A.Word.A.Day --propinquity

A.Word.A.Day

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Feb 2, 2009

This week's theme
Words from Darwin and Lincoln

This week's words
propinquity
conduce
interdict
sanguine
irascible

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Next week is a big anniversary day. Feb 12 this year marks the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. On the same day, across the pond, Charles Darwin was born. And that's not all. This year also marks the sesquicentennial of the publication of his book, The Origin of Species.

You'd think 150 years is ample time for people to understand evolution, but some still claim it's "only" a theory. Perhaps they still believe that the earth is flat and the sun goes around the earth.

We'll celebrate the three anniversaries by selecting words from Lincoln's and Darwin's writing and speeches.

propinquity

PRONUNCIATION:

(pro-PING-kwi-tee)

MEANING:

noun: Nearness in space, time, or relationship.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin propinquitas (nearness), from prope (near).

USAGE:

"I believe that ... propinquity of descent, -- the only known cause of the similarity of organic beings, -- is the bond, hidden as it is by various degrees of modification, which is partially revealed to us by our classifications."
Charles Darwin; On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; 1859.

See more usage examples of propinquity in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)

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