Quotidian

Word of the Day

quotidian \ kwoh-TID-ee-un \ adjective or noun

as an adjective:
1: occurring every day  (a quotidian report)

(a quotidian report)

2a: belonging to each day
2b: everyday
(quotidian needs)

3: commonplace, ordinary

(paintings of no more than quotidian artistry)

 

4. (of a fever, ague, etc.) characterized by paroxysms that recur daily.

as a noun :

5. something recurring daily.

 

6. a quotidian fever or ague.

EXAMPLES

After weeks on the road, it felt good to be back to our quotidian routines.

"Some of Bach's music is a prime example of how even works of genius can be destroyed in the wrong hands. The Cello Suites were deemed quotidian exercises until Pablo Casals revealed their beauty."
— Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times, January 2, 2015

DID YOU KNOW?In Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the character Rosalind observes that Orlando, who has been running about in the woods carving her name on trees and hanging love poems on branches, "seems to have the quotidian of love upon him." Shakespeare's use doesn't make it clear that quotidian derives from a Latin word that means "every day." But as odd as it may seem, Shakespeare's use of quotidian is just a short semantic step away from the "daily" adjective sense. Some fevers occur intermittently—sometimes daily. The phrase quotidian fever and the noun quotidian have long been used for such recurring maladies. Poor Orlando is simply afflicted with such a "fever" of love.

Latin

 

(1300-50) from the Latin quotīdiānus, cottīdiānus daily, equivalent to cottīdi(ē) every day (adv.) (*quot(t)ī a locative form akin to quot however many occur, every + diē, ablative of diēs day; cf. meridian) + -ānus -an; replacing Middle English cotidien
from Old French cotidian (Modern French quotidien), from Latin quotidianus "daily," from Latin quotus "how many? which in order or number?" (see quote (v.)) + dies "day"). Meaning "ordinary, commonplace, trivial" is from mid-15c.

Ex parte

Word of the Day

ex parte \ eks-PAR-tee \ adverb or adjective

 

1: on or from one side or party only — used of legal proceedings

 

2: from a one-sided or partisan point of view

 

EXAMPLES

"The record of the case was of vast length and full of technicalities, it was discussed ex parte by vehement propagandists on both sides…."
— Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's, 1931

"In the U.S., lawyers are forbidden to meet with a judge 'ex parte,' or outside the presence of opposing counsel."

— Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, January 9, 2012

 

DID YOU KNOW?

"Latin has not been over-used in a procedural context ('ex parte' being a rare exception)," wrote a correspondent to The London Times in May 1999. Indeed, ex parte (which literally meant "on behalf [of]" in Medieval Latin) pops up quite often in legal settings. Even when ex parte steps outside of the courtroom—to be used of an ex parte meeting, interview, chat, conversation, investigation, discussion, or contact, for example—the "one-sided" sense often has some sort of legal or legislative slant referring to involvement of just one party or side in a case or dispute.

Compunction

Word of the Day

compunction \ kum-PUNK-shun \ noun

 

1: anxiety arising from awareness of guilt

 

2: distress of mind over an anticipated action or result

 

3a: a twinge of misgiving
3b: scruple

 

EXAMPLES

A diligent editor, Michelle feels no compunction about deleting words and phrases from even the most beautifully written paragraph for the sake of space or clarity.

"The council of generals who took power from Mr. Mubarak had feared a public backlash too much to ever allow the former president's release, but Mr. Sisi's government felt no such compunction, Mr. Bahgat said."

— David D. Kirkpatrick and Merna Thomas, The New York Times, November 30, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

An old proverb says "a guilty conscience needs no accuser," and it's true that the sting of a guilty conscience—or a conscience that is provoked by the contemplation of doing something wrong—can prick very hard indeed.

 

The sudden guilty "prickings" of compunction are reflected in the word's etymological history. Compunction comes (via the Anglo-French compunction and the Middle English compunccioun) from the Latin compungere, which means "to prick hard" or "to sting." Compungere, in turn, derives from pungere, meaning "to prick," which is the ancestor of some other prickly words in English, such as "puncture" and even "point."