This week’s theme
Vocab words

This week’s words
onerous
torpor
welter
invective
reticence

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(TOR-puhr)

MEANING:

noun: A state marked by apathy, lethargy, and inactivity.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin torpere (to be stiff or numb). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ster- (stiff), which also gave us starch, stare, stork, starve, cholesterol, torpedo, and torpid. Earliest documented use: 1607.

USAGE:

“I’ve had this job [film critic] for just more than a year, and during that time going to the cinema once a week has become a deeply dreary and onerous task, so much so that I now associate cinema buildings themselves with torpor, contempt, and monotony.”
Julie Burchill; Shooting for the Hip; The Times (London, UK); Oct 23, 1994.

See more usage examples of torpor in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: