Word of the Day for Monday, March 28, 2011
afflatus \uh-FLAY-tuhs\, noun:
A divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.
Tonight the B.O. will attempt to enlighten the American public as to the real reason that he has chosen military action in Libya; it will be nothing less than his own afflatus imparted on his subjects!
--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog
Whatever happened to passion and vision and the divine afflatus in poetry?-- Clive Hicks, "From 'Green Man' (Ronsdale)", Toronto Star, November 21, 1999
f Aristophanes must have eclipsed them . . . by the exhibition of some diviner faculty, some higher spiritual afflatus.-- John Addington Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets
f The miraculous spring that nourished Homer's afflatus seems out of reach of today's writers, whose desperate yearning for inspiration only indicates the coming of an age of "exhaustion.-- Benzi Zhang, "Paradox of origin(ality)", Studies in Short Fiction, March 22, 1995
f Afflatus is from Latin afflatus, past participle of afflare, "to blow at or breathe on," from ad-, "at" + flare, "to puff, to blow." Other words with the same root include deflate (de-, "out of" + flare); inflate (in-, "into" + flare); soufflé, the "puffed up" dish (from French souffler, "to puff," from Latin sufflare, "to blow from below," hence "to blow up, to puff up," from sub-, "below" + flare); and flatulent.
No comments:
Post a Comment