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Jun 2, 2011
This week's theme
Words made with combining forms

This week's words
logorrhea
necrology
phycology
hagiocracy
paleography

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

hagiocracy

PRONUNCIATION:
(hag-ee-OK-ruh-see, hay-jee-)

MEANING:
noun: A government by holy persons. Also a place thus governed.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek hagio- (holy) + -cracy (rule). Two synonyms of this term are hagiarchy and hierocracy. Also, literally speaking, hierarchy is the rule of the high priest. Earliest documented use: 1846.

USAGE:
"But money has assumed a more exalted place in the Fed's hagiocracy in recent months."
Alan Murray; Slow Money Growth Stirs Worry at Fed; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Jul 29, 1991.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

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