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Jan 17, 2005

This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
odium
presentism
repine
diriment
animus

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In the magic shows, besides the standard fare -- sawing a girl in half, making rabbits disappear, and the like -- there was a serial performance called the Water of India. After every few acts, the magician would walk to a pitcher on the table in one corner of the stage, lift it dramatically up in the air and say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Water of India!"

He would turn the pitcher upside down to let the water pour out. The vessel was supposedly empty then, but after 15 minutes he would repeat this action, and more water would pour from the jug. While he performed that trick and I marveled at the magic pitcher that replenished itself, his assistants would set up the next trick.

Well, consider this week's miscellaneous words theme the AWAD equivalent of the Water of India. Every few weeks we come up with, "Ladies & Gentlemen, here are the Miscellaneous Words!" while we think of more creative ways to arrange words in themes.

odium

noun:
1. Hatred accompanied by contempt.
2. A state of infamy or disgrace.

[From Latin odium (hatred), from odisse (to hate). Ultimately from Indo-European root od- (to hate) that is also the source of the words annoy, noisome, and ennui. Don't confuse today's word with odeum.

"If we do not do what our duty tells us must be done, we will live in odium in the history of our progeny and our posterity."
John Maxwell; Struggle For the Future; Jamaica Observer (Kingston); Jan 9, 2005.

"Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium."
Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956).

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

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