Sagacious

WORD OF THE DAY

sagacious \ suh-GAY-shus \ adjective

Definition

1 : of keen and farsighted penetration and judgment : discerning

2 : caused by or indicating acute discernment

Examples

"Star's limitless patience and unconditional support …, coupled with the sagacious advice and guidance he gave me through the many years, elevates him to a very special position on my list." 

— Vincent Bugliosi, Four Days in November, 2007

"… I would like to be young again—for the obvious dermatological advantages, and because I would like to recapture who I was before the clutter of experience made me a bit more sagacious and exhausted." 

— Andrew Solomon, The New Yorker, 11 Mar. 2015

Did You Know?

You might expect the root of sagacious to be sage, which means "wise" or "wise man," but that wouldn't be a wise assumption. Despite their similarities, the two words are not all that closely related. Sagacious traces back to sagire, a Latin verb meaning "to perceive keenly." It's also related to the Latin adjective sagus ("prophetic"), which is the ancestor of our verb seek. Etymologists believe that sage comes from a different Latin verb, sapere, which means "to taste," "to have good taste," or "to be wise."

Quodlibet

WORD OF THE DAY

quodlibet \ KWAHD-luh-bet \ noun

Definition
1a : a philosophical or theological point proposed for disputation  
1b: a disputation on such a point
2 : a whimsical combination of familiar melodies or texts

Examples
"In Part II the orchestral interlude is Happy Voices, which Del Tredici took in punning fashion and created a raucous fugue followed by a 'quodlibet' of all the tunes from the piece." 
— Vance R. Koven, The Boston Musical Intelligencer, 27 Mar. 2016

"Of the many musicals I've attended in recent years, among the most enjoyable and perhaps the funniest was Monty Python's Spamalot. The music cues come fast and furious, and in all varieties, from classical quodlibets to Spike Jones-like punctuations—a true challenge for the music director to keep up and maintain the comic timing." 
— Joseph Church, OUPBlog, 15 Feb. 2015

Did You Know?
"Whatever." Try to get philosophical nowadays and that may be the response you hear. We don't know if someone quibbling over a minor philosophical or theological point 600 years ago might have gotten a similar reaction, but we do know that Latin quodlibet, meaning "any whatever," was the name given to such academic debates. Quodlibet is a form of quilibet, from qui, meaning "what," and libet, meaning "it pleases." We can't say with certainty how quodlibet went from disputations to musical conglomerations, but English speakers have been using quodlibet for light musical mélanges since the early 19th century.

Oenophile

WORD OF THE DAY


oenophile \ EE-nuh-fyle \ noun
 
Definition
: a lover or connoisseur of wine


Examples
Serious oenophiles will not be impressed with this particular wine, but it should be up to the standards of less-discriminating consumers.


"Founded in 1992, New Orleans Wine and Food Experience has definitely earned its place as an vent that oenophiles, gourmets and any combination thereof mark on their to-do list each year."
— Sue Strachan, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), 28 May 2016


Did You Know?
"It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth," wrote the 1st-century A.D. Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder. The truth about the word wine is that it goes back to Latin vinum, but it is also a distant relative of the Greek word for wine, which is oinos.
Indeed, Latin borrowed from the Greek to create a combining form that means "wine," oeno-. Modern French speakers combined oeno- with -phile (Greek for "lover of") to create oenophile before we adopted it from them in the mid-1800s. Oenophiles are sure to know oenology (now more often spelled enology) as the science of wine making and oenologist (now more often enologist) for one versed in oenology.