Origin: 1840–50; on the pattern of earlier King Charming, ultimately translation (with word order unchanged) of French Roi Charmant, the hero of a fairy tale by the Comtesse Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy (circa 1650–1705)
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.
a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
1850, from Fr. Roi Charmant, name of the hero of Comtesse d'Aulnoy's "L'Oiseau Bleu" (1697), adopted into native fairy tales including "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella."
