Word of the Day
More about halidom
Halidom is a rare word meaning “holy place, sanctuary.” Its Old English form, hāligdōm, is a compound formed of the adjective hālig “holy” and the abstract noun suffix -dōm (English -dom). Hāligdōm originally meant “holiness, sanctity” in Old English, but this sense was obsolete by the 17th century. The concrete senses of hāligdōm, “chapel, sanctuary” and “relic,” are as old as the abstract sense. Halidom entered English before 1000.
how is halidom used?
Most nations would reckon it a village, but it had its halidom, assembly hall, market, and busy little industries.
There are few more interesting spots in Great Britain than “Dewisland,” or the “halidom” of St. David.
prodigal
adjective
wastefully or recklessly extravagant: prodigal expenditure.
More about prodigal
Prodigal ultimately derives from the Late Latin adjective prōdigālis “wasteful,” from the Latin adjective prōdigus (with the same meaning), a derivative of the verb prōdigere “to drive forth or away; to waste, squander.” Prōdigere is a compound of the preposition and combining form pro, pro- “forth, forward” and agere “to drive (cattle), ride (a horse).” Aristotle in Book IV of the Nicomachean Ethics defines the virtue of liberality (with respect to wealth) as the mean between the opposite vices of prodigality and stinginess, the prodigal man being one who wastes money on self-indulgent pleasures. The most famous case of prodigality is from Luke’s gospel (15:11-32), the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Prodigal entered English in the 15th century.
how is prodigal used?
… Kubrick a planned and prodigal expenditure of resources.
She feels she can never truly write well because she lacks Lila’s wild, prodigal spirit. Lila, she thinks, “possessed intelligence and didn’t put it to use but, rather, wasted it, like a great lady for whom all the riches in the world are merely a sign of vulgarity.”
futilitarian
noun
a person who believes that human hopes are vain, and human strivings unjustified.
More about futilitarian
Futilitarian is a humorous blend of futile and utilitarian. The word was coined in scorn for the utilitarian philosophy for the jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and the philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-73). Futilitarian entered English in the 19th century.
how is futilitarian used?
A lot of artists in America tend to be self-deprecating futilitarians, because we’ve grown up in a culture in which art doesn’t matter except, occasionally, as a high-end investment.
For it is significant that much of the work of Bierce seems to be that of what he would have called a futilitarian, that he seldom seems able to find a suitable field for his satire, a foeman worthy of such perfect steel as he brings ot he encounter …