panjandrum: [18] Panjandrum is an invented word, coined in 1755 by the English actor and playwright Samuel Foote (1720–77) to test the memory of the actor Charles Macklin, who claimed to be able to memorize and repeat anything said to him (it was one of several inventions in the same vein that Foote put to him: ‘And there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top’). It does not seem to have been taken up as a general comical term for a ‘pompous highranking person’ until the 19th century.
panjandrum (n.)
mock name for a pompous personage, 1755, invented by Samuel Foote (1720-1777) in a long passage full of nonsense written to test the memory of actor Charles Macklin (1697-1797), who said he could repeat anything after hearing it once.