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Sep 14, 2023
This week’s themeWords related to time This week’s words anachronistic kairos chiliad epoch isochronal
A still from the silent film Safety Last! (1923)
Image: Hal Roach / Wikimedia
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargepoch
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: A distinctive time period in history.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin epocha, from Greek epoche (stoppage, pause), from epi- (upon)
+ ekhein (to stay or hold). Ultimately from the Indo-European root segh-
(to hold), which also gave us hectic, scheme, scholar, cathect,
and asseverate. Earliest
documented use: 1614.
USAGE:
“Half a millennium from now, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will have become
great engines of productivity. Stranger things have happened. A millennium ago real output per person was significantly higher in China than in Britain. To predict that a European backwater would lead the world into the most transformative economic epoch in history would have seemed like madness.” Hitting the Big Time; The Economist (London, UK); Apr 20, 2019. See more usage examples of epoch in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. -Sydney J. Harris,
journalist (14 Sep 1917-1986)
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