Why this word is great
CODGER — [Noun] An amusingly eccentric or grumpy and usually elderly man. Its etymology is suitably obscure, probably a variant of cadger (meaning "hawker" or "itinerant dealer"), a term of unknown origin, suggesting a life spent on the social periphery, trading in oddments of experience. Unlike "curmudgeon," which sharpens the focus to ill-tempered miserliness, or "patriarch," which elevates to a state of venerated authority, a codger is a study in unvarnished, idiosyncratic character, his churlishness often tempered by affectionate humor. He is the man on the park bench holding forth on the inferior rivets of modern trousers, the keeper of a shed where every bent nail has a destined purpose, and the regular at the diner who has taken metaphysical possession of "his" corner booth—a testament to the personality that accrues, like eccentric barnacles, after decades of refusing to be smoothed by the world’s polite abrasions.