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Jul 28, 2010
This week's themeWords that aren't what they appear to be This week's words artificer noisome psychopomp fulsome meretricious 
In Greek mythology Charon carries souls across the river Styx
Art: Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko (1835-1890)
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargpsychopomp
PRONUNCIATION:
(SY-ko-pomp)
MEANING:
noun: A guide of souls, one who escorts soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek psychopompos (conductor of souls), from psycho-, from psyche
(breath, spirit, soul) + pompos (conductor, guide). Also see charon.
USAGE:
"Harold Bloom here presents himself as a mystagogue and a soothsayer,
a psychopomp of our times, conducting souls into unknown territories."Marina Warner; Where Angels Tread; The Washington Post; Sep 15, 1996. See more usage examples of psychopomp in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon which, though far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that restless world of waters. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)
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