Several of the blogs I follow have regular features. One photographer's blog features photos with a certain theme every Friday: shadows, circles, etc. One thrift-store shopper posts photos of her outfits each day of the week, and where she got them. Creative!! And fun to follow. So, I thought I might try...
Wednesday's Word
I love words. Books. Magazines. Stories. And especially the definition and origin of words. I especially love learning new words. Call me crazy, but I enjoy reading through the dictionary and testing myself to see which words I know, and which I don't!
This week I happened across a word in the book I'm reading, and wasn't quite sure what it meant. So, I pulled out the dictionary and looked it up. Let's see if you know the definition! No cheating!! But, if you know the definition, post it in the comments section. On the weekend, I'll post the actual definition and word origin. Here goes...
INCENDIARY
From "When Character was King" by Peggy Noonan:
"Then Barry Goldwater heard about it. He called Reagan and said he'd been told the speech was incendiary.... Reagan was taken aback; he didn't think the speech was incendiary..."
DEFINITION: (in-sěn’dē-ěr-ē) adj. From Latin incendiārius (“setting alight”), from incendium (“destructive fire”), from incendō (“set on fire, kindle”). Causing or capable of causing fire; tending to inflame; inflammatory.
My understanding of "incendiary" is that it means able to start a fire. An incendiary device is explosive; an incendiary speech would provoke a lot of emotion or passion.
ReplyDeleteI really like words, too. My husband and I can get pretty competitive when we take the "word power" quizzes in Reader's Digest!
I think "incendiary" is inciting someone ...firing them up.
ReplyDeleteI believe the words we use today are not as meaningful as they used to be. We tend to use simple words instead of words that ask us to think