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Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--platitudinarian This week's theme: words to describe people. platitudinarian (plat-i-tood-n-AR-ee-uhn, -tyood-) noun One who utters platitudes or trite remarks. [From French plat (flat). Ultimately from the Indo-European root plat- (to spread) that is also the root of flat, to flatter, plan, plant, plantain, plateau, plaza, platinum, supplant, and transplant.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. "Her successor, Livingston Biddle, was a platitudinarian, who to this day likes to expatiate on his slogan that 'the arts mean excellence'; one need only listen to him for two minutes to cease believing in art and excellence both." Joseph Epstein; What to Do About the Arts; Commentary; Apr 1995. X-Bonus The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy. -Antoine de Rivarol, epigrammatist (1753-1801)

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