About

Welcome to Perzactly!

Definition

A colloquialism joining the words ‘precisely’ and ‘exactly’

Pronunciation

/pəːˈzak(t)li/

Origin

According to the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of the word was during the mid-19th century, in The Spirit of the Times: a chronicle of the turf, agriculture, field sports, literature and the stage.

Part of speech:

Adverb

Alternative Forms

perzackly
perxactly
prezackly
prezactly
prexactly

Quote

From The Good Lord Bird (Showtime, 2020)

The Good Lord Bird is a mini-series based on the 2013 novel by James McBride. It tells the story of Henry Shackleford, a young slave living in the Kansas territory in 1856, who has a fateful encounter with abolitionist John Brown. Brown nicknames him “Onion” and welcomes him into his abolitionist mission and eventual raid on Harper’s Ferry.

That’s a hell of a way
to treat your third cousin.

Fourth.

Third cousin.

My Aunt Stella and your Uncle Beale shared a second cousin, Melly. Jamie’s daughter.

Uncle Beale’s nephew – from his mom’s sister Stella?

Stella was my cousin Melly’s second cousin, – making Stella your third.

No, no.

That put my Uncle Jim back behind my uncles Lucas and Fergus, but before my uncles
Lucas and Kurt.

Perzactly!

Coda

Like when you buy a bag of pistachios in the shell and there’s an unshelled one just sitting there – Perzactly!

The nexus of exactly and precisely.