numen: M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for February 13 is:

numen \NOO-mun\ noun
: a spiritual force or influence often identified with a natural
object, phenomenon, or place

Example sentence:
We were in a village that had hardly changed in a thousand years, and
we felt a numen that transcended earthly religions and human histories.

Did you know?
How did "numen," a Latin term meaning "nod of the head," come to be
associated with spiritual power? The answer lies in the fact that the
ancient Romans saw divine force and power operating in the inanimate
objects and nonhuman phenomena around them. They believed that the gods
had the power to command events and to consent to actions, and the idea of
a god nodding suggested his or her awesome abilities -- divine power.
Eventually, Latin speakers began using "numen" to describe the special
divine force of any object, place, or phenomenon that inspired awe (a
mystical-seeming wooded grove, for example, or the movement of the sun),
and "numen" made the semantic leap from "nod" to "divine will or power."
English speakers adopted the word during the 1600s.

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