Factotum
[fak-TOH-dəm]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Latin, mid-16th century
1.
An employee who does all kinds of work.
Examples of Factotum in a sentence
"I earned a reputation as a jack of all trades, but I prefer the more professional-sounding term 'factotum.'"
"You'd better give him a raise; he's a real factotum."
About Factotum
Benjamin Franklin is known as a writer, philosopher, scientist, inventor, statesman, and more. In his autobiography, he calls himself a factotum, and gives the definition in a footnote: "one who makes himself generally useful; a 'do-all.'"
Did you Know?
Slang nicknames aren't just a modern invention. In the 16th century, a "Johannes Factotum" was what we would now call a "Jack-of-all-trades." In medieval Latin, "fac" meant "to do" and "totum" meant "the whole thing."j
