This week’s theme
Lesser-known counterparts

This week’s words
benignant
forgettery
endarken
penultimatum
presenteeism

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(fuhr-GET-uh-ree)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The capacity to forget easily.
2. A poor memory.

ETYMOLOGY:

Patterned after memory. From English forget, from Old English forgietan (to forget), from for- (away) + get (to grasp). Earliest documented use: 1860.

NOTES:

A good memory is nice, but so is a good forgettery. Certain things are best left in the past: ancient grudges, past grievances, and old scores. Embrace that forgettery and wipe the slate clean.

USAGE:

“We carry along such a heart full of the injuries that other people have done us ... We need schools of memory, but we need schools of forgettery, even more.”
Ralph Albert Parlette; The University of Hard Knocks; Parlette-Padget; 1917.

“The forgettery is, apparently, something of a family tradition. ‘My mother has one. I think her mother had one. Stuff that actually doesn’t matter goes in there. Stuff that’s not important, stuff that if you carried it with you would be a burden,’ [says Therese Rein].”
Penny Wong; Homework in on Time or It’s Double Dissolution for You; The Australian (Canberra); Sep 24, 2009.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: