This week’s theme
Words about words

This week’s words
anastrophe
auxesis
apothegm
anacronym
merismus

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(og-ZEE-sis, ok-SEE-)

MEANING:

noun:
1. An overstatement or hyperbole, especially when arranged in a sequence of increasing intensity.
2. Growth resulting from the increase in the size of a cell (as opposed to from cell division, which is known as merisis).

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin auxesis, from Greek auxesis (growth), from auxein (to increase or grow). Earliest documented use: 1577.

USAGE:

“[Lucilla] had seen Gaius Vinius in his worst light. Petty, peremptory, authoritarian, unrealistic, self-centered, and vain. ... Nemurus would have called it hyperbolic auxesis. Vinius would have called that crap.”
Lindsey Davis; Master and God; St. Martin’s Press; 2012.

See more usage examples of auxesis in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: