Categorical

WORD OF THE DAY

 

CATEGORICAL

\ kat-uh-GOR-ih-kul \ adjective

 

Definition

1: absolute, unqualified

 

2: of, relating to, or constituting a category

 

Examples

"For his part, Morell, who became deputy CIA director in 2010 and twice served as acting director before retiring in 2013, was categorical in his denial."
— Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy DC, May 13, 2015

"Following the AT&T Byron Nelson [tournament], Spieth ranked as the No. 12 celebrity people aspire to be in the future. His other categorical rankings—from endorsement to influence to trend-setter to trustworthiness—all saw similar results."
— Candace Carlisle, Dallas Business Journal, June 10, 2015

 

Did You Know?

The ancestor of categorical and category has been important in logic and philosophy since the days of Aristotle. Both English words derive from Greek katēgoria, which Aristotle used to name the 10 fundamental classes (also called "predications" or "assertions") of terms, things, or ideas into which he felt human knowledge could be organized.

Ironically, although those categories and things categorical are supposed to be absolute and fundamental, philosophers have long argued about the number and type of categories that exist and their role in understanding the world. High-level philosophical disputes aside, the word categorical continues to refer to an absolute assertion, one that involves no conditions or hypotheses (for example, the statement "all humans are mortal").

Apprehensive

WORD OF THE DAY

 

APPREHENSION \ noun \ ap-rih-HEN-shun \

 

Definition

1a : the act or power of perceiving or comprehending

1b : the result of apprehending mentally : conception

 

2a: seizure by legal process

2b: arrest

 

3a: suspicion or fear especially of future evil

3b: foreboding

 

Examples

"Oddly combined with her sharp apprehension … was the primitive simplicity of her attitude…."
— Edith Wharton, The Reef, 1912

"Rife with memories of lessons learned and laughter shared and full of hopeful apprehension facing uncertain futures in a big, brave new world, 241 seniors graduated from Princeton Senior High School Friday evening."

— Tammie Toler, Princeton (West Virginia) Times, June 5, 2015

 

Did You Know?

The Latin verb prehendere really grabs our attention. It means "to grasp" or "to seize," and it is an ancestor of various English words. It teamed up with the prefix ad- (which takes the form ap- before p and means "to," "toward," or "near") to form apprehendere, the Latin predecessor of our words apprehension, apprehend, and apprehensive. When prehendere joined the prefix com- ("with," "together," "jointly"), Latin got comprehendere, and English eventually got comprehend, comprehension, and comprehensive.

 

Prehendere also gave us the words comprise, prehensile ("adapted for seizing or grasping"), prison, reprehend, and reprise, among others.

Precarious

WORD OF THE DAY

 

PRECARIOUS \prih-KAIR-ee-us \ adjective

 

Definition

1a: dependent on uncertain premises

1b: dubious

 

2a : dependent on chance circumstances, unknown conditions, or uncertain developments

2b : dangerously lacking in security or steadiness

 

Examples

The books were stacked high in a precarious tower that was liable to topple at any moment.

"[Margaret] Atwood, whose futuristic fictions include 'The Handmaid's Tale,' 'Oryx and Crake' and 'MaddAddam,' knows that the entire premise of trees growing to be harvested for paper for print books many decades hence is a bit precarious. 'I am sending a manuscript into time,' she wrote in a prepared statement. 'Will any human beings be waiting there to receive it?'"
— Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2015

 

Did You Know?

 

"This little happiness is so very precarious, that it wholly depends on the will of others." Joseph Addison, in a 1711 issue of Spectator magazine, couldn't have described the oldest sense of precarious more precisely—the original meaning of the word was "depending on the will or pleasure of another."

Prayers and entreaties directed at that "other" might or might not help, but what precariousness really hangs on, in the end, is prex, the Latin word for prayer. From prex came the Latin word precarius, meaning "obtained by entreaty," from whence came our own adjective precarious. Anglo-French priere, also from precarius, gave us prayer.