A.Word.A.Day --reflexive

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Jul 10, 2023

This week’s theme
Skunk words (words to avoid)

This week’s words
reflexive
nervy
mathematical
moot
mosey

Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

Previous week’s theme
Misleading words

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

When you peruse a document, are you paying close attention to it or giving it a cursory glance? Who knows! Depends on whom you ask. Also, on the context. Let’s agree the word is skunked. Better to stay away from it.

Sometimes, the location defines the word. In the UK, to table a proposal is to bring it forward for consideration. In the US, it’s to put it away. A thoroughly skunk word, if you ask me.

The language has many of these skunks in its menagerie. Best to stay away from such weaselly, foul words. That said, you may still come across them in the wild. This week we prepare you for such a possibility by introducing five such words.

The scientific name for the striped skunk is Mephitis mephitis. Because saying it’s mephitic once isn’t sufficient.

reflexive

PRONUNCIATION:

(ri-FLEK-siv)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Unthinking; instinctive; spontaneous.
2. Thoughtful; reflective.
3. In grammatical contexts: Directed on itself.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin reflectere (to bend back), from re- (back) + flectere (to bend). Earliest documented use: 1588.

NOTES:

Anyone who has studied another language has probably come across the term reflexive. A reflexive action is directed on the subject.
Example: He was so dismissive of both the facts and the law that he often implicated himself.
Here, the reflexive pronoun “himself” indicates that the action of implication is directed back at the subject.

USAGE:

“[Julia Ratti said:] ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t just do that out of a reflexive nature, we should think about it.’”
Brian Duggan; Sparks Going Its Own Way, for Now; Reno Gazette-Journal (Nevada); May 6, 2012.

“The ability to think and be reflexive elevates the status of the mind to the definition of a human being.”
Jessica R. Johnston, ed.; The American Body in Context; Scholarly Resources; 2001.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full. -Marcel Proust, novelist (10 Jul 1871-1922)

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