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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

celerity: M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for October 12 is:

celerity \suh-LAIR-uh-tee\ noun
: rapidity of motion or action

Example sentence:
Sarah's employees appreciate the celerity with which she responds to queries and deals with problems.

Did you know?
In the novel _Of Human Bondage_, W. Somerset Maugham tells of an undertaker's shop window that displays the words "Economy, Celerity, Propriety" in "silver lettering on a black cloth . . . with two model coffins." But "celerity" isn't dead in English, where it has proven its vitality since the Middle Ages. Middle English speakers borrowed "celerite" from Anglo-French (and speedily changed it to "celerity"). The word is ultimately from Latin "celer," which means "swift." Another "celer" word in English is "accelerate."

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