» Home Drop | Word Relish | Spiritual Drop | Jesuit Links
Home Drop | Scenic Drop | Prodigal Mother | Spiritual Drop | Word Relish | Writer | Help | Privacy Policy

Saturday, September 02, 2006

orotund: M-W's Word of the Day

****************************************************************
Gearing up for back-to-school? Be sure to check out our line
of updated age-specific school references!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?scholref.htm
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for September 2 is:

orotund \OR-uh-tund\ adjective
1 : marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound : sonorous
*2 : pompous, bombastic

Example sentence:
Josh cleared his throat dramatically, then did a dead-on impression of the professor's orotund, patronizing speech.

Did you know?
The Latin roots of "orotund" are related to two more common English words -- "oral" and "rotund." Latin "or-" means "mouth," and "rotundus" means "round" or "circular." The Roman poet Horace joined forms of those Latin terms to create the phrase "ore rotundo," literally meaning "with round mouth," and figuratively meaning "with well-turned speech." "Ore rotundo" was modified to "orotund" and adopted into English in the late 18th century. It can indicate either strength of delivery or inflated wording.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

You Are Subscribed As: wordfortheday.9879@blogger.com
To unsubscribe, change your e-mail address or to subscribe to the html
version of Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, featuring audio
pronunciations, please visit:

http://www.startsampling.com/sm/wod/changeofaddress.iphtml

(c) 2006 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster, Inc.
47 Federal Street
P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home