The Rice University Neologisms Database

Annoyingly bad, unpleasant. Craptacular seems to be a spin-off of 'spectacular' which suggests a display of something grand and impressive. The subject was obviously having a dismal "crappy" day, the antithesis of spectacular, hence 'craptacular'. This word is a cut-and-pasting of the slang term 'crap': just replace 'spec' with 'crap' and it becomes craptacular. It is a blend, of sorts. There is a very ironic, satiric connotation that comes with 'craptacular' as if the speaker/writer was annoyed at the lack of positive output but not seriously ill-affected. It sounds like a very improvisational word, as if the inventor wrote it out on the spot in part of a stream of consciousness, not even thinking that they had formed a new word.