Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb neologism To demote or devalue something.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Originally coined in 2006 by the American Dialect Society, defeating climate canary. Was believed by many to be a self-promotion attempt.

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Examples

  • To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

    Are We Not Lactards? No, We Are Human Beings Steve Carper 2007

  • To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Click Here: Luscious Words Edition 2007

  • To pluto is to demote or devalue someone or something, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto no longer met its definition of a planet.

    Archive 2007-01-01 Steve Carper 2007

  • I actaully have a really good reason for not calling pluto a planet…aside from pissing john off which is reward onto itself

    Reeking With Plutessence « Whatever 2006

  • The decision to recognize this new meaning for the word "pluto" the official definition is "to demote or devalue someone or something" was made by the American Dialect Society, a noble institution that has been nitpicking word usage for 117 years.

    Archive 2007-01-01 Doppelganger 2007

  • Do you care about it as much as, say, you care that the word "pluto" has been chosen as the 2006 word of the year?

    Archive 2007-01-01 Doppelganger 2007

  • To "pluto" is "to demote or devalue someone or something," much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its definition of a planet.

    Posthuman Blues Mac 2007

  • I've been following the whole "pluto" debate since I was little and a teacher happened to mention it.

    Welcome To The Family! 2006

  • In Similar Images, for example, a person searching for "pluto" would get images of the planet, the Disney cartoon character, and the Roman god of the underworld.

    TechWeb 2009

  • Planet X pluto politics review robert-j-sawyer sci-fi science science-fiction scifi search sf books space stories technology television video video-games videos writing yahoo

    Planet-x.com.au » TV1 log of reading 4: Acting is doing « New Caprica 2010

Comments

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  • "overflowing" ploutus

    February 18, 2007

  • Weird. Someone deleted a list that contained this word - I can remember its title, "synonyms for failure". Maybe it's because it was getting too political.

    June 21, 2008

  • Not this controversy again... I'll bear the official guidance in mind for the astronomy papers I'm not writing.

    I've just had an idea for a list of words with technical definitions which don't wholly reflect vernacular usage, e.g. twilight, substance, zombie and indeed planet.

    June 21, 2008

  • This seems as good a place as any to express my deep visceral loathing for Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It predates his nefarious role in the demotion of Pluto, and has more to do with his ubiquitous, smug, self-satisfied mincing across my TV screen, spoiling any possible enjoyment of NOVA. Or showing up to exchange smirks with Stephen Colbert.

    Though frankly, the way that the NOVA producers seem to feel it necessary to tart up even the tiniest smidgen of actual, yanno, information in fluffy non-threatening packages (Ooh! cake. childish songs. mylar balloons! Professor Smugglesnape!), I feel like I'm being condescended to by a bunch of functional retards.

    grump ... snarl ... whine ... grump

    November 20, 2008

  • Usage as a verb ('to be plutoed') here.

    February 22, 2009

  • Let not appearance the truth perturb:
    The ugly duckling turned swan superb.
    By semantical judo
    Once humble pluto,
    From supine noun springs forth a verb.

    February 18, 2014