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Mar 8, 2019
This week’s theme
Words from previous years

This week’s words
mondegreen
resistentialism
spoonerism
petrichor
omphaloskepsis

omphaloskepsis
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Next week’s theme
Words that have entered the language during the last 25 years
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

omphaloskepsis

PRONUNCIATION:
(om-fuh-lo-SKEP-sis)

MEANING:
noun:
1. Contemplation of one’s navel.
2. Complacent self-indulgent introspection.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek omphalos (navel) + skepsis (act of looking, examination). Ultimately from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe), which also gave us suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer), despise, espionage, telescope, spectator, and spectacles. Earliest documented use: 1925.

USAGE:
“[The club’s] demise has acted as a trigger for one of those periodic outbreaks of omphaloskepsis about the present and future of clubland.”
Jim Carroll; Ibiza’s Clubs May Be Following the Money -- But There’s No Substitute for Great Music; Irish Times (Dublin); Sep 23, 2016.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves. -Gene Fowler, journalist and author (8 Mar 1890-1960)

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