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Tuesday July 18, 2000

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factotum \fak-TOH-tuhm\ , noun:
A person employed to do all kinds of work or business.

Mr. Hersey thus became Mr. Lewis's summertime factotum, copying pages of a play that Lewis was writing about Communism.
-- Richard Severo, "John Hersey, Author of 'Hiroshima,' Is Dead at 78", New York Times, March 25, 1993

She is a blind, paraplegic forensic hypnotist, and he is her brother and general factotum.
-- Newgate Callendar, "Spies & Thrillers", New York Times, July 31, 1994

Factotum is from Medieval Latin, from Latin fac totum, "do everything," from facere, "to do" + totus, "all."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for factotum

 

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