This week’s theme
Usage examples that are food for thought

This week’s words
approbation
promontory
exigency
construe
disinterested

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(EK-si-jen-see, eg-ZIJ-uhn-see)

MEANING:

noun: An urgent need or requirement.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin exigere (to demand, to drive out), from ex- + agere (to drive). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw), which also gave us act, agent, agitate, litigate, synagogue, ambassador, exiguous, incogitant, intransigent, cogent, axiomatic, ambagious, ambage, agonistes, and actuate. Earliest documented use: 1588.

USAGE:

“How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn’t care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.”
Emily Dickinson; Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series; Roberts Brothers; 1891.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: