Friday, August 2, 2019

Clarion

WORD OF THE DAY

clarion / adjective / KLAIR-ee-un
Definition
1: brilliantly clear
2: loud and clear

Examples
"The guitars take off like fighter planes and [Stef Chura] delivers a clarion, country-steeped vocal, somewhere between Kitty Wells and Kurt Cobain."
— Megan Reynolds, Jezebel, 3 June 2019

"The commonest winter birds cheered me on: the chickadees and titmice, woodpeckers and jays, crows, cardinals, and sparrows.  And of course my clarion wrens."
— Jack Wennerstrom, The Bird Watcher's Digest, September/October 1992

Did You Know?
In the Middle Ages, clarion was a noun, the name for a trumpet that could play a melody in clear, shrill tones. 
The noun has since been used for the sound of a trumpet or a similar sound. 
By the early 1800s, English speakers also started using the word as an adjective for things that ring as clear as the call of a well-played trumpet. 
Not surprisingly, clarion ultimately derives (via the Medieval Latin clario-) from clarus, which is the Latin word for "clear." 
In addition, clarus gave English speakers clarify, clarity, declare ("to make clearly known"), and clear itself.

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