didn't have a dictionary handy, it was all good, because Eminem defined "Munchausen syndrome" right there: a mental illness in which someone causes or invents their child's medical symptoms. (It's also known as Munchausen's syndrome, with the apostrophe and the S.) It's a form of child abuse. Which is deeply sad. But the name Munchausen itself has a funny, entertaining history, along with another meaning we can use in general speech and writing. We'll check it all out today. In case you were curious, the German last name Munchausen, which comes from the name of a place, literally means "the permanent residence of monks." Knowing what the name means, though, doesn't help you at all to know what the word means! The same thing happens with the words fletcherize and knolling. They both come from people's last names. A fletcher makes arrows, so the first Mr. Fletcher was the town's arrow-maker, maybe. And a knoll is a little hill, so the first Mr. Knoll was the guy who lived on the hill, maybe. But knowing all that doesn't tell us what it means to fletcherize a compliment, or to knoll a drawer. To get there, we have to know about the Mr. Fletcher and the Ms. Knoll who each conceived of something so cool, so weird, or so memorable that their last name got attached to that concept. If you're not sure what those words mean--and you're curious--give them a click. definition: Check out the movie poster, courtesy of Wikipedia: Hundreds of years ago, the writer Rudolf Erich Raspe was inspired by a soldier known for telling wild tales: a soldier named Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen. Even his name is over-the-top, right? So, Raspe published a book about him that he called Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. You can read a later version of the book here if you like. It's full of absolutely fabulous, impossible stories, like this one: ...A storm... had torn up by the roots a great number of trees of enormous bulk and height, in an island where we lay at anchor to take in wood and water; some of these trees weighed many tons, yet they were carried by the wind so amazingly high, that they appeared like the feathers of small birds floating in the air, for they were at least five miles above the earth: however, as soon as the storm subsided they all fell perpendicularly into their respective places, and took root again, except the largest, which happened, when it was blown into the air, to have a man and his wife, a very honest old couple, upon its branches, gathering cucumbers (in this part of the globe that useful vegetable grows upon trees): the weight of this couple, as the tree descended, over-balanced the trunk, and brought it down in a horizontal position: it fell upon the chief man of the island, and killed him on the spot; he had quitted his house in the storm, under an apprehension of its falling upon him, and was returning through his own garden when this fortunate accident happened. The word fortunate, here, requires some explanation. This chief was a man of a very avaricious and oppressive disposition, and though he had no family, the natives of the island were half-starved by his oppressive and infamous impositions. That's fun, you guys. It's an insane little tale. And the book later inspired a movie, of course. So, if you call someone a Munchausen, you mean he (or she) is a person known for making up wildly untrue stories. And if you call something a Munchausen tale or story, you mean it's wildly untrue. We should also consider that, since 1951 or so, we've used the label "Munchausen syndrome" to describe a mental illness in which people tell wild or exaggerated stories to get medical attention. And, since 1977 or so, we've used phrases like "Munchausen syndrome by proxy" to describe the behavior of people who make their own children sick (or make them seem sick) so they can get medical attention. We apply the same phrase to the children (the victims) themselves: "He suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy." (Again, you can use the apostrophe and the S, if you prefer: "Munchausen's syndrome.") grammatical bits: Part of speech: Often a proper noun: "He's a Munchausen." Also a proper adjective: "her Munchausen tales." Also a proper verb: "We caught him Munchausening." Other forms:  Munchausens, Munchausened, Munchausening. how to use it: Most of the time, when we use this word, we're talking about Munchausen syndrome, the mental illness. To use its other meanings ("a teller of tall tales" and "tall-tale-ish"), you can refer to people as Munchausens, implying that they're wildly imaginative in their big, fat lies. "She's a regular Munchausen." Or, you can refer to the big, fat, wildly imaginative lies themselves as Munchausen. "Did you hear his Munchausen excuse?" Or, you can talk about Munchausen twists, plots, daring, exploits, adventures, etc. examples: "If half of what he says is true, we may fairly call him the American Roland or Cid, albeit many critics, more shrewd than genial, have felt more like characterizing him as an American Munchausen."     — Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1882 "The celebrated story of mesmeric exploits, written by the late Edgar A. Poe, in which he brought a highly intellectual gentleman under the mesmeric influence and kept him during the progress of his disease under this influence until he actually died in the mesmeric state, and yet his spirit continued under the operator's control, and continued for six months to speak through the body and preserve it from putrefaction, until, when the spell was dissolved and the spirit released, the body dissolved at once in a state of corruption. This was truly a Munchausen story, but it was believed by some who could not distinguish between its wild absurdity and the true wonders of science."     — Joseph R. Buchanan, Buchanan's Journal of Man, 1850 "The experience is akin to being held in a remote location and nursed by someone with a very specific variant of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. They make you sick, so that they can make you better."     — Marina Hyde, The Guardian, 30 June 2020 has this page helped you understand "Munchausen"? 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 "Munchausen" without saying "a teller of whoppers" or "fabricated." try it out: You know how your family's craziest stories seem to get crazier every time someone retells them? An embellishment here, an extra detail there, and before you know it, it's a Munchausen story. Tell your family's craziest tale. Go ahead and Munchausen it up even more, just for fun. By now you've noticed that a Munchausen tale tends to take one crazy swerve right after another. "This impossible thing happened. Then that one. Then this one." Try including some of those Munchausen swerves in your tale. If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) 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 this month is "Faces & Feelings." If the word you're studying were a facial expression, what would it look like? Maybe one of the seven universal facial expressions, the ones identified by the psychologist Paul Ekman. In each issue, take a handful of words and assign each to an emotion it inspires. I'll list my answers at the bottom of each issue. Yours might be different from mine, which is okay--words, and emotions, are complex and personal! The goal here is just to interact with our words, to tie them more securely into memory by connecting them to emotion and to the face. Try this set today. Match each face on the left to a term on the right:     mellifluous mendacious meretricious minatory mirabile dictu mono no aware muckrake   review this word: 1. A near opposite of MUNCHAUSEN is A. FACTUAL. B. FICTIONAL. C. FANTASTICAL. 2. You can think of a Munchausen as a very specific kind of _____. A. lotus-eater, or lazy dreamer. B. raconteur, or social storyteller. C. cipher, or person of very little value. Answers to review questions: 1. A 2. B Suggested answers to game questions: mellifluous: joy mirabile dictu: surprise mendacious: contempt mono no aware: sadness  muckrake: anger meretricious: disgust minatory: fear 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:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. 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.