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Apr 8, 2009
This week's themePeople who have more than one word coined after them This week's words ciceronian maudlin hermetic Cadmean victory pickwickian 
Hermes Trismegistus
Detail from a floor mosaic Siena Cathedral, Italy 
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with Anu Garghermetic
PRONUNCIATION:
(huhr-MET-ik)
MEANING:
adjective:1. Airtight. 2. Not affected by outside influence. 3. Relating to the occult sciences, especially alchemy; magical. 4. Obscure or hard to understand. ETYMOLOGY:
From the belief that Hermes Trismegistus invented a seal to keep a vessel
airtight in alchemy. Who was Hermes Trismegistus? It was the name of
a legendary figure that Greek neo-Platonists thought was a blend of the
Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Trismegistos is Greek for
thrice-greatest, from tris (thrice) + megistos (greatest), ultimately
from the Indo-European root meg- (great) that's also the source of words
such as magnificent, maharajah, mahatma, master, mayor, maestro, magnate,
magistrate, maximum, and magnify.Another word coined after Hermes is hermeneutic meaning interpretive or explanatory. USAGE:
"So far, however, the net increase in accessibility and therefore
accountability is welcome and popular compared to the hermetic secrecy
and executive authoritarianism of the Bush administration."Obama Makes An Early Impression; The Irish Times (Dublin); Mar 27, 2009. See more usage examples of hermetic in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith. -Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (1792-1822)
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