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A.Word.A.Day--parnassian

Parnassian (pahr-NAS-ee-uhn) adjective

Of or relating to poetry.

[From Latin Parnassius, of Parnassus, from Greek parnasios after Parnasos (Parnassus), a mountain in Greece sacred to Apollo and the Muses.]

noun

A member of a school of late 19th-century French poets whose work is characterized by detachment and emphasis on metrical form.

[From French parnassien after Le Parnasse contemporain, the group's first anthology of poetry (1866), from Parnasse, Parnassus, from Latin Parnassus, from Greek Parnasos.]

"We do West posthumous justice by acknowledging the plotless freak as cinema's beautiful beginning and by categorizing West not as a sex goddess but as a Parnassian personality whose splendors stop narrative, on which movies continue, to their detriment, to rely."
Wayne Koestenbaum; Vamp and Camp; Becoming Mae West By Emily Wortis Leider; Los Angeles Times; Jul 13, 1997.

This week's theme: Toponyms or words derived from place names

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