A.Word.A.Day --ressentiment

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ressentiment

PRONUNCIATION:

(ruh-san-tee-MAH)

[the final syllable is nasal]

MEANING:

noun: A feeling of resentment and hostility accompanied by the lack of means to express or act upon it.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French ressentiment, from ressentir (to feel strongly), from sentir, from Latin sentire (to feel). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sent- (to head for or to go), that is also the source for send, scent, sense, sentence, assent, and consent.

USAGE:

"It is fair enough to say that Gass intends Kohler as a representative modern middling man seething with ressentiment."
Robert Alter; The Tunnel; The New Republic (Washington, DC); Mar 27, 1995.

"Don is an extraordinary amalgam of ressentiment and rage."
Carl Bromley; The Limeys; The Nation (New York); Jul 9, 2001.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

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