A.Word.A.Day --jeremiah

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Jeremiah

PRONUNCIATION:

(jer-uh-MY-uh)

MEANING:

noun: A person who complains continually, has a gloomy attitude, or one who warns about a disastrous future.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Jeremiah, a Hebrew prophet during the seventh and sixth centuries BCE who prophesied the fall of the kingdom of Judah and whose writings (see jeremiad) are collected in the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations. Earliest documented use: 1781.

USAGE:

"Economists are pretty reluctant to forecast a recession ... perhaps because no one loves a Jeremiah.
Shorter Cycles?; The Economist (London, UK); Sep 12, 2011.

See more usage examples of jeremiah in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night. -Jean Baudrillard, sociologist and philosopher (1929-2007)

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