DEFINITION
noun
: one that is extraordinarily impressive; also : an outstanding example.
EXAMPLES
1. The device, which is due out this spring, is being touted as the lollapalooza of smart phones.
2. “This drink, at $38 a glass in South Beach, is a real lollapalooza.” — From an article by Malcolm Berko in NewsOK (Oklahoma), October 20, 2013.
DID YOU KNOW?
Some readers may recognize “lollapalooza” as the name of an American music festival, now held annually in Chicago. Actually, the word “lollapalooza” has been around since at least the 1890s, though etymologists aren’t sure where it comes from. Occasionally, it has been used as a gambling term for a made-up hand used to trick an inexperienced player—but primarily the term is used in a way very similar to “humdinger” and “doozy.” It is spelled in a number of ways. “Lallapalooza,” “lalapalooza,” and “lollapaloosa” are among the variants, and in the past it was sometimes “lalapaloozer.” Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg may have contributed to the popularity of this term with “Lala Palooza,” one of his cartoon characters from the 1930s.
