maffick

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The Word of the Day for May 17 is:

maffick   \MAFF-ik\   verb 
     : to celebrate with boisterous rejoicing and hilarious 
behavior

Example sentence:
     In 1904, author H.H. Munro penned, "Mother, may I go and 
maffick, / Tear about and hinder traffic" in his sardonic satire 
about the South African War, "Reginald's Peace Poem."

Did you know?
     "Maffick" is an alteration of Mafeking Night, the British 
celebration of the lifting of the siege of a British military 
outpost during the South African War at the town of Mafikeng 
(also spelled Mafeking) on May 17, 1900. The South African War 
was fought between the British and the Afrikaners, who were 
Dutch and Huguenot settlers originally called Boers, over the 
right to govern frontier territories. Though the war did not end 
until 1902, the lifting of the siege of Mafikeng was a 
significant victory for the British because they held out 
against a larger Afrikaner force for 217 days until 
reinforcements could arrive. The rejoicing in British cities on 
news of the rescue produced "maffick," a word that was popular 
for a while, especially in journalistic writing, but is now less 
common.