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Sep 23, 2016
This week’s theme
Words borrowed from German

This week’s words
kitsch
verboten
ubermensch
gauleiter
clerisy

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AWADmail 743

Next week’s theme
Words coined after animals
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

clerisy

PRONUNCIATION:
(KLER-i-see)

MEANING:
noun: The well-educated class; the literati; the intelligentsia.

ETYMOLOGY:
From German Klerisei (clergy), from Latin clericus (cleric), from Greek klerikos (belonging to the clergy), from Greek kleros (inheritance). Earliest documented use: 1834. The clerisy, the clergy, and clerks are all cousins, etymologically speaking.

USAGE:
“[Bob Corker’s] mind is unclouded by long immersion in the conventional thinking of the foreign policy clerisy.”
George Will; Why Bob Corker is the Senator to Watch in 2015; The Washington Post; Jan 2, 2015.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief ... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. -Walter Lippmann, journalist (23 Sep 1889-1974)

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