A.Word.A.Day --perspicaciousness

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Mar 18, 2011

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Seventeen-letter words to mark Wordsmith.org's septendecennial

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predestinarianism
triskaidekaphobia
contradistinguish
laryngopharyngeal
perspicaciousness

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

perspicaciousness

PRONUNCIATION:

(puhr-spi-KAY-shuhs-nes)

MEANING:

noun: Keenness of perception and discernment.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin perspicere (to see through), from per- (through) + -spicere, combining form of specere (to look). Ultimately from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe), which is also the ancestor of such words as suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer), espionage, despise, telescope, spectator, speculum, and spectacles. Earliest documented use: 1727.

USAGE:

"I have to take my hat off to Jean Cocteau, whose perspicaciousness enabled him to predict the current thriving anime scene back in the early 1950s."
Henshu Techo; Musings; The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo, Japan); Dec 4, 2004.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive. For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more journey money, the less there remains of the journey? -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)

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