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Sep 21, 2001
This week's themeLatin terms used in English This week's words quid pro quo rara avis sine die annus mirabilis sub rosa This week’s comments AWADmail 49 Next week’s theme Verbs 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargsub rosa(sub RO-zuh) adverb: Secretly, privately, or confidentially. [From Latin sub (under) rosa (rose). Earliest documented use: 1654. The English term "under the rose" is also used to refer to something in secret.] NOTES: In Roman mythology, Venus's son Cupid gave a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to ensure his silence about Venus's many indiscretions. Thus the flower became a symbol of secrecy. Ceilings of banquet halls were decorated with roses to indicate that what was said sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.
"The ugly tone of the sub rosa attacks was in marked contrast to the
public campaigns of the top candidate." X-BonusIt is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865) |
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